Thorns FC: Glass half..?

I’m frankly still unsure what to think about last Saturday’s 2-1 loss in Washington.

One the one hand, it was a tough, tough way to lose; surviving a scary first half by luck and scrappier playing than we’ve seen from a Ken club lately, then going up early in the second half on a sublime Sugita-senshu strike, only to concede twice on several brutally familiar defensive issues and to lose all the points on a stroke-of-full-time banger.

Once again, the Thorns gave up a lot of dangerous chances on their goal and struggled to finish at the other end:

See the xG/PSxG differences? Both clubs left a LOT of potential goals on the table. Here’s our “vaudevillian cane” blogger Andre Carlisle with some trenchant comments about that:

So…yeah. Tough, late loss after it looked like the away point, at least, was in the bank.

On the other hand? It was scrappy! The Thorns put together some possession-with-purpose, and did get some looks (but that, too, was troubling and we’ll talk about that). They got some breaks from appalling Washington finishing but also looked more composed and connected in midfield than they’d looked for some time.

Was the glass half full, or half empty?

I think I did a fairly decent job of summing up how I felt walking away from this one in my comment at Stumptown:

I don’t think we’ll know how the squad took this match until we have a couple more games.

For now?

Tough losses happen. Sometimes you get the shark. And sometimes…

…the shark gets you.

Short Passes

Per OPTA, well played; Portland connecting on 81% (453 passes), Washington 82% (485).

Our “vaudevillian cane” blogger andre carlisle was quick in posting his invaluable passing diagrams: Here you go; first, Portland. It’s worth reading his comments because he makes a good point I didn’t pick up watching this (twice):

The other issue I see is the wingers; Turner is getting no service at all, Spaanstra has to drop damn near into the Thorns half to get anything, and neither are really connecting with Smith. I’m not on the “It’s ALL Because We’re Missing Weaver!” train – Morgan was struggling in the early going – but it’s true; she has a rapport with Smith that the others don’t.

Can they develop it? I hope so! But right now they haven’t, Smith is struggling, and the results in terms of attack are painful.

Washington:

Portland missed some sitters, yes. But Washington..!

8‘ – Ashley Hatch has a gimme putt and skies well over
10′ – Kelli Hubly goes for a high pass and misses the header, letting Santos run free at goal. Santos’ cross bangs off a) Sam Coffey and b) Mackenzie Arnold’s leg before rolling towards the goal. Coffey makes a successful desperation clearance.
14′ – Santos puts Hatch through with Hatch’s supposed marker Hubly ballwatching; Arnold comes out strong but is fortunate that Hatch shanks the shot wide.
37′ – Hatch squares to Kouassi, but Arnold stones her good attempt.
56′ – Rodman’s takes her good run a bit too far; the cross clanks off Arnold but she falls on it before Hatch closes in.
60′ – Rodman goal, 1-1
73′ – Sauerbrunn heads clear poorly; Arnold blocks Metayer’s recycled shot onto ‘Brunn’s head but she heads away weakly again, this time to Rodman who luckily misses wide left.
78′ – Washington passes right through Portland’s defense (Krueger to Morris to Rodman) but Rodman’s shot is way high.
79′ – Kouassi skins Hubly and runs at goal with only Arnold to beat but shanks her shot wide left.
83′ – Kouassi again – after another “passes through the Thorns” (O’Sullivan to Metayer to Kouassi) – and, again, shanks it (right this time).
96′ – Metayer’s run skins Fleming, feeds Rodman, who crosses to an open Santos…

…for the matchwinner.

Here’s the thing about that screenshot, though.

Look at how much space Santos has. The backline is marking up their opponents along the six-yard line, so, fine. Reyes is beat to the byline but has kept Rodman from driving inside, so, okay.

But…this is less than two minutes from full time. Just two minutes to play hard, play all out, to steal a road point from the #2 team in the league.

Why is Fleming hanging out at the top of the eighteen?

Why is Sam Coffey still jogging back?

Where the hell are Sinclair, Smith, and D’Aquila?

And frankly? That’s your fucking job, Ken. To field a club that goes hard to the final whistle. To motivate these players to run, tired as they are, with their legs screaming and their lungs burning, until the clock runs out and the point – or points – are banked.

Why didn’t they?

Turnover and over.

Here’s how things are going

Opponent (Result) – 2024	Turnovers
Kansas City (L)	43
Gotham (L)	30
Louisville (D)	54
Carolina (L)	34
Houston (W)	No data
Chicago (W)	No data
Bay FC (W)	41
Washington (W)	26
Seattle (W)	20
Houston (W)	21
Orlando (L)	28
North Carolina (W)	27
Seattle (D)	26
Kansas City (L)	35
Utah (D)	35
San Diego (W)	30
Gotham (L)	43
Bay FC (L)	35
Washington (L)	35

This is 1) not great in itself, and 2) like we saw against BFC, several were more dangerous than the numbers alone suggest.

Arnold’s short play to Payne – who did poorly to shield the ball – began Washington’s dangerous 10th minute attack, and four minutes later Arnold booted a long goal kick to Reyes that was so hard to handle that it was immediately turned back to her for the Hatch miss. Nicola Payne rolled a heavy touch right over the byline to concede a corner in the 20th minute. We’ve mentioned several short clearances that Sauerbrunn gave away, and, of course, the D’Aquila tackle-for-loss that ended in Rodman’s goal.

The biggest loser was Payne with six and a half, her second straight week as top of the loser board. Smith gave away six, and Coffey hacked up four and a half. Spaanstra lost four, and five others gave away two each.

Corner Kicks

Four, two in each half, all long.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
30′	Moultrie	Long	Over everyone and out, but Smith picked up the ball and shot and…we’ll talk about that.
32′	Moultrie	Long	Into the scrum but dead on arrival due to a Thorns foul.
57′	Moultrie	Long	To the back post and cleared, recycled but kinda went nowhere.
92′	Coffey	Long	Onto Sinclair’s head for the softest, weakest, off-targeted-est header ever.

Sinclair in her prime would have easily potted that 92nd minute header. Sad, but there it is.

So. Let’s talk about the 30th and 31st minutes.

Smith shot – a nice, hard, low drive, and Kingsbury spilled it into a fierce little scrimmage right in front of goal. Bodies were flying, whistles blowing, and somewhere in the confusion Reyna Reyes put the ball in the goal, Thorns 0-1, yay!

Or…not.

Referee Greg Dopka waved the goal off, it went to VAR, and then Dopka raised his hand for offside.

I watched and re-watched this. Here’s what I think happened:

1. Kingsbury spilled the ball.
2. It rolled into the scrimmage, Carle fell over it with Kingsbury scrabbling between Carle’s legs.
3. Kingsbury got a hand on top of the ball. It looked briefly like Kingsbury had the ball pinned between her hand, the ground, and Carle’s legs.
4. Dopka thinking (as many US referees are taught to) about “protecting the keeper” whistled the play dead (which, had Kingsbury in fact had the ball “in the grasp”, would have been the right call…)
5. Then Carle moved, the ball popped loose, and Reyes among those kicking away at it, connected, and in it went.
6. Everything went nuts, there was a VAR review, and then the offside arm went up.

I think Dopka made a bad call. I think the VAR official didn’t have a good look.

I think there was no offside on the Smith shot…

…or on the Reyes shot:

But I think the officials sorta-knew they’d made a bad (as in “potentially match-changing”) call and sort of flailed around to find a reason to justify it.

But that’s just my guess.

Like I said; sometimes the referee, like the shark, gets you.

Throw-Ins

The CBS director still cut away from throw-ins quite a bit, but I tracked them as best I could. I counted Portland taking 20 throw-ins, Washington with 18.

Of Portland’s throw-ins I had 12 (60%) connecting successfully and 8 (40%) going to Washington.

Washington completed 13 throws (72.2%) and lost five (27.8%).

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%
Gotham	62.8%	22.8%	57.1%	38%
Racing	84.3%	15.7%	43.7%	50%
Carolina	70.9%	29.2%	73%	27%
Houston
Chicago
Bay FC	64.2%	28.5%	71.4%	28.5%
Washington	41.6%	58.3%	62.5%	34.3%
Seattle	71.4%	14.2%	80%	20%
Houston	67.8%	25%	69.6%	30.3%
Orlando	76%	24%	73%	30.7%
Carolina	89.4%	5.2%	57.6%	26.9%
Seattle	85.7%	9.5%	68.7%	28.7%
Kansas City	70.7%	29.3%	72.7%	27.3%
Utah	65.5%	30%	50%	50%
San Diego
Gotham	47.6%	28.6%	50%	35%
BFC	63.6%	27.3%	62%	20%
Washington	60%	40%	72.2%	27.8%
Average	67.8%	24.7%	64%	31.5%

Player Ratings and Comments

Smith (+9/-3 : +9/-3 : +18/-6) Did everything she could, but, as our vaudeville cane blogger said, she can’t do everything, and trying to do that is wearing her down.

Smith took a fair amount of fan comment stick for “trying to do it all herself”. And there’s some truth in that. Here she is in the 71st minute; Arnold has served her up a dime, she’s got two defenders tight on her, but Hina-san and Spaanstra are arriving with open runs at goal.

A quick square pass could split her defenders…

…and give her teammates a shot at the go-ahead goal. Instead Smith turned back and, eventually, got stripped of the ball.

I get it; that’s frustrating for us fans.

But so is this:

Smith’s teammates haven’t been carrying the load. She dishes and they miss. Is it any wonder she thinks she has to do it all?

We’ll talk about this more in a bit.

Turner (45′ – +3/-0) Look back at the passing diagram. What the fuck was going on? I get it; Portland was struggling to generate chances (I recorded only two others in the first half other than the Reyes call-back; a Smith run-and-shot in the 4th minute, and a terrific 45th minute chance that came to nothing, which we’ll discuss).

So Turner had no real opportunities to show anything. But…

D’Aquila (45′ – +4/-4) …her halftime replacement did and utterly wasted them; a lame 52nd minute header right to Kingsbury and the appalling crossbar in the screenshot above.

If you’re Smith, seeing that..? Well? Do you blame her?

Moultrie (82′ – +4/-1 : +4/-1 : +8/-2) This is kind of getting to be a thing with Moultrie; 81 minutes of solid, squad-level play, and then, this:

Livvy…please. Lots of people love you and want you to be the superstar they hoped for when you burst on the Thorns scene at 15.

But a star doesn’t fluff that sitter.

Fleming (8′ – +2/-1) Odd sub, and utterly ineffective. Got lots of fan stick for loafing on the Santos goal. I didn’t see her doing anything that four of her other teammates weren’t doing, but, there.

Spaanstra (73′ – +2/-0 : +2/-2 : +4/-2) Similar issues that Turner had; little connection, and virtually none with the big hammer, Smith. Got the assist so there’s that. But why aren’t she and Linnehan, or she and Turner, seeing more minutes with Smith to try and develop synergy?

Sinclair (17′ – +4/-2) What’s frustrating is that Sinc has so much good soccer deep in her bones that she can do these effortless, clever flick-ons and passes like water flowing downhill. Once or twice or three times a match she’ll do stuff that reminds you, like the stump of an old-growth fir, what a magnificent creature it was.

Then the rest of the game you watch her try and keep pace with people twenty years younger and just want to shake your head and sigh.

Coffey (+5/-1 : +3/-0 : +8/-1) Like Smith, something’s still not right here. Not “bad”, but…just not there the way she is at her best. Is it tactical, as our blogger suggested? Is Ken trying to get her to be a pure destroyer? If so, I don’t think it’s working. Is it Olympic hangover? If so…well, damn. I hope she can shake it off.

Huge 10th minute clearance, though. Thanks, Sam.

Sugita (+12/-1 : +4/-0 : +16/-1) Woman of the Match.

Reyes (+8/-0 : +8/-1 : +16/-1) Tiffany Rodman has eaten a lot of fullbacks’ lunches.

Reyna Reyes didn’t leave her so much as a fucking stray goddamn Cheeto. Rodman got her goal and assist – players like that will – but Reyes stuffed her nearly her entire match, and had her backline been just as sturdy the points were there for the taking.

They weren’t. But Reyes had a hell of a great game.

Sauerbrunn (+4/-0 : +4/-3 : +8/-3) ‘Brunn had a good individual game but, again, her unit went walkabout at bad times. Stuff like this..?

That’s not a disciplined unit.

It’s Ken’s team, yes. But ‘Brunn is the old head, the leader, the patron, the senpai. She is the one her defensive unit has to look up to, to learn from, to emulate. So when they look like this, well…

Hubly (+3/-4 : +0/-6 : +3/-10) Just a hot mess. I’m not sure whether Obaze was not fit to go, but Hubs was barely better than an empty space. Well, maybe. Well, maybe not.

Payne (68′ – +1/-3 : +0/-1 : +1/-4) Payne is the anti-Reyes; tons of pace, yes. Defensive grit? Mmmm, not so much. In a match where “grind out a result” was the primary consideration Payne was not an ideal choice, but Muller had played a long shift on the previous Wednesday. Still…got skinned a lot.

Muller (22′ – +3/-1) Helped stop the overrunning Payne couldn’t. Looked tired, which is not surprising, but a respectable shift.

Arnold (+3/-0 : +4/-1 : +7/-1) Kept Portland in the game; strong off her line and big blocks in the second half. Not really at fault on the concessions. Those numbers, though? When your keeper has more than a couple of pluses or minuses? She’s getting muled by her defense, and, yes, she was.

Coach Ken: Tough gig, innit?

Leadership – good leadership – is perhaps the most difficult of human endeavors.

You have to craft plans and schemes, match personalties and skillsets to tasks and groups, get and keep people bought into the plans and focused on the goals while being attentive to their headspace and responsive to their needs.

You can’t be to hard on them or they’ll end up resenting you, you can’t be too soft or they’ll jake on you. Drive and risk rebellion; coax and risk contempt.

Somehow you need to create a single entity intent on a common goal and agreeing on common methods from disparate, strong-willed individuals.

I’m not belittling the task before you. But you asked for it, you were granted it.

Now you have to do it.

The Thorns’ last match looked…better. Not great, but better. Baby steps.

But it ended badly, and now it’s your job to focus your people on what they did right and what they can do better, not what went wrong.

This Friday the schedule is offering you a chance; Chicago at home. Chicago, winless in their last three, too. If ever the schedule served you and your squad up a fat one, this might be it.

Can you and they take it?

We’ll see.