The Thorns settled for a 1–1 draw tonight against the Washington Spirit, with Lindsey Horan scoring a diving header off a free kick in the 69th minute, and conceding one, also on a set piece, a few minutes later. Let’s dig into what happened:
1. The Thorns are wide now
With each game in this tournament, we’ve seen a slightly different facet of the Thorns’ shiny new diamond midfield. Against North Carolina, we saw the team’s dual No. 8s, Lindsey Horan and Rocky Rodríguez, put wide defensive pressure on the opposing outside backs and No. 10s. On the offensive side, the duo succeeded in breaking the Courage’s press in the center of the field. In this game, we saw Horan and Rodríguez both spend a lot of time attacking in wide areas, with the bulk of Portland’s chances coming on crosses, especially in the first half.
A diamond midfield is often thought of as quite narrow, but not the way the Thorns are playing. Portland attempted an almost Courage-like 19 crosses, and players all up and down the field—from Meghan Klingenberg and Christen Westphal in the back, to Rodríguez and Horan, to Morgan Weaver up top—contributed in that area. Unfortunately, nobody managed to put any of those in the net—though a few came close.
The attack was less focused down the wings in the second half, with Horan finding a few penetrating passes toward Tyler Lussi. According to Mark Parsons, though, that wasn’t by design. “I think the desperateness to score meant that we were gravitating centrally,” he said after the game. “Width is key, and we’re going to get width from multiple areas. You can see from our forwards and also our midfield, and also fullbacks when the shape allows, and the buildup allows the fullbacks to push on. So it wasn’t a switch, unfortunately.”
The question here—and for once, despite my perennial (and fact-based) insistence that the Thorns don’t actually struggle to score goals, I think it’s a fair one—is who’s going to get on the end of those crosses. Horan, obviously, is an extremely dangerous header of the ball. Other than her, of the current healthy players, Lussi seems best suited to that role, but she seems to still be finding her way into this tournament. On the other hand, Portland did find 10 shots from inside the box, even if only four of them were on frame.
2. Lindsey Horan: too good?
Before the tournament started, I asked whether Horan (tonight’s Budweiser Woman of the Match) is such a dominant player that she ends up posing a problem when it comes to squad-building. At the time, I was assuming the Thorns would be using a three-woman midfield as they generally have the past few years; Rodríguez’s strong showing, along with the backing of a true No. 6 in Angela Salem, have proven that specific concern wrong.
However, I still think there’s a potential issue here. Horan is so good, in so many areas of the field, that Portland would be foolish not to let her do as much as possible. She’s been ridiculous in this tournament, the most impactful single player in any of the games she’s played. She disrupts, sets play in motion, and then moves all the way up the field with it, often ending up taking the eventual shot (or, in this game, cross). In tonight’s match, she produced the majority of the chances, took the most touches, conceded the most fouls, and scored Portland’s lone goal.
It’s been a surprise to me to see both her and Christine Sinclair—with whom there’s a similar issue, if not quite to the same extent—starting every game and playing the majority of the available minutes. Parsons says she’s in the best shape of her life and can handle this week; the Thorns also now have a full, luxurious week of no games. Sinclair, meanwhile, is famously fastidious in her recovery protocol. Regardless, I still wonder why these two players started every game, especially given the amount of squad rotation the team has otherwise undergone from day to day.
I don’t have anything particularly smart to say here, but it reminds me of this: I used to play on a rec-league softball team with a friend who was a ludicrously gifted athlete. He nominally played shortstop, but because our roster tended to be split 50-50 between what I’ll call “real athletes” and “the others,” he inevitably ended up covering half the infield. He’d catch a fly ball, tag a runner, and then sprint 40 feet to ever-so-gently toss the ball underhanded to one of the lesser mortals on the team. On top of that, his movements were graceful and beautiful to watch. When he played, we could win. When he didn’t? Things… were harder.
I don’t think winning is the Thorns’ priority in this tournament, at least not at this stage; I think getting everybody minutes and figuring out how the team functions is the point. What I wonder is whether Horan is so central to the team, because she does so much, that playing without her would be a pointless exercise. I also wonder if, in the long term, relying that much on a single talismanic player might make things harder.
