The Thorns Prediction Game: Reading the PTFC Leaves

That was fun! The Thorns stomped the Dash 5-0 on Wednesday night in front of a team-record crowd on a beautiful evening. The World Cup players were honored. (Poor Ellie Carpenter, overlooked by the PA announcer.) Everyone not in orange had a memorable night.

Our big winner was Constant Weeder, who called three of the five goals plus got the most-rec’d prediction for announcing the NWSL’s new injury policy. The race at the top of our table is getting tight.

Sky Blue comes to town on Saturday at 8:00 p.m. This will be the last game of the season with the US nats missing — they’ll be in Pasadena whooping Ireland. Saturday is the last match against Sky Blue for 2019, but the first in Portland. The initial match was a 2-2 draw, with both teams at full strength; the second was a 1-0 Thorns win, with both teams missing their internationals.

ROSTER REPORT: Sky Blue will be without Carli Lloyd. No Heath, Horan, Sonnett, or Franch for the Thorns. There’s still no injury report, so no telling yet if Carpenter and/or AMC will be available.

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)

McCaskill (PK)

Next, name the first yellow card recipient: First yellow to Dagny.

Then reds, if any. (NOTE: No points awarded for correctly calling a red-card-free match, so take a guess.) Savanah McCaskill

Make your fun prediction: Sky Blue makes a “big announcement” just before the game. Everyone was expecting it to be a stadium agreement for 2020. Instead, they announced that they finally fixed the leaking water faucet in the second shower stall. The media is surprised – “They have two showers?”

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. P.S. if you say exactly that, and it happens, I will hunt you down and buy you a beer!

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, let me know if you have any questions or if I screw up your score.