The Thorns Prediction Game: Reading the PTFC Leaves

The Thorns finally took a win from Sky Blue: 1-0 on Midge Purce’s first PTFC goal. The team finished their six-game road trip in third place with 11 points — a totally respectable result.

WallofEmilys got their wish: The Thorns won in spite of the gloomy guess. Danxp2017 also got their wish: The Purce goal is officially scored unassisted by the NWSL website. But One.Goal.Beyond got all their wishes — a perfect prediction for this week’s honors! The verse from PDXRoses was good for this week’s most rec’d wild prediction and two points. (Remind me to tell you sometime how I won a bottlecap for writing a DnD session recap in pentameter — poetry for the win!)

The next match is Sunday at 3:00 in beautiful Providence Park! Oh my, what a time we will have! There will also be a soccer match. Chicago come to sacrifice themselves on the Rose Altar within our newly refreshed, and hopefully completely packed, stadium.

ROSTER REPORT: The Red Stars may be missing Alyssa Mautz to injury, but the Thorns are all healthy. Don’t even talk about who’s in France ... Needless to say, both teams are missing their spines. [UPDATE: Mautz is officially out and so is Jahansouz (don’t ask me who she is). Colaprico is questionable but she also was last week, yet played. Thorns are officially 100% healthy.]

How this works:

Add a comment to this post. In the comment title put your predicted result, for example 3-1 Thorns.

In the body of your comment, start with the goals and assists, like so:

Lussi (Klingenberg)

AMC (Free kick)

Purce (Unassisted)

Vasconcelos (PK)

Next, name the first yellow card recipient: First yellow to Celeste Boureille

Then reds, if any. (NOTE: No points awarded for correctly calling a red-card-free match, so take a guess.) Naughton gets sent off for making an awkward slide tackle on Lussi breaking in on goal alone.

Make your fun prediction:

Several Riveters are overwhelmed by the pure perfection of the new stadium and have to be carted off from the terraces.

Lastly, please recommend one of the other players’ fun prediction.

Scoring:

· Correct score: 5 points

· Correct result (draw/win/loss): 3 points

· Each clean sheet: 2 points

· Each goal-scorer: 1 point

· Each FK/PK/assist/lack of assist: 1 point

· Goal/assist bonus: 1 point

· Player with the first yellow card of the match: 1 point

· Each player with a red card: 1 point (Cannot earn points for predicting 0 red cards)

· Most recommended/most outrageously accurate prediction: 2 points

Some ground rules and explanations/clarifications (the fine print):

Comments must be posted before kickoff, but you can edit or amend an earlier prediction right up to the starting whistle.

Keep your scoreline predictions realistic. No crazy scores just to pad out your odds of getting goals and assists.

The goal/assist bonus is an additional point if you predict the correct scorer and assistant on the same goal, for example, you say Reynolds scores from a Boureille assist and that is exactly what happens.

Be clear whether you think a goal will be unassisted, assisted, or from a PK/FK. Unassisted = no assist, run of play; Assisted = player who got the assist; PK/FK = not in run of play. For the purposes of this thread, Penalty Kick and Free Kick are the same thing. No entry means unassisted.

Have fun, tell your friends, and let me know if you have any questions or if I screw up your score.