Thorns FC: At the waning of the year

When the end came it came like it did to Hemingway’s character; gradually, then quickly. Portland hung on for just over an hour, sitting in and getting shelled from distance, but keeping Gotham in front of them.

Okay, sure, they had nothing going forward, but Ken’s negative tactics at least kept a leash on Gotham; first half xG ran something like Gotham 0.18 to Portland’s 0.05.

This meant that the Thorns defense needed to stay compact – none of those all-too-familiar exploitable spaces between lines…

…and disciplined. People needed to mark up and keep their heads on a swivel. And…

…by and large they did.

Gotham had a total of one “dangerous attack” in the first half, a 45+1 minute left-side pressure that threaded in to Yazmeen Ryan in the eighteen, but her collision with Jessie Fleming was waived off by Danielle Chesky and I’ll wait to hear how surprised you are at that.

So: ugly, but effective…if your “plan” is to sit in and pray for penalties or a Sophia Smith hero goal.

That, weirdly enough, was close to how our “vaudevillian cane” blogger had previewed the matchup:

“Gotham seem to always start games fast, racking up the xG and pinning teams back, and in the second half they work on managing the game, using their press to disrupt more than create.

The Thorns are the opposite. They start slow, allow more xG, then wake up somewhere around the 65th minute and start cookin. Obviously a team that lost twelve out of 26 games, and drew four others, was probably frequently in a position to chase games at the end.

This trend is probably explainable, but just in case vibes happen and Gotham isn’t able to build an early lead, it could turn into a real scrap in the second half. If that happens, well, only one team has Sophia Smith.”

Unfortunately, Amoros’ troops know that, too. So they jammed up the center of the pitch…

…threw bodies at Smith…

…and dared Ken to figure out a Plan B.

Maybe “…use Smith as a decoy to open up chances for Morgan Weaver and another a fast winger you could start instead of Sinclair”?

He didn’t. Tell me how surprised you are by that. S’okay, I’ll wait.

Mind you, he almost got his Smith hero-goal in the 43rd minute.

Hina Sugita picked out Smith running off the Gotham backline’s shoulders, hit her with a perfectly weighted through-ball that Smith took in stride, rounded a hopelessly stranded Katrin-Ann Berger, and potted the goal, only…

…to be called back for offside.

To be fair, I think Smith was a hair offside. But given the ridiculous amount of time it took to review the Sauerbrunn-visibly-not-a-handball the VAR official called for in the second half…

…I think the Smith goal should have merited a bit longer look.

Call me biased. I’m okay with that.

The sides went in at halftime goalless.

They resumed play with more of the same grinding intensity; Portland sitting in, Gotham pressing and mobbing Smith. Portland frustrating Gotham, Gotham denying Smith.

Finally Sinclair went off for Reilyn Turner in Ken’s Hour Subs, we had the loooong VAR handball nonsense, and then…the second half did turn into a real scrap.

Unfortunately for the Thorns it also turned on several problems we’ve seen from this squad all season. Everything went sideways in the final twenty-five-odd minutes plus quarter-hour-added-time despite Portland actually, finally, pushing up and having cracks at Gotham’s goal.

But the flaws just run too deep. Flaws like…

Set-piece Defending

In the 67th minute a Sophia Smith foul presented Gotham with a free kick about 40 yards from goal. Gotham set up in an oddball offside formation that was obviously an Amoros gimmick to try and create chaos on the setpiece:

The gimmick was that just as Rose Lavelle addressed the ball the Bats scampered onside and several of their downfield players rushed into the scrum.

I’m not sure if it really worked. The service was kinda just there; Lynn Williams flicked it on to Tierna Davidson, who was surrounded by coral shirts for what should have been an immediate shut-down, but…

…she wasn’t actually tackled by any of them.

Turner was closest, and she took a hack at the ball and missed, and then Davidson settled, turned, and put the ball past Shelby Hogan, 1-nil Gotham.

Given the Thorns’ attacking sterility you’d think that was the ballgame.

But in the 74th minute Hina-san put in a move towards the left side of the eighteen that forced Jess Carter into a yellow card caution foul and a free-kick.

Sam Coffey and substitute Olivia Moultrie lined up over the ball, and…

…Moultrie delivered a pretty serve to a pair of Thorns. Both Kelli Hubly and Turner were crashing, so the Gotham defense had to try and cover both.

They didn’t:

Turner headed home, all square 1-1.

Eight minutes later Moultrie again, this time crossing to Weaver inside the eighteen, but Weaver’s header came off Berger’s far post.

Five minutes after that Mandy Freeman skinned Reyna Reyes and shot. Coffey blocked back out to Freeman, but Hogan got up strong to gather Freeman’s looping lob.

The ridiculous VAR review (and to be fair several actual injuries) added twelve minutes to regulation time, but it looked likely that the Thorns might take the match into overtime and possibly to penalties, where all Amoros’ cleverness and Gotham’s roster would come down to no better than a coin flip.

But then in the 90+7th minute, Portland got bit in the ass by another unpleasantly familiar old problem,

Defensive Errors

The play really started with a long Gotham cross which Becky Sauerbrunn dealt with poorly, shanking a short “clearance” that Esther pounced on and sent back inside to substitute Delanie Sheehan.

Sheehan dragged Sauerbrunn and Hina-san to the byline, turned, picked out Lavelle unmarked inside the box, and crossed in to her.

It wasn’t just the marking. Look where Moultrie and Coffey are staring:

Yep. Everybody’s ballwatching long enough to let Lavelle tee it up and bury the matchwinner.

Well, shit.

So, in the end, this all turned out to be a sort of unfunny, live-action, 104-minute-long, good-news-bad-news joke.

The “good news”?

Ken’s Thorns ran out on Red Bull with a plan to minimize all their usual weaknesses – lack of incisively coordinated attack, lack of progressive passing, failure to organize actions on the pitch much beyond individual free-lancing (and an overall lack of tactical nous), – and except for some tough offside luck and more of the usual weaknesses (defending, especially setpiece defending) it might have worked to get past a cleverer gaffer with a deeper roster and better matchday management to penalties and the coin flip.

The “bad news”?

It should never have come to that!

Remember; three short years ago this opponent was “Sky Blue”, the Joisey Goils, longtime cellar-dweller, Wooden Spoon contender, and user-of-training-ground-portapotties!

Three years ago the thought that a Portland Thorns team would need a plan to just survive an encounter with this opponent long enough to get to a penalty crapshootout would have been utterly laughable.

And yet, there we were last Sunday, and in the end only Gotham and their fans were laughing.

It’s taken years of mismanagement and lack of management to get Portland to that point, and an almost Dark Art degree of 1) cumulatively-deficient roster-building to assemble this Island of Misfit Soccer Toys, and 2) coaching incompetence to nerf the still-impressive individual skills remaining on that roster and make the whole less than the sum of the parts.

It comes back, again and again, not to individual player mistakes on the pitch but the larger organizational mistakes; Paulson’s fuckery, including dragging the sale, the Bhathals timidity and/or inertia on management and coaching decisions, LeBlanc’s and Norris’ and Gale’s marginal competence at their respective jobs.

The troops fought hard.

It was the “leaders” who “led” them to defeat in the rainy North Jersey haze.

I know, I know. That doesn’t make it any easier for you, Sam. I’m sorry.

Short Passes

Per OPTA Portland was thoroughly out-passed; 72% completion of 332 passes to Gotham’s 81% of 443. Passing turnovers were another recurring problem for Portland, as we;ll discuss.

It’s Wednesday afternoon now Friday morning and our “vaudevillian cane” blogger andre carlisle is focused on previewing the semis and good on him; he’s worth the read, go.

He did post this, in his “Gotham v Spirit” preview, and I’m pasting it here including his comments because it’s so spot-on for this match:

We don’t see Portland, but the Gotham chart gives you an idea of what Ken’s defensive plan would have looked like; smushed back into their own half and lots of blue OBV outside of Reyes and Coffey.

The result was attacking sterility for both sides but Portland in particular; FBRef has downgraded their match report xG from 1-1 to 0.8-0.7, and Portland’s total breaks down as:
Morgan Weaver 0.3 (that’s her 82nd minute post),
Reilyn Turner 0.2 (the goal),
Smith and Sinc 0.1 each…and that was it.

So Ken’s plan wasn’t exactly stupid. But it depended on a lot of hope for things that his club hadn’t done well all season; not giving up setpieces, defending setpieces, and rock-solid defending in general.

And as we know, hope is not actually a plan.

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
Chicago (L)	35
Angel City (D)	25
San Diego (L)	34
Utah (L)	No data
Orlando (W)	29
Louisville (L)	36
Angel City (W)	31
Gotham (L)	46

Twenty-four in the first half, 22 in the second? Holy hell, the quarterfinal was a bad time to post the second-worst turnover numbers of the season. Racing on Matchday 3 still holds the record but an ignobly-unworthy effort. Ugh.

Last week I said “Cough up that many hairballs against Washington or Gotham or Orlando and see where it gets ya.” Well…

The Biggest Loser race was between three players, two of them defenders. Reyes turned over seven times, Fleming six-and-a-half, Muller six times.

Smith and Weaver coughed up five each, and ‘Brunn four. Sinc and Turner both lost three.

Four others with one or a couple.

Several of these hairballs were pretty scary, too. Reyes and ‘Brunn had serial giveaways deep in their own right corner in the 11th minute that fortunately Gotham couldn’t do anything with. Muller’s 27th minute pass right to Ryan was fortunately lost right back to Portland.

Sam Coffey was tidy overall, but her 90+9 minute pass right to Ryan was almost a sure third concession – Esther had Hogan 1v0 and dead to rights – but Ryan’s pass went way over Esther’s head and by the time she collected it the Thorns had scrambled back.

Oh, and the Bats? Turned over less than half as much; only 22, 13 in the first half, nine in the second. Sheesh.

Corner Kicks

One, a long kick in first half injury time

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
45+3′	Coffey	Long	Onto Fleming’s head, but the soft-ish header was cleared away, recycled, but the halftime whistle blew

Fleming’s header wasn’t really dangerous, and the ensuing attack was too little, too late.

Player Ratings and Comments

Sinclair (65′ – +3/-0 : +0/-0 : +3/0) Sinc’s numbers are typical for a slow forward having a poor match in the first half, and she was done before halftime despite hanging on for another twenty minutes.

It’s sad to see her go out like this.

Turner (25′ – +3/-7) Nicked the Thorns only goal, so there’s that. But not really effective otherwise, lots of errors, and kind of the designated victim on the Davidson concession. Unfortunate shift on an unfortunate afternoon.

Smith (103′ – +2/-0 : +6/-3 : +8/-3) The problem with having only one big hammer is that your opponent pretty much knows you’re gonna swing it. Someone like Becky Tweed may be foolish or overconfident enough to overlook that but someone like Amoros isn’t, and didn’t. FBRef has her with one shot off-target, xG 0.0 upgraded to 0.1, so dangerous position, poor PSxG.

Again, this is entirely expected. A clever Thorns coach would have known that and used her as a decoy or distraction to open opportunities for other attackers.

At the other forward Sinclair is not fast enough anymore to be that “other attacker”, and Morgan Weaver wasn’t really effective (her post gave her 0.5 0.3xG but that’s her only recorded shot), and Ken clearly didn’t have another “here’s how we’ll use Smith to open up our counterattack” plan that worked.

Well, his squad paid the price.

Spaanstra (~8′ – no rating)

Fleming (65′ – +3/-1 : +0/-0 : +3/-1) After a string of good outings Fleming had a very rough night. All her usual hard work but reverted back to being disconnected with her teammates and ineffective, plus a lot of turnovers. Only one “progressive pass”. Picked a poor time to take a step back.

Moultrie (25′ – +6/-1) A rose for the assist, a thorn for doping off ballwatching and letting Lavelle knock her team out of the playoffs. That’s how it goes; sometimes the bear gets you.

I’d like to see what happens if Moultrie comes under the tutelage of someone with genuine soccer intelligence. She’s been working for rummage-sale-grade coaches for years, and she looks it; kind of low-middle-squad player. Can she be more? I’d like to see if better coaching might help.

Sugita (+11/-1 : +7/-1 : +18/-1) Woman of the Match, hands down, and a worthy ending for a season of soccer-skill-highs and awful injury-lows.

どうもありがとうございます Hina-san.

Coffey (+5/-1 : +2-4 : +7/-5) Had to race around putting out fires like Smokey Bear on a motorscooter. Unsurprisingly she was gassed by the interminable second half injury time, which is where most of her mistakes occurred.

Ken also pushed her deeper to act as a destroyer again – which I kind of get given his gameplan – but Coffey still had seven progressive passes, most of anyone on her squad, which gives you an idea of her quality.

Good work on a bad day.

Weaver (94′ – +4/-3 : +4/-2 : +8/-5) Well…

Worked hard, but other than the post little to show for it. Weaver needs teammates, Smith in particular, and Gotham did a good job isolating them and Ken couldn’t figure out how to unlock that. So even though her 0.5 0.3xG was almost half of her whole team’s value it’s hard to call Weaver’s outing particularly successful.

Linnehan (~8′ – +2/-1) No impact.

Muller (+9/-1 : +6/-1 : +15/-2) Muller and Reyes are like bookends.

Muller is the hard-ass defender; tougher on the tackle and interception, better at take-ons, harder to skin. Reyes is the two-way player; decent tracking back but the better passer and better at advancing the ball.

So it’s not surprising that Muller did a lot of hard graft fighting with Ryan and Freeman and Stevens and Esther, tackling balls off feet and forcing people backwards. Ausgezeichnet!

Hubly (+2/-1 : +3/-3 : +5/-4) Hubs was her usual menage of decent defending with random derps, like her whiff on an easy clearance that forced Reyes to bail her out stopping Esther’s dangerous 51st minute run.

Didn’t include her trademark goal-conceding error, so maybe better than it could have been, but I still can’t understand how she starts over Obaze. Something in practice? It’s Ken, so who knows?

Sauerbrunn (+6/-0 : +1/-2 : +7/-2) Like the rest of her backline it’s hard to consider ‘Brunn’s quarterfinal a great success given that defensive errors shipped both concessions. But as an individual player? Worked hard and made no real mistakes, so…

We’ll discuss this in our defenders’ “2024 Final Grades” post, but I wonder; when is enough of this stuff enough? If I was ‘Brunn I’d want to see some power-heavy c.v.’s in the GM and HC offices most quick smart before I agreed to another season.

Reyes (+4/-1 : +5/-3 : +9/-4) As discussed in the Muller and Hubly comments. Solid game, excellent season, promising for the future.

Hogan (+1/-0 : +1/-0 : +2/-0) Not at fault on the concessions, but a question mark for next season. All the current keepers we’ve seen enough of to assess have one or more technical flaws (Hogan’s are a combination of footwork and her judgement on taking overhead balls).

Is it worth trying to upgrade one of them? If so, which one?

If not…well, that’s another story we’re going to discuss.

Coach Ken: It was a tough season that ended in a tough loss.

I’ll even give you some credit for the final match; you knew what you needed to do.

Against a better team (not so much better individuals, but deeper, better coached, better as a group) you tried to keep the match close enough for Smith lightning to strike or some other random event to make the outcome a coin flip.

The problem, of course, was that that couldn’t erase the fundamental flaws of KenBall; sterile, unimaginative tactics and lack of preparation for a specific opponent’s expected approaches, poor player selection, and the usual technical problems like turnovers and defensive errors.

Even though you knew what you needed to do, you couldn’t actually do it.

I can only repeat what I concluded about you earlier; you’re an “assistant-grade” coach. Mired in detail, lacking an effective vision of how your roster can succeed on the pitch, unable to assemble a lethal team from a collection of excellent individual players.

I’m sorry. It isn’t entirely your fault; you never should have been put in this position. Your bosses, the owners and presumably the former general manager, put you there because they had either no larger ambition or wider vision, or both.

Unfortunately the job was yours, and by the most fundamental measure of all – success – you did not do well with it.

The question is; what now?

Teams are already signing college players. The European, Central and South American leagues are playing now. The clock is ticking on the Thorns. It’s time to start moving.

That’s what we’re going to talk about next time.

Envoi

This is where I usually stop to add my little piece of poetry to celebrate the club and the players who have worked so hard to bring us so much joy. As they worked hard again this year.

But this season it has been difficult to feel celebratory and joyful.

Outside of the cold rainy night when we honored our long-time captain this year has felt more like stress than glee, more fraught than cheerful. It seems like every smile was, like the one on Sam Coffey’s face, tinged with rue and a sort of distant regret.

This year the emotion I feel most strongly as we close the book “Thorns 2024” is relief.

I don’t want to feel that way about the team in the city I love. I want to look forward to matchday, to hurry down to the old gates with a shining morning face, full of hope and bursting with songs of ferocity and pride.

To exult in Hina-san’s clever strength, in Sophia’s fire, of Sauerbrunn’s steely determination, in Sam Coffey’s grace and power and craft.

I believe the hope and joy can return. But it’s not mine to return it.

Only those who own the club can do what needs to be done to bring back that hope and joy and the bright promise of deeds of worth and glory.

And I can only hope that they will.