The Thorns have one official preseason match; this coming Saturday against the San Diego Wave at the “Coachella Valley Invitational“.
Here’s the Thorns roster:
As a clue to what the club will look like in March?
There’s a LOT of holes there. Most of the critical pieces are off playing for their countries. The midfield is entirely made of draftees and NRIs, and we’re also missing Reyna Reyes and ‘Brunn from the backline, and Jessie Fleming and Hina-san from up front.
Still, it’d be nice to see those reserve and rookie players, but…
So far as I can tell there’s no plans to some sort of plan to broadcast this thing; there’s nothing at the club website (and can I just ask plaintively “WTF, gang? How hard is a website? Can we NOT continue to link through Timbers.com?” It’s been over a month. C’mon…) mind you, and nothing I could find at the Coachella website, but here’s a post at “Business Wire” that says:
“AEG, the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company, announced today that the Women’s Sports Network will be the exclusive live broadcast partner for the NWSL match between San Diego Wave FC and Portland Thorns FC at the 2024 Coachella Valley Invitational at Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. The match is scheduled for 11:00AM PT on Saturday, February 24.”
That’s great, because, as noted earlier, the Wave played Bay FC on Tuesday (beat ’em 2-1, FWIW) and didn’t stream the match. Neither did BFC, so it none of the other NWSL games will be streamed.
Even though we get our game, that’s entirely too bad. Both for the other NWSL fans and – though they don’t seem to agree – for the clubs, who are going to miss the buzz generated by the sight and sound of live play.
And finding this stream looks chancy for you watching at home. It looks like it will require a subscription to other streaming services like fubo or Roku, or having something called “LG channels” whatever they are.
I e-mailed the Sports Bra and didn’t get a reply, but their Facebook page has a post about their schedule and in the comments the manager replied yesterday: “It just got announced that Women’s Sports Network will have the game on at 11am! If so, we can show it!!”, so there’s at least one venue where you can see it.
I’m sure our club wasn’t worried; they’re going to sell out for the Crystal Dunn Revenge of Pierre Tour home opener here.
But I’d hoped that the new owners would have a more aggressive attitude towards communication and marketing the club.
As of this thing, anyway…apparently not. I think that’s a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
Well, I guess I’ll go and finish the throw-in piece.
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Abell4 is now saying over on Stumptown Footy that the Women’s Sports Network will carry a stream. “WSN is available on Roku, Tubi, Amazon Freevee, Sling, Vizio WatchFree+, LG Channels on LG Smart TVs, Fubo, Plex, and XumoPlay. For more information visit: womenssports.com.” Hooray!
Unfortunately I’ve got another commitment at the time. Hopefully a replay will be made available.
The announcement came in the form of something on “Business Wire”; I scoured the WSN website this morning and found lots of surfing and golf, no soccer. Still nothing on the “Thorns” (read: Timbers) official site or the Xitter. Nothing on the viewing calendar at The Sports Bra (https://www.instagram.com/p/C3nzjkEPLft/?img_index=6). There’s nothing I can find that connects to the “other” NWSL platforms like ion, Prime, NWSL+, or the CBS suite.
Looks like to see it you’re gonna have to sign up for something like fubo, or roku. There’s nothing at the WSN site that suggests you can watch it through there.
If there’s a stream and nobody knows about it? There might as well not BE a stream.
Just checked; the Sports Bra manager says they can show it, so there’s a possible venue.
I am a person that usually wants to see the young bench players play and see what they have. But that midfield…. Yikes! Maybe they should put Kling and Sinc in just for some experience.
The backline is what we have got when the Nationals are gone so this is a chance to see if it is peaches or meatloaf. They could be fine.
I am pretty sure if Beckie was fit to play she would be playing for Canada right now so like the backline that front group is what we have. Again this could be great or not great. I think they will be OK, but San Diego has a pretty experienced team that they can play. At least they will not be facing Girma and an angry Alex Morgan.
But the midfield is…. I don’t know.
My thought (re: the veterans) is “why bother”?
This will be nothing like the XI we’ll see in March. Why put 90 minutes or so into already-elderly legs, then? Let the kids play, see if there’s anyone who looks forward or otherwise. That’s all I see as a real value to this thing. Girma or Not Girma…meh. That’s not really the point.
It’s the opportunity to watch the individual play of the fringers and NRIs (and the way the group as a whole shapes; can Norris whip this bunch of Others into some sort of coherent tactical unit? He couldn’t do that consistently with his regulars last season…) that might show us who’s a potential signing. Or not.
WSN is 461 on the LG channels. They show the match in their listings. That Cochilla roster looks to be the depth. Oh boy.
I saw that in the various options at the WSN page and was like “what’s an LG channel?”. LG is an electronics maker, they have their own channel? Whoodathunkit?
And yes, this is going to be “running out the trialists and reserves”. It will tell us nothing about the club on March 16th. It’ll be a good opportunity to see if there’s a standout or two in the reserves or the wannabes, tho.