Thorns FC: Bad Afternoon

In his postmortem of the 1916 Battle of Jutland Winston Churchill wrote of the commander of the British fleet that Sir John Jellicoe was “…the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon.”

His fellow Brit Mike Norris beat Sir John to that by more than a tick, losing the Thorns’ opener to the Kansas City Current in only about half an hour.

There were some bright moments – the Thorns came back from 5-1 down to finish within a goal – but the squad never looked really put together and dangerous as a unit, the backline and keeper were a shambles in the first half, and the Thorns goals were largely the result of individual hero-ball from two players.

Overall?

This group needs to get to work, and quickly, because Gotham is here this coming weekend looking for a turnabout after losing the Charity Shield (wait, that was the “Challenge Cup”? Well, I’ll be damned…) to San Diego.

We’ll go into depth in the player comments, but the bigger problems we saw in Kansas City were largely on coaching.

Tactics

I honestly don’t have any sense for what Norris’ tactical plan was last weekend. It looked narrow and underdeveloped – which is on him – and disconnected – which was partially in the players – but also on Vlatko because KC did a good job disrupting the Thorns. Some horrific turnover problems didn’t help, either, which also seems more than likely on Norris’ for lack of preparation as it is on the players.

Credit to KCC for pressing high and disrupting what plan there was. The Current kept their shape and forced Portland to a standstill much of the match…

…and produced a lot of this:

Jessie Fleming brings the ball forward…but nobody’s making a run. She tries to push it up to Olivia Moultrie.

But Moultrie has no options forward either; Sinc is behind her, Weaver is too far left and Smith is marked. She dinks it back out to Sinclair for lack of a better idea.

That doesn’t get the Thorns anywhere; Sinc is standing still and the problems in front are still there. So back to Coffey.

Coffey has another go, this time inside to Jessie Fleming who’s moved up into some open space.

This is potentially dangerous, since Fleming has room to turn, so the Current defender immediately closes her down (and Fleming is too slow releasing the ball) and tackles Fleming, forcing her backwards.

Fleming holds on to the ball for Portland, but only by dropping all the way back to Hubly and we’ve spent five or ten seconds getting nowhere.

There was a lot of that, and a lot of turnovers, and what little I could see of actual attack looked like more of what we saw a lot of last season; Sophia Smith (or Janine Beckie) hero-ball, wherein the other Thorns would try and huck the ball up to (or in to) Smith – who was usually smothered by a couple of red shirts or three – for the poor woman to try and do magic with. OR one or the other hit a rasper from distance.

As you can see…

…it worked about as well as you’d expect.

Four goals on a PSxG of about two and a half, so mostly low-percentage shots that were brilliant or lucky or a bit of both.

At least three of Thorns four goals came from either Smith and Beckie personal heroism:
43′ – Jessie Fleming picks Lo’eau LaBonta’s pocket and feeds Smith, whose shot from 20 yards out beats Adrianna Franch to her near post, 3-1
70′ – A Sam Coffey corner is flicked on (by Isabella Obaze, I think…) to Janine Beckie at the back post. Beckie near-posts Franch, 5-2
74′ – Kelli Hubly strokes a long rainbow up to Beckie. Beckie turns and is tackled, but the KC defender can’t clear and the ball runs to Smith, who dribbles across the box against two defenders and slides a pretty strike the opposite way, beating Franch to her far corner, 5-3, and
90+1 – Beckie fires a 23-yard golazo over Franch into the far top corner, 5-4.

I suppose you can call the Beckie corner a team goal if you want, but the other three were pure individual brilliance. Smith and Beckie had a hell of a day. The rest of the team? Enh…let’s just say that they weren’t set up to help out much.

Because…

Player Selection

Norris started his usual 4-3-3 with an XI that had some real Norris-ball issues, issues we’ve seen before.

1. Up front he started Christine Sinclair at right wing with both Hina Sugita and Janine Beckie on the bench. Despite being in as fresh as “early-season form legs” gets Sinc was too slow to impact the match; her pace looked as glacial as it did in October 2023.
2. His midfield was largely ineffective (but I think that was more on Vlatko’s midfield being the usual nuisances), and
3. The backline was a cobbled-together kludge. Nicole Payne started at RB (where Marie Muller had played in what we saw of preseason), Muller at LB (with Reyna Reyes on the bench), and Obaze in the LCB-Becky Sauerbrunn spot (understandable given ‘Brunn’s recent minutes with the Nats).

There was a huge issue between the sticks, but we’ll get there in a bit.

The real trainwreck was in back, where the defenders played like what they were, a pickup unit of players who’d barely shaken hands with each other. Two of the first three Kansas City goals – the goals that effectively knocked Portland on their heels and won KCC the match – were on the backline or the keeper or both.

Some of this was individuals having bad days. The first KC goal was a poster child for this; starting with a long pass down the right channel, with Obaze well ahead of a pursuing Debinha on the way to the byline. Shelby Hogan is drifting wide just in case.

As the ball, Obaze, and Hogan converge there’s a moment of weird confusion of the sort of thing that happens when teammates haven’t worked together enough to know who’s going to do what.

Is Hogan going to come out and clear? Obaze thinks she might, so she slows up. Is Obaze going to gain possession and pass out or clear away? Hogan isn’t sure, so she pulls up. Only Debinha knows what she’s doing, and continues steaming towards the ball.

Obaze realizes Hogan can’t collect, so she hustles back and squares the ball to Hogan. Debinha immediately bores in on the keeper.

Hogan is kind of stuck. Hubly has a player on her back, there’s no other outlet, so, instead, Hogan brainfarts and passes right back to Obaze – or, rather, to Debinha, who’s right in between them.

Debinha is spoiled for choice. She’s got Zanaretto for the drop and teammates arriving at the far post for the cross, but instead she bores in and shoots.

Hogan has the near post covered, but the ball skips off her arm and across the goal to Vanessa DiBernardo arriving at the far side of the goal for the tap-in, 1-nil.

Note all the unmarked red shirts in the box, too? Yeah, that.

But there was a lot of team problems involved. The five Current goals other than this one included:
25′ – A long cross that Muller headed away…but into the path of an unmarked Ellis Wheeler, 2-nil,
34′ – A well-worked goal from a DiBernardo through-ball to Zanaretto who had skinned Obaze and scored, 3-nil
64′ – an ugly collision between Hogan coming out to claim and Temwa Chawinga that jarred the ball loose. Kelli Hubly was in position to block Chawinga out but failed to check her six and let the Malawian blow past her, allowing Kristen Hamilton to pot the loose ball, 4-1, and
68′ – A cross in from Kristen Hamilton that Chawinga chested down for Alexandra Pfeiffer to put past Hogan, 5-1.

So two pretty nice team goals…but three pretty brutal concessions. Troubles in all places, and some people having a bad afternoon…

But I think this came down to management problems.

That included; 1) a lack of tactical direction that set the attack up to be stymied in the opening half-hour and led to, 2) a series of individual and collective errors that shipped crap goals and shook the already-shaky squad’s confidence, and then 3) failure from the gaffer to settle the squad down, either through direction from the sideline or through substitution, before the hole was too deep.

By the time the Thorns fought back into the match it was just little, too late.

We can take heart from the Thorns’ refusal to hang their collective heads.

But the bottom line is that Portland was thoroughly outplayed for a crucial half-hour and that resulted in Portland dropped their opening match for the first time since 2018.

Short Passes

Portland was not good on the ball, between unforced errors and the KC press; 76.8% completion. KCC was barely worse – about 75% – so both teams looked pretty sloppy.

Sadly, Arielle Dror no longer posts those lovely passing diagrams, but Sofascore points out that several Thorns had unusually poor nights passing; Weaver at 54% completion was dreadful, but Coffey’s 78% is almost shockingly low for her. Even the better passers all hovered around 75-78%.

Here’s the SofaScore position diagram for Portland; starters on the left, subs on the right:

Payne is a typical Norrisball pushed-up fullback, but Muller isn’t and we’ll talk about why in her comment. Notice the narrow first half midfield that spreads out a bit once Olivia Wade-Katoa and Hina Sugita come on.

Other than the lack of width there’s not much here to see here; we’ve seen this from Norris all last season.

Here’s the Current:

Jamming up the midfield?

Yep. That’s Vlatko; make things crowded and ugly.

Goalkeeper Distribution

I had the two keepers fairly even; Hogan with about 6 long balls, Franch with 4.

Here’s Hogan:

Hogan obviously gets massive stick for the short lateral turnover pass in the 22nd minute.

But she also had a very poor goal kick in the 78th minute that Hailey Mace picked off OWK’s foot, skinned Reina Reyes, and crossed, luckily to nobody. Other than that, no real issues other than none of her long kicks or punts stayed with Portland, especially the three that went to or past midfield.

Hogan is not a great distributor (no Angerer keeper is, or was) but I’m not convinced that’s really an issue, but she certainly didn’t change that last weekend.

Franch had quieter, and better, day.

Three completed downfield passes of four attempts.

Again; we’re seeing the effect of the whole “goalkeeper distribution depends on the field players more than anything else and is seldom decisive one way or the other” factor.

Turnover and over.

Here’s last season’s table

Opponent (Result) – 2023	Turnovers
Orlando (L)	18
Chicago (W)	18
Washington (W)	10
Kansas City (L)	27
Gotham (L)	33
Carolina (W)	17
Washington (D)	36
Louisville (L)	43
Seattle (W)	15
San Diego (L)	49
NJ/NY Gotham (W)	21
Angel City (L)	60
Gotham (L)	37 (17)

Here’s the first entry in the 2024 table:

Opponent (Result) – 2024	Turnovers
Kansas City (L)	43

The Thorns showed last season that if they turned the ball over more than roughly 30 times in a match they’d probably lose; Washington away was the outlier, and even that was a 1-1 draw.

In Kansas City last weekend they proofed the rule; 43 turnovers – 27 in the first half – and a loss.

The big offender was Fleming; 10, five in each half. Sam Coffey shipped in eight, a horrible day for the usually tidy DM. Both fullbacks coughed up five apiece, Weaver four, and Hubly four as well. Hogan’s single error was catastrophic, so numbers aren’t everything.

Corner Kicks

Six. All long, two first half, four second.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
2′	Coffey	Line drive	To Weaver, whose heavy touch went out for a goal kick.
41′	Coffey	Long	Again to Weaver, who knocked it down to Hubly, whose blast rang off the far post! Unlucky, recycled, but Weaver’s header went to Franch.
46′	Coffey	Long	Into the crowd and cleared easily.
58′	Coffey	Long	Poorly placed; too close to Franch for the easy take.
67′	Coffey	Long	Headed to Franch by a teammate.
70′	Coffey	Long	Obaze headed on to Beckie, who scored to bring the match to 5-2.

A goal and a damn-near-goal in six attempts is outstanding production from corner kicks.

Throw-Ins

First full match tracking Portland throw-ins in 2024.

I had the Thorns taking a total of 24 throw-ins; 12 in each half. KCC took 27 total; 15 first half, 12 second.

Of Portland’s throws 15 (62.5%) resulted in an improvement in Portland’s tactical position. 7 (29%) were poorly taken and went against Portland. The other 2, (8.3%) were just neutral; kept possession but nothing going forward.

The Current got an advantage from 16 of 27 (59.2) and lost 9 (40.8); none were neutral.

Here’s how that’s going:

Opponent	Advantage gained	Advantage lost	Opponent gain	Opponent loss
Kansas City	62.5%	8.3%	59.2%	40.1%
Average	62.5%	8.4%	59.2%	40.1%

That’s terrific; one of the best throw-in days the Thorns have had during the period I’ve been tracking this.

I tracked the full suite of throw-in data I used in the “Tossup” post in order to do a similar analysis at the end of this season, so that’ll be coming along before the end of the year.

Player Ratings and Comments

Smith (75′ – +4/-0 : +8/-2 : +12/-2) Rough day at the office for Sophia Smith, who worked like a beast to get the brace and still couldn’t drag three points out of this. Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes…

D’Aquila (15′ – no rating) Another invisible D’Aquila outing.

Weaver (+7/-4 : +7/-2 : +14/-6) Lots of her usual hard work, not much to show for it, to some extent because her passing was so off. I didn’t see her usual synergy with Smith from this one, and I wonder if the truncated preseason wasn’t enough to knock off the rust.

Sinclair (45′ – +3/-2) That the Thorns “lost” the first half 3-1 isn’t because Sinc was the RW. But Sinc at RW for 45 minutes sure as hell didn’t help; slow, static, and since the Thorns were largely immobile Sinc’s one real remaining skill – her flicks and through-balls – were negated. The waste of the half was driven home by her replacement…

Beckie (45′ – +10/-1) Woman of the Match for me; tireless, creative, and dangerous. Found the space that Sinc was too slow to find, and to exploit, and then exploited what she found. On a day the team wasn’t playing well Beckie was a pleasing exception.

Moultrie (62′ – +1/-3 : +2/-0 : +3/-3) Largely uninvolved and ineffective when she was, and I’m not sure why. Very muted outing from young Livvy.

Sugita (28′ – +3/-0) Unfortunately as Moultrie’s replacement Hina-san also had a mostly-ineffective outing. I suspect that had as much to do with the team’s overall dysfunction as a unit rather than with Sugita herself, as well as the short workup time.

Coffey (75′ – +5/-4 : +1/-1 : +6/-5) Another of the Thorns’ strugglers. Like Smith, possibly because she missed so much of the team’s workup this winter? Whatever the reasons, we need her back up to speed ASAP.

Olivia Wade-Katoa (15′ – +1/-2) Not much of a factor.

Fleming (+6/-4 : +4/-1 : +10/-5) Did a lot of hard work in the midfield but with no visible tactical direction not much to show for it. Issues with turnovers, as discussed. Not an awful outing as an individual, but will need more coordination with her teammates if the squad is going to improve from this.

Muller (+2/-12 : +5/-2 : +7/-14) What flaws didn’t Muller’s first half expose? Positioning? Anticipation? Ballwatching? All there! I’m not surprised she looked out of synch with her backline, given their lack of experience. It was the individual errors for a player with over 100 professional matches that was so shocking,

Tightened up in the second half, so, better. But my, my, that first 45 minutes were ug-lee.

Obaze (+4/-4 : +4/-1 : +8/-5) Of the three noobs in the backline Obaze did the best work of the job they had. I think having Hubly back there with her helped, but she looked as good as anyone did in back, which in this case is kind of damning with faint praise. Still, credit where it’s due, and she had some nice plays.

Hubly (+3/-1 : +9/-5 : +12/-6) When the Great Wall of Hubly is your Great Wall..?

Seriously, though; Hubs did what she could amid the flaming wreckage. Not her fault that the gaffer’s “plan” came apart within minutes of the kickoff.

Payne (75′ – +7/-7 : +2/-2 : +9/-9) Young Nicole Payne had some bright moments; I think Sofascore’s rating…

…is more than a trifle harsh. Not a great match for the loan from PSG, but worse than Sinc? Or Hogan?

Ouch. I thought Payne had some promise. Can do better, I think, but we’ll see.

Reyes (15′ – +2/-2) Another Thorn having an uncomfortable day, including some pretty rookie-looking defensive goofs, including a weird attempted headed-clearance in the 78th minute that put Chawinga in on goal. Not her usually composed self.

Hogan (+1/-2 : +0/-2 : +1/-4) Let’s be brutal; neither goalkeeper who played at CPKC Stadium last week had a good day:

As of today Shelby Hogan is statistically the worst goalkeeper in the league, Franch the next-worst. At least there’s lots of room for improvement.

Let’s call it the world’s worst case of rookie nerves and hope that the improvement comes quickly.

Coach Norris: Well. That was reet down the nettie, eh, man?

I know I’ve said this before, but the thing I want to see from you this season is learning.

Last season you were a sort of panic hire and had to work with what you found. There were consistent problems that you never seemed to solve; formations, rosters, tactics. But a lot of that had to have been making it up as you went along.

This year it’s your team. You had the offseason and preseason (such as it was) to work them up the way you want, and run them out to do what you believe will work.

If so, last weekend…wasn’t a very good example.

This coming weekend, though…you’ve got Gotham storming in with a stacked roster and a chip on their shoulders, and you can show them, and us, what you learned from this debacle.

Your team showed fight, damn near clawing back a fucking four goal deficit.

Now it’s on you to show them how they can play so’s not to have to do that.

Can you?

I guess we’ll see.

And as for Kansas City…glad we could help you have Big Fun, pals.

We’ll see you here in June to find out if we can wipe that goddamn smile off y’all’s faces.