Stumptown Footy: All Posts by Katelyn Best

PTFC fans think homophobia is freaking stupid

2019-07-12T18:45:48-07:00

Nikita Taparia

Zarek Valentin’s RibbonZ campaign raised at least $18,000 this year for SMYRC and the Q Center

Well, we did it again.

Over the month of June, the soccer community in Portland raised around $18,000 for the Q Center and for New Avenues for Youth’s Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center in the second year of the #RibbonZ campaign, Zarek Valentin’s dare-turned-bet-turned-fundraiser. Initially inspired by Hayley Raso’s signature ribbon — last year the campaign involved the Z-man donning a ribbon of his own — this year’s version grew well beyond the spur-of-the-moment spirit of its predecessor, which saw 107ist volunteers frantically buying out all the rainbow ribbon from every craft store in the metro area.

As promised in the sneak preview we ran earlier this spring, this year’s fundraiser was bigger and better, with five unique Pride-themed patches going up for sale, one for each PTFC home game in June. The whole thing was once again a collaboration with 107ist, with Patch Patrol members submitting four of the five designs (Valentin designed the fifth).

“I like all of them individually for different reasons,” said Valentin. “And the way they came out, the ode to Hayley was cool, the Stand Together axe with the whole organization... They’re all super cool for different reasons. I can’t pick a favorite.”

Although Valentin didn’t reprise his Karate-Kid look on the field from last year, he did lend a hand selling the patches. “I was at both Thorns games,” he says. “One game before Houston... I sold patches at the Fanladen and [about] 20 people came. I said screw it, I went to the line, which probably started [at] about the Friendly Bullpen and probably sold another 100 patches. Berated people. Scolded them for buying pizza, and they can’t donate to charity. We took card, we took cash, and we sold a bunch of those.”

One of PTFC’s youngest stars, Connie Valeri, also pitched in with her dad before a Thorns game. “Connie was an all-star,” says Valentin.

The magic of RibbonZ, though, isn’t Valentin or the Valeris but the soccer community in Portland. It was a conversation with a fan that inspired the initial ribbon-themed fundraiser (although Valentin says he and his now-wife, Liz, had been talking about doing some kind of community-focused initiative long before the infamous tweet), and 107ist’s volunteers and infrastructure enabled the creation of the actual product. Then, of course, it was fans who shelled out for the patches, more than doubling last year’s total.

Valentin says that in conversations he’s had with fans, “a lot of people are just thankful, which means a lot to me. And you know, I kind of view it as, why wouldn’t someone be using their platform to better the community? ... To me it seems like a no-brainer, if we have such an incredible community that will get behind stuff.”

RibbonZ also contrasts with MLS’s approach to Pride month, which has been mealy-mouthed if not downright hypocritical: the league named June “Soccer for All Month” and allowed teams to interpret that phrase however they wished, even if it meant making the LGBTQ community a footnote in favor of vague platitudes like “diversity.”

All five RibbonZ patches feature a rainbow, and the fundraiser benefits two LGBT-specific charities. Last year, Valentin called homohobia “freaking stupid,” a message the PTFC community embraces emphatically.

What does this money actually mean to its beneficiaries?

At New Avenues, “the donation will help fund the position of LGBTQ Specialist in PDX-Connect, New Avenues’ program that supports youth transitioning from foster care into adulthood,” said executive director Sean Suib via email. “The Specialist provides culturally specific coaching and mentorship to LGBTQ youth around life-skills development, counseling, education planning, job training, employment, and more.”

For the Q Center, “A gift of $7,000 would fund 6 months of Aging With Pride, our LGBTQ+ Seniors program, which receives 1,800 visits a year,” according to executive director Cameron Whitten, also via email. ($7,000 is also likely on the low end, though the final number was not available as of the time of writing)

The best part is that RibbonZ 2019 isn’t quite over. In the Timbers’ June 30 game against FC Dallas, Valentin donned a pair of rainbow-themed Nike cleats hand-painted by local designer Buhn Bee:

View this post on Instagram

Peep my hand painted custom @buhnbee x @zarek_valentin x @nikefootball Nike Superfly 6 Elite FG. These will be signed by the @timbersfc team after tonight’s game & auctioned off to raise money for @smyrcpdx + @qcenter. Shot by @unruhjones

A post shared by B U H N (@buhnbee) on Jun 30, 2019 at 10:08pm PDT

He plans to auction the boots off — with one signed by the whole team — at the Stand Together banquet, to benefit either SMYRC and Q Center or Stand Together itself. Finally, there’s one more patch release slated for sometime tomorrow. For $50, you’ll be able to buy the full set of five patches with a special gold border, packaged with a surprise special gift — and at a yet-to-be-determined price point, you can get the patches and admission to a meet-and-greet with Valentin and some teammates.

All five 2019 RibbonZ patches

Roses and Thorns: The field is too damn big

2019-04-29T19:37:09-07:00

Bennett Dewan

So, you’ve drawn with Sky Blue.

Sorry.

Despite their reputation as league punching bag, Sky Blue (like many teams) have long played some of their best soccer against the Thorns. That was especially true in the Sam Kerr era, but even last season, Portland had a middling record against the historically bad side, notching just one comfortable win against them late in the season, after a home draw and a sloppy road win that could have easily gone south.

There were specific reasons for both of those games — the draw was on a penalty that Celeste Boureille conceded after being asked to play center back, and the iffy win was by a Thorns b-team in a rainstorm — neither of which exactly applies to yesterday. But there are general similarities: Portland was missing their key player in Lindsey Horan, which was exacerbated by the fact that multiple players had careless individual performances, for whatever reason. I’ll come back to that in a moment; for now, let’s look at the one specific similarity between this game and the 2018 draw: Carli Lloyd.

A Thorn to Carli Lloyd

Loath as I am to play into the story she likes to tell about herself, Lloyd is a player people tend to complain about so much we forget that when she wants to be, she’s incredibly good — and the Thorns are a team she always wants to be very good against.

As Tyler Nguyen wrote last week, Mark Parsons predicted Sky Blue were going to try to cause trouble by dropping one forward deep and having one run at Portland’s back line to try to stretch them out of shape.

And, well:

Ok, so this doesn’t look great. Katherine Reynolds is pushing forward to mark Lloyd and Imani Dorsey is finding tons of space on the left as she runs around Ellie Carpenter. But Reynolds and Celeste Boureille are able to close down Lloyd’s passing lane and keep her from getting the ball to Dorsey or Sarah Killion, in the middle of the shot. Indeed, Portland didn’t concede any goals like this.

If they were maybe expecting the drop-deep-and-play-wherever-she-pleases Lloyd, the Thorns were not equipped to deal with the run-at-the-back-line-like-a-charging-bull Lloyd. In that sense, she did about as good an impression of Sam Kerr as anybody other than Sam Kerr could be expected to, and that’s what burned the Thorns.

Sky Blue’s first goal came on a transition play, after the Thorns started what looked like a promising attack, with Christine Sinclair finding Meghan Klingenberg wide, and Kling lofting a cross toward Caitlin Foord. She instead found Sky Blue’s back line, and they were able to quickly move the ball to Nahomi Kawasumi, then to Raquel Rodriguez, who sprinted down the vast expanse of Yurcak Field (more on that in a minute) past Boureille and Dagny Brynjarsdottir, and sent the ball to Lloyd on the outside — with plenty of space due to Kling still being way upfield. At that point, Lloyd had already decided she was going to score, and Reynolds simply wasn’t going to stop her.

Their second goal, not totally unlike Chicago’s second last week, came down to the Thorns wilting under pressure. The moment that goal was scored, I could hear the commentariat howling about Sonnett: how she makes these mistakes so often, and she needs to learn to just think, for once! Folks: this was not Emily Sonnett’s fault.

A Rose (by way of apology) to Emily Sonnett

Here we see Sky Blue pinning the Thorns back in their defensive third. With Rodriguez running at her, Boureille does exactly what Sky Blue wants and passes back to Sonnett. That’s not necessarily a problem, except 1) the figure rushing Sonnett is Carli fucking Lloyd, and 2) the pass itself turns out to be a bad one, landing behind Sonnett instead of in front of her, where she’s pointing.

Just like Kerr last week, Lloyd doesn’t miss a beat and scoops up that ball, sprints endline, beats AD Franch as she comes off her line, and puts it away from a crazy angle. It’s an excellent finish. It’s a mistake for the Thorns to let her get in that position, but it’s an excellent finish.

Both of these goals, in other words, come down to a combination of factors. Some of those factors are individual mistakes by Thorns players. One big one, which shouldn’t be understated, is Lloyd taking advantage of openings lesser players wouldn’t be able to. And some of them are tactical:

A Thorn to the Truly Enormous Field

If there’s one thing that stood out throughout the first half, it’s that Yurcak Field is absolutely expansive, and Sky Blue was using that space well, and the Thorns weren’t.

It’s strange: Denise Reddy sent her team out in a 4-1-4-1 with Lloyd at the top and 2019 draftee Julie James in the single pivot. Logically, there should have been space for the taking around James, and there often seemed to be.

But with Lindsey Horan out, the Thorns weren’t moving the ball through the midfield well. Boureille is a pretty defensive six, while Brynjarsdottir, still finding her legs after a year of maternity leave, also tended to sit deep and wasn’t providing much support to Sinclair or the three forwards. That left a big unused hole in the field (as you see above) unless one or more of the forwards dropped back, and when they did, things started to click.

Sky Blue, on the other hand, were tearing that huge field apart, taking advantage of Boureille and Kling both being fairly slow, and either catching Kling out or beating Boureille on the dribble several times.

Their first goal is a good illustration of both sides of this coin: the whole thing starts when Foord drops back to pick the ball off James before she can control it, then tap it back to Sinclair. With Tobin Heath in the middle of the park occupying James, Sinclair runs into that same hole seen in the shot above, and she sends it to the onrushing Klingenberg.

Then, of course, with Kling pushed forward, Sky Blue are only two passes and a dribble away from getting Lloyd the ball in behind.

Sky Blue may have stolen two points from Portland, but your life is not ruined, I promise. This was a bad draw, in many ways, and many players need to do better. But if there’s reason to worry after this game, it’s not sloppiness from the likes of Boureille or Carpenter or Reynolds, but the fact that the Thorns seemed to have so much trouble connecting their attack without Lindsey Horan.

How the team would cope in the absence of their internationals was always the big question looming over the season, but things looking this dire with just Horan missing doesn’t bode well. Portland has two weeks to rest and regroup, then they head out to see what they can do against 2018’s other punching bag, another team that aren’t going to just roll over for the Thorns, when they head to Washington.

Roses and Thorns: Heaven

2019-04-22T19:06:45-07:00

Nikita Taparia

Heaven is in ... Bridgeview, Illinois?

Heaven

Heaven is a place

A place where nothing

Nothing ever happens

I think a lot of us were, on some level, in shock after Saturday’s game. I, for one, have a brain too small and slow to keep track of eight whole goals.

As entertainment, that game was pretty unimpeachable. So much happened! The Thorns were winning, and then they weren’t, and then they were again, and so on and so forth. Eventually, neither team won, which feels like a fair outcome if for no other reason than the fact that the physical conditions were very weird.

But for a game where so much happened, in retrospect, it feels weirdly uneventful. Start with the result itself: from an abstract standpoint, a draw is probably the expected outcome between these two teams, at this point in time. Two weeks into the season, it’s apparent that things stand pretty much exactly where they stood late last year for most teams in the league. With everyone at full strength, there are three truly good teams in the NWSL, and they’re all playing pretty much like they did last August.

Even getting down to the specifics of who scored how, things were pretty dead even. Both scored on penalties (the relative deservedness of each penalty call notwithstanding), both took advantage of weird environmental conditions (which is how I’m choosing to refer to both the wind and Emily Sonnett’s whole Thing) and defensive breakdowns, both had one or two goals that were genuinely beautiful.

If you’re a Red Stars fan, Saturday was probably exciting because of what happened in the last 20 minutes or so—namely, that Morgan Brian came on and looked really good, and that Sam Kerr and company grabbed a game that looked like it was about to be a disappointing loss, and one that a couple years ago would have been a disappointing loss, by the scruff of the neck and said, “Not today!” and tied the thing up.

If you’re reading this, though, chances are you’re not a Red Stars fan. And from the Thorns’ perspective, you could definitely look at that last 20 minutes and be upset for the same reasons Chicago fans might be excited. Certainly, you could look at this and be upset:

(This is Morgan Brian, having just received the ball off a poor clearance, looking at Kerr through a wide-open passing lane as the Australian sits unencumbered between lines; momentarily, Brian will pass to Kerr, who will set in motion Chicago’s stoppage-time goal.)

But, I don’t know. I’m just ... not?

We know exactly what to expect from this team right now. We know the ways they can be good, as in the clever Lindsey-Horan-flick-to-Christine-Sinclair goal, and the ways they tend to mess up, as with Sonnett’s giveaway to Kerr, or the collective lapse in judgment pictured above.

I could watch these two teams play each other a dozen more times and be entertained every time, but probably not learn anything new about the Thorns.

And with that said, when I quote “Heaven” (someday maybe I’ll start referencing non-Talking Heads songs in this space, but today is not that day), I mean it two ways. We aren’t learning anything new, because the same things keep happening; but on the other hand, if all you’re invested in is the success of this team on the field, you should feel pretty good right now. Yes, they just dropped two points in the last two minutes of a game, but they did it to a very good team under very weird conditions. I had a headache by the last ten minutes of that game. Those players had to have been absolutely fried by that time.

The Thorns are still very much the same team they’ve been for a while, and that’s a good thing. In a real sense, if more of this was all that was ahead of them in the coming season, that would be heaven.

Of course, it’s not all that’s ahead of them. We get just one more week with this setup before things start to get wacky. And look, I don’t want to say I’m excited for things to be harder, but I am excited to see how the Thorns deal with things being harder. I’m excited to see Andressinha playing in her actual position, which is hopefully something we’ll get for two full games. I’m excited to see what some of the youngsters—the Emily Ogles and Madison Pogarchs and Gabby Seilers of the world—can do when the chips are down. I’m excited for the next Michelle Betos header goal, whatever form it might take.

Before I go, another rose to Meghan Klingenberg: I’ve been saying this nonstop since last week, but there are people in this world who don’t think Meghan Klingenberg is good, and yet again she came through with a performance to prove those people wrong. Red Stars right back Casey Short is famously very good at marking Tobin Heath, so instead of trying to go through her, the Thorns capitalized on the acres of space left behind their star winger and dropped the ball back to Kling, who put up two assists (well, maybe one and a half, if you look at the wind on the first one, but still).

Roses and Thorns: One of these teams is not like the other

2019-04-16T17:03:03-07:00

Kris Lattimore

So, what did you get up to this weekend? I watched soccer.

That’s right, folks: we’re back at that magical time of year when you can wake up at god-please-no-o’clock on a weekend morning and watch people kick a ball around until the sun goes down.

If you’re a fan of that other Portland team, though, maybe you’d rather be a little more selective than that. Now that the Thorns are back, why watch anything else? The Thorns are good. The Thorns are fun. You’ll have a better quality of life if you stick to the Thorns.

The Thorns had a shutout in their season opener!

It’s the start of a long season, and I have too many thoughts in my head to get them all down, but here are a few of them. Allons-y, friends.

A Rose to the Back Line’s Vets

Katherine Reynolds is back, and she is strong, and vital, and she is not going anywhere.

Ditto to Meghan Klingenberg, possibly the most underappreciated Thorn, who showed up in Orlando with a case to make for herself.

Of everything that happened Sunday — and there are a lot of positives to pick from — the strong performances across the back line may be the most reassuring sign for the season to come. Nice as it is to see the front six already near midseason form, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the defense is likely what will have to carry the Thorns though the disruption wrought by the World Cup.

If Orlando were poor going forward (as they were in pretty much every respect), Reynolds still had moments where she showed she’s more than ready for bigger challenges. When she had to take on Marta or Alex Morgan, she had little trouble, and on the rare occasions the Pride attack managed to start pulling Portland’s defense out of shape, she was there to clean up. She looked fit, too, especially for someone who had a major knee surgery just a few months ago.

Kling, meanwhile, showed what her game is all about. Critiques of the former national team left back typically focus on the fact that she’s not particularly fast. That’s something teams will continue to try to exploit, as the Pride did this weekend, with Morgan running onto long balls into the space behind her several times.

But it’s also a facile criticism that misses the long list of things Kling does right. On Sunday, she consistently read the game a step ahead of the Pride, breaking up multiple attempted attacks down their right, and applying pressure at the right times in the right areas. She defended well one-on-one. She showed deadly accuracy on crosses, including one that Lindsey Horan put away, unfortunately from an offside position.

A Rose to Orlando’s Defense...and Midfield...and Offense

As much as the Thorns were good in this game, what proved equally important was that the Pride were, for long stretches, truly abysmal. Their midfield often seemed to vanish completely in the first half, with players like Horan and Christine Sinclair given the freedom to do as they wanted without pressure. Until the start of the second half, when they pulled things together a little and found a handful of chances, their whole plan going forward was “kick it to Alex Morgan.”

Some of that can certainly be chalked up to roster decisions Marc Skinner was forced to make; the midfield suffered severely with the loss of Emily Van Egmond and Alanna Kennedy, while the back line was hit hard by Toni Pressley’s absence.

In her place, Orlando started Joanna Boyles, a 23-year-old former Red Stars trialist. As nice as it was to see Tobin Heath and Caitlin Foord combining for Foord’s first Thorns goal, it was really a series of mistakes by the Pride that enabled it, first as Ashlyn Harris sent a sloppy goal kick to Carson Pickett that the left back had to sprint onto to keep inbounds, then as Shelina Zadorsky took too long deciding where to pass and was finally forced to go back to an under-pressure Harris. Her sliding kick ended with a turnover to the Thorns, and we all remember what happened next.

And through that whole sequence, Boyles seems to be positioned near the Pride goal, not doing much of anything — where she could have served as a second outlet for Zadorsky, or marked either Heath or Foord after they’d gotten past the other defenders.

It would be cruel to be too hard on Boyles, who had never played an NWSL game before this one, for this mistake, or for getting outrun by Heath on Portland’s second goal. For one thing, Harris and Zadorsky are both veterans and should know better. Blame also has to go to the Pride coaching staff, who, if they thought a player at Boyles’s level was ready to start against last year’s runners-up, got a rude awakening about how competitive this league is. And if Boyles really is third on the center back depth chart after Pressley and Shelina Zadorsky, Orlando’s defensive depth seems to be in pretty dire shape.

I could also point to a half-dozen other moments when Orlando’s back line seemed to have no idea of who was supposed to be doing what.

Point being: to say the Thorns were handed three points probably goes too far, but this game counts as starting the season on easy mode.

A Thorn to Orlando’s Defense?

I try not to be the kind of person who spins positives into negatives just for the sake of having something negative to say, but if there’s one reason for concern coming off this weekend, it’s that Chicago is going to present a much bigger challenge than Orlando did. The Red Stars have a defense that looked good against North Carolina, a perennially strong midfield, and a group of attacking players who are good at kicking the ball and seem to enjoy playing with each other.

North Carolina’s vaunted offense had relatively little to say against an organized Chicago side on Saturday. The Red Stars have always matched up well against the Courage (read Claire Watkins’s recap over at Hot Time in Old Town for some insight into why that is), but despite the Thorns being a very different kind of team, that doesn’t mean they’ll have an easy time in Bridgeport. They can’t expect the same defensive sloppiness they encountered in Orlando, they can’t expect Sam Kerr and Yuki Nagasato to be as ineffectual as Morgan and Marta were, and they certainly can’t expect a complete absence of central midfield pressure.

If Chicago has one weakness, it’s a lack of quality in wide areas, something both Kling and Heath on the left and Carpenter and Crnogorcevic/Foord on the right are well positioned to exploit. A lot will depend on whether Casey Short, who’s managed to neutralize Heath in the past, is healthy. A lot will also depend on whether the Thorns can clean up their finishing; plenty of quality chances went wasted against Orlando when players like Crnogorcevic or Foord couldn’t find their feet (or heads) from close range.

Still: Portland looked more settled in this game than they have in previous season openers, especially defensively, which is a great sign. Hope you brought some snacks and a good playlist. The road trip continues Saturday.

Zarek Valentin honored as New Avenues for Youth’s “Scooper Hero”

2019-04-10T12:43:05-07:00

Kris Lattimore

The Timbers defender was recognized by the nonprofit for his #RibbonZ campaign

Timbers defender Zarek Valentin was honored yesterday as New Avenues For Youth’s first-ever “Scooper Hero,” a gesture of thanks for his work on last year’s #RibbonZ campaign, which raised $8,000 for the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center, the nonprofit’s LGBT-centric initiative.

The event took place as part of Free Cone Day at the Pioneer Square Ben & Jerry’s, which New Avenues operates as a PartnerShop. According to Aiden Hirshfield, the development and communications associate at New Avenues, they’re the first nonprofit in the country to use Free Cone Day as a fundraiser, which they call Scoop-A-Thon; Bank of America sponsored this year’s iteration of the annual event, and the volunteer Scoop-A-Thon teams who scooped all that free ice cream also raised money in advance of the event.

“This year we really wanted to recognize one person who had done something really huge for our organization,” said Hirshfield. The idea behind the Scooper Hero award was to make the event extra special. “We wanted to double up on that and say, ok, we’re already using this awareness, let’s find someone who went above and beyond this year, and that was Zarek.”

New Avenues for Youth is a nonprofit dedicated to the prevention and intervention of youth homelessness. Essentially, the PartnerShop provides employment opportunities for marginalized youth who might otherwise have trouble getting that crucial first resume item — and also gives them the chance to rise through the ranks and gain experience in management positions. It’s one of three so-called social purpose enterprises operated by New Avenues.

“This award goes to, I think, the community more than anything, because this doesn’t happen in any other soccer community around the country,” said Valentin. “We raised $8000 last year, to help kids feel at home... it’s a very odd concept, because everyone deserves the right to feel like a normal human being, but sadly, people get persecuted because they’re different. I don’t agree with that, and the community doesn’t agree with that. So it’s something that is close to my heart. I’m happy to hopefully spread some good vibes and scoop some ice cream.”

Valentin, whose favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavor is Tonight Dough, made the ceremonial first scoop with a special gold-plated ice cream scoop. “It’s a lot of wrist action,” he said. “I need to hit the gym, judging by how hard it was to get that first scoop.” Nonetheless, Valentin stayed after the award event to serve up some free cones.

For PTFC supporters, perhaps the biggest news to come out of the event is that the Timbers Army and Rose City Riveters will again be teaming up with Valentin for a Pride-Month fundraiser — and he says they’re hoping to double what they raised last June. “It’s going to be different,” he said, staying vague on details. “Let’s just say there’s going to be five stages of this year’s [fundraiser]... TA, inclusivity, Pride Month, all those things come into the five stages of it, and hopefully we’re gonna raise a little bit of money.”

Unlike last year’s #RibbonZ campaign, which all came together in the space of a single week after a dare turned into a viral tweet, this one has been in the works since March.

“If I’m given a platform as an athlete,” said Valentin, “I think we need to use that for good. We really let down the community if we don’t embrace these ideals.”

Kris Lattimore

Roses and Thorns: Get Ready for the Grind

2019-04-04T08:19:00-07:00

Britt Eckerstrom, Celeste Boureille, and Ana Crnogorcevic | Nikita Taparia

With preseason over and just a week and a half remaining until the girls in red head to Orlando for their season opener, the interminable offseason for Portland’s most successful soccer team is almost over—and your favorite Thorns column is back just in time. Here are a few of my takeaways from the Spring Invitational, and a look at the season ahead:

A rose to the team veterans.

If there’s one major positive to take out of last week’s first game, against the Red Stars, it’s that the big players who carried the team’s offense last year—Lindsey Horan, Tobin Heath, and Christine Sinclair—still very much look like themselves. Heath assisted on a beautiful goal by Sinclair, sending in a cross from the right that the captain handily sent into the net with a single touch. She also gave a reminder, in case anyone forgot, of just how dang fast she still is, absolutely torching several Chicago players, including Sam Kerr at one point, in sprints up the wing.

Sinclair, meanwhile, played the majority of the available minutes during the tournament, including a half in the number 8 slot on Wednesday. This is not the place to reiterate why Christine Sinclair is good at soccer, but suffice it to say she still looks like she’ll reliably be one of the best two players on the field at any given time in 2019.

So during the 61 minutes when those three players were on the field on Sunday (Horan, who’s still working her way back to full fitness, didn’t play the full 90), the Thorns more or less picked up where they left off last year, showing that the preferred setup going into 2019 will likely be the same as the one the team used at the end of 2018: Sinclair in the 10, Celeste Boureille in the 6, Horan lining up as an 8 on paper, but in practice dictating the game from all areas of the field, and Heath lining up on the left wing on paper, but in practice drifting central and out to the right at will.

Of course, with virtually no roster turnover over the offseason, Portland’s preferred setup was never really the question going into 2019; the real issue is how they’ll handle the massive roster disruption this World Cup year is going to throw their way.

A thorn to the World Cup.

The Thorns had their worst-ever season when the last World Cup happened. Back in 2015, the team lost eight players for various lengths of time around the tournament and missed the playoffs for the first and still only time.

And there’s no getting around it: things are going to be tough this time around, too. It’s not an exaggeration to say Portland’s whole offense is likely going to be packing up and heading to France—along with key defensive players in Emily Sonnett, Ellie Carpenter, and AD Franch. How they handle those losses are going to be the defining issue in 2019.

There are a few more reasons for optimism than there were in 2015. The roster is both bigger and deeper than it was back then. The coaching staff has both a better record and tangible experience dealing with a mid-season tournament (though the 2016 Olympics didn’t carve nearly as big a chunk out of the season as the World Cup will). The culture in the locker room is—let’s put it this way—a thing we can actually talk about, where last time around there was really no culture to speak of.

But ultimately, there’s simply no replacing Portland’s starters, and whether the Thorns are successful this season might come down to which bench players can step up and help the team grind out some tough points when those starters are gone.

A rose to the newcomers.

And just who looks like they might be ready to take that challenge on?

Last week we got a look at a number of players who didn’t see the field in 2018—either because they weren’t on the roster yet or were but physically couldn’t play—and saw some promising things.

Let’s start with the back line. One of the defining characteristics of the Mark Parsons era—2018 was a relative fluke in this respect—has often been a strong defense that can carry the team when key offensive players are missing. Defense is going to be key again this year, especially through the first few months of the season, as the team contends not just with World Cup absences, but also with a grueling six-game road stretch to open 2019. Fortunately, Portland has picked up some promising options in the back.

Gabby Seiler, who was drafted in 2018 but sat out the entirety of the season after getting injured playing NCAA basketball, got minutes in all three games, including a 90-minute stint against Chicago. Other than some sloppy mistakes against the Reign—the kind you might expect a newcomer to the NWSL to make against a team that was pressing as aggressively as Vlatko Andonovksi’s side was—she looked like an excellent option at center back. She kept up against the likes of Sam Kerr and Yuki Nagasato, and looked amazingly locked in with all the center back partners she was paired with, including Emily Sonnett, Elizabeth Ball, and Katherine Reynolds, given how long she’s been training with the team.

The other revelation in the back line was trialist Madison Pogarch, who got a number of minutes at right back and turned a lot of heads with her energetic play up and down the wing. In terms of pure quality, she’s not Ellie Carpenter, but she brings speed and a similar attack-mindedness to the position and connected some excellent passes against the U-23s. “It was probably the 80^th minute and I turned to the bench,” said Parsons after Wednesday’s game, “[and said], every action she has is positive... she’s positive with her defending, passing forward, dribbling forward, driving forward, crossing, wants to cross, has an engine. I think she’s going to be one to keep a good eye on.”

The other two who looked ready to make an impact last week were in the midfield.

Dagny Brynjarsdottir, obviously, is not new to the Thorns, but after a year of maternity leave, it was always an open question how prepared she’d be coming back in. While she certainly wasn’t perfect (as almost no one was), starting against the Reign, she was a clear veteran presence on a side that otherwise looked rattled under a high press. “It’s a starting point for what we need from Dagny,” said Parsons Saturday night. “We’re not there, but considering that she’s had a few setbacks on the physical side, getting her fitness up to play in this fast, furious game, she looked like she was enjoying it! Other people were panicking, going, ‘what’s this speed? I’ve never felt this speed,’ and Dagny’s like, ‘finally, let’s friggin’ go, this is what I came here for.’”

Finally, Emily Ogle, Portland’s sole 2019 draft pick, could play a role this year as another option deep in the midfield alongside Celeste Boureille. Ogle had one eye-popping moment against the U-23s, when she curled a gorgeous free kick around the wall and just hit the goalpost, but Parsons was also positive about her presence in the run of play. “When she’s on the ball,” he said, “good things roll off it. She manages the game, she speeds us up, she slows us down.”

A thorn (still) to the injury bug.

If there’s one thing that might tip the scales against the Thorns in these early months, it could, yet again, be injuries.

If Portland has championship hopes this year, picking up points in the narrow window before the World Cup could prove to be critical. They should expect results against all the teams they face on this long road stretch: Washington and Sky Blue are Washington and Sky Blue, and Chicago is a good team that the Thorns have nonetheless historically matched up well against (though Orlando, which looked in real disarray last year, could be a wild card with a new head coach).

But there are reasons to worry. Chief among them is Emily Menges, who showed up to the Spring Invitational in a walking boot. Midge Purce, Hayley Raso, and AD Franch also didn’t dress last week. Supposedly, none of those injuries are particularly serious—but we’ve seen in the past how seemingly minor injuries can nag longer than they’re expected to, and how an accumulation of those nagging injuries can take a real toll on the Thorns’ performance. That’s a special concern for the defense, where Portland really can’t afford to undergo the amount of shuffling they did over the first half of last season.

Strap in. This season is going to be a wild one, and if the Thorns are going to get very far, they’re likely going to have to do it by gritting their teeth and grinding out some ugly points.

Portland Thorns select Emily Ogle in NWSL college draft

2019-01-10T13:40:34-08:00

Kayla Knapp | Thorns FC

After a bit of wheeling and dealing to turn their 17th and 35th overall draft picks into the 24th overall pick, the Thorns selected midfielder Emily Ogle out of Penn State today at the NWSL draft.

Ogle, ranked fifth in the draft class by Top Drawer Soccer, had been projected to go much earlier, so it was a surprise to many that she was still on the board by the third round. Travis Clark at TDS calls her “impressive under pressure” but notes that her ceiling in the NWSL may prove to be her physical attributes. “If she plays in a double pivot,” writes Clark, “that is sure to play to her strengths, though if she grows into the challenge of pro soccer and can cover ground, she could be a runaway success.”

Overall, it was a relatively uneventful day at the draft, with Tierna Davidson having declared in the eleventh hour and then getting picked up by Chicago first overall. Washington had the most picks in the first round with four, followed by Sky Blue and North Carolina with two each. At the time of this writing, a still-pending trade between Washington and Sky Blue said to involve Caprice Dydasco, Estelle Johnson, and DiDi Haracic was the biggest news of the day.

NWSL announces 2019 schedule format

2018-11-28T12:50:46-08:00

Bennett Dewan

We’ve got good news and bad news.

The NWSL announced the format of the 2019 schedule in a press release today and dashed hopes we might get a longer pause for the World Cup than we had back in 2015. The league will take just 12 days off for the tournament, between June 3 and June 14; the World Cup takes place between June 7 and July 7.

A two-week-ish break might not sound so bad, until you sit down and think about a few other factors. First, that window is a Monday through a Friday, ie, only one actual weekend falls into it. Second, everyone will want to hold a pre-tournament camp of some description, and we can reasonably expect that the USWNT, in particular, will bring players in for an absolutely ungodly length of time.

Making matters worse for Portland is the ongoing stadium renovation. The Timbers are expected to play somewhere between 10 and 12 games on the road to start the season; assuming the MLS season starts as usual in early March, that likely means Providence Park will be back in commission sometime in mid- or late May at the earliest.

Depending on how Jill Ellis is feeling, and who picks up injuries in France, that means there’s a very real possibility we won’t see players like Tobin Heath, Lindsey Horan, Emily Sonnett, and AD Franch play at home until late July.

That’s the bad news. There’s also some potential good news: although the schedule will remain at 24 games, those games will be spread over 33 weeks, hopefully meaning fewer midweek games and ridiculous travel schedules. Amanda Duffy touts the likelihood of “more Saturday night home games” in the press release. You can read the whole thing below:

CHICAGO (Nov. 28, 2018) - The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) announced today the league’s season will be extended to 33 weeks beginning in the 2019 season, with the regular season schedule to remain at 24-games for the third-consecutive season and fourth time in league history.

”We are excited to extend the season to provide our fans more opportunities to experience the best players in the world,” said NWSL Managing Director Amanda Duffy. “This move will allow the league’s clubs more Saturday night home games during a season in which women’s soccer and NWSL’s players will be on the world’s biggest stage with the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.”

The 2019 NWSL season will begin on Monday, March 4 when teams open preseason training camp and the regular season will kick off the weekend of April 13-14. The league’s seventh season will be played over 24 weekends excluding a 12-day break from June 3 through June 14 during the group stage of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France before returning to action on the weekend of June 15-16.

The 2019 regular season will culminate the weekend of October 12-13 and be followed by the playoffs, including two semifinal matches on October 19-20 and the championship on Saturday, October 26.

For more information about the National Women’s Soccer League, visit the league’s official website at NWSLsoccer.com, like us on Facebook.com/NWSL and follow us on twitter @NWSL and on Instagram/NWSL.

Thorns announce 2018 club awards

2018-10-17T12:29:39-07:00

Christine Sinclair, OC after being awarded the Supporters Player of the Year | Nikita Taparia

Christine Sinclair, Lindsey Horan, the Emilies honored for their on- and off-field contributions

The Thorns announced their annual end-of-season awards in a press release today, adding Club MVP and Defender of the Year honors to the ones already announced for Community MVP (Emily Menges) and Supporters Player of the Year (Christine Sinclair).

There are no surprises here. Lindsey Horan, the 2018 NWSL MVP, rightfully picked up the club’s MVP award. If Defender of the Year is a difficult choice in a year the Thorns posted their worst defensive record since the club hired Mark Parsons, it shouldn’t come as a shock that the club chose to split the award between their two center backs, Emily Menges and Emily Sonnett. Neither had an exceptional season, but to some extent you can only shrug when it comes to giving an award for defending in a defensively poor year.

Sinc, rightfully a hero in the North End, was an obvious choice for Supporters Player of the Year; so was Menges, who was spotted at more than her assigned allotment of service projects on top of working with her family’s nonprofit, for Community MVP.

You can read the whole press release below; in addition, keep an eye out tomorrow for Stumptown Footy’s own Thorns FC awards.

Most Valuable Player; Golden Boot – Lindsey Horan

One of 15 nominees for the Ballon d’Or, midfielder Lindsey Horan finished with a team-best 13 goals, which ranked third in the NWSL in 2018. The U.S. international became the first Thorns FC player to be named NWSL MVP and was also a Best XI selection. In her third season with Portland, Horan appeared in 22 matches (22 starts), tallying two assists, while leading the league in multiple statistical categories, including touches (1,852), duels won (297), aerial duels won (141) and successful passes in the opponent’s half (493). Horan also ranked among the league leaders in successful passes ending in the final third (252) and dribbles completed (44).

Co-Defenders of the Year – Emily Menges and Emily Sonnett

Defender Emily Menges made 15 appearances (15 starts) and committed only one foul in 2018. Playing in her fifth season with Thorns FC, Menges averaged 5.7 clearances and 7.03 recoveries per 90 minutes and earned NWSL Second XI honors in 2018. Sonnett, a 2018 NWSL Best IX selection, started and played in 20 matches in 2018 in her third season with Portland. She ranked third in the NWSL in clearances (104) and recorded 35 interceptions, 68 duels won and 14 blocks. In addition, Sonnett recorded one goal and one assist, while finishing the regular season with a 77.8 percent passing accuracy.

Supporters’ Player of the Year – Christine Sinclair

Voted on by Thorns FC fans and presented after the team’s final regular-season home match on Sept. 7, forward Christine Sinclair is also part of the 15-player shortlist for the Ballon d’Or., tallying nine goals and six assists in her sixth season with Portland. The Canadian international, who was named to the NWSL Second XI in 2018, was the only player to start all 24 games during the regular season, playing every minute of every single match. Sinclair’s six assists ranked third among players in the NWSL, while she recorded her 40th career NWSL goal to become the third player in league history to reach this mark and also played in her 100th career match for Portland this season.

Community MVP – Emily Menges

Menges was also recognized for her contributions in the community during the season and was named the team’s Community MVP at the 2018 Stand Together Banquet in September. She led the way in welcoming #MightyMaryn, a young Thorns FC fan battling brain cancer, and her family to the team with a one-of-a-kind training and gameday experience in celebration of Maryn’s birthday. During Stand Together Week, Menges participated in projects with Willamette Riverkeeper and Friends of Trees. In addition, she helped brighten the days of the pediatric patients at local children’s hospitals and supported the development and fundraising efforts of the Bobby Menges “I’m Not Done Yet Foundation” to provide transitional care for youth and adolescents in their battles against cancer.

Roses and Thorns: This must be the place

2018-10-03T11:31:32-07:00

Nikita Taparia

Summers in Oregon are marked by this insatiable longing.

You wait six months for a glimpse of the sun, and when you finally get it, it always feels both too good and not good enough. A Portland summer is the kind of perfect thing that lives as much in your imagination as it does in reality—the sun in the morning, the smell of the river, the daylight that lingers until 9 pm, when it dies in a burst of impossible orange-pink-purple incandescence. Quiet evenings drinking beer on the porch, watching traffic go by, watching the stars come out; loud evenings listening to the crowd, hoping for magic on the field. You wait six months for this, and then it comes, and then suddenly it’s gone again.

Have you ever eaten a thimbleberry?

The thimbleberry is a delicate wild fruit that grows in woods; it is one of mother earth’s most perfect creations. The redness of a thimbleberry is the reddest red that exists, and when you pick it, the velvety drupelets peel imperfectly off the stem and some of that impossible red inevitably gets on your fingers. I can’t describe what a thimbleberry tastes like, because it doesn’t really taste like any other fruit. It can’t be cultivated at scale because it is far too fragile to pick and store and ship.

This is the problem: the thimbleberry is so good, and so ephemeral, that it will always seem impossible to appreciate it enough. I only ever eat a dozen or so a year, but that far-off day in June when I get to taste one again is always in the back of my head.

A soccer game happened a week and a half ago, and I haven’t watched it since then, and I’m probably not going to for a while. There’s nothing left to analyze. The thing is done. The Thorns lost, and it wasn’t particularly close. This team was good—brilliant, at times—but at the end of the day, North Carolina was undeniable. Plenty of ink will be spilled on that subject, for years to come.

A championship is one thing. It’s a very good thing, something we’ve been blessed with three times in the last five years, and we can’t take any of that for granted, even as we dream about making constellations. Losing to this team, specifically, in the final, was always going to be hard, for a lot of reasons I don’t think I need to get into here. But really, that’s not what this is about.

Saturday afternoon, the Thorns lost, and it kind of sucked. Saturday night, standing on the patio at Kells, yell-singing “Africa” for the fifteenth time that weekend, I don’t think the loss was on anyone’s mind. The open bar, naturally, helped with that—but this wasn’t a drown-your-sorrows party. It was a genuine celebration; of this community, of this dumb sport we all love too much, of us.

A year ago in Orlando, a couple hundred Thorns fans watched their team win and then went to a party that nobody who was there will ever forget. That night was a victory celebration, obviously. It was about winning. But it was also about something else, maybe even above and before that: it was about being there, together, for that moment.

The thing about this game is that usually, you don’t win. Only one team gets to do that each year. What you do get is the chance to be there; to feel, together, the joy, pride, heartbreak, excitement, and love that come with this thing that we know doesn’t mean anything, but also means everything.

We got to be there, last weekend. We get to be there again and again and again.