We’ve looked back at 2024.
The 2025 campaign doesn’t begin until some time in January. Technically the next time we’ll see a Thorns squad will be in February, when the club plays Angel City on 2/16/25 at the “Coachella Valley Invitational”, this thing.
I use the word “technically” because, in case you’ve chosen to put memory of this horror behind you, the last time the club did this it went…poorly.
“This was, hands down, the worst parody of a soccer match telecast I’ve ever seen, and even the worst NWSL broadcast I can remember, and remember I’ve seen the Protect the Precious match during the Yahoo! Era and can even remember the interminable buffering YouTube stream from Rochester back in the early Teens. It’s a low goddamn bar, but WSN couldn’t clear it.”
Streaming soccer isn’t rocket science, but the people in Indio were not capable of even doing that. There’s nothing at the CVI website about broadcasting the games, so the possibility that there will be no stream, or that the stream will be handed off to some hack outfit like the “Women’s Sports Network”, is very real.
Right now?
We’ve kinda got…nothing. We’re in the Thorns Doldrums.
Well, okay. The club noisily re-signed Bella Bixby, including a long (and kind of sweet) interview with Bix (it’s on Twitter so fuck Elmo not linking; it’s linked on the Stumptown thread here if you want…), but, interestingly, one that ended with the newest roster signing and new mommy saying: “Stick with us. Good things are coming.” which prompted this response from me:
FO: “Stick with us, good things are coming.”
Me:
FO: “Really. No shit! Pinky swear.”
Me:
FO: “…what..?“
Me: “THAT’S WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT KEN! WHO’S THE GM? WTF? WHY DO I HAVE TO GET MAD ABOUT THIS??!!”
FO: “Well! No wonder I don’t talk to you people!
Because the answers to the important questions about 2025: Who’s the GM? Who’s the head coach? Are nowhere to be found.
The long hiatus without those answers is leading me – unwillingly! – to the suspicion that we’re getting Rob Gale back in the technical box, regardless of who ends up behind the GM desk.
Time is just not on our side. Unless…the new GM comes as part of a set.
Perhaps the looooooonnnng lag is because 1) the owners have a GM target (who’s gettable) but 2) the GM has a gaffer the GM wants who either 3) isn’t, or 4) is but forces the Bhathals to 86 Ken, who they’re kinda tied to because of the idiotic interim-removal decision.
I have no fucking idea.
The long wait does suggest to me that the new GM hire is not Mark Parsons. What would be the holdup for that? Dude’s unemployed, he’s got big ties with this club, the only possible problem might be that he is still hoping for a managing (i.e. head coaching) gig. He’s said as much. Perhaps he’s jawboning the Bhathals for Ken’s job, or just wants to exhaust the possibilities that someone will hire him to coach before giving in. Again…no real idea.
So. Blogrolling?
Chris Rifer has a Substack (doesn’t everyone?). His Thorns piece has some worthwhile thoughts but pretty much mirrors a lot of what we’ve discussed here (tho it took me a while to interpret his term “chief soccer officer/CSO” as “general manager”…)
Our “Vaudevillian cane” blogger has a “Best of 2024” piece. It’s a subscription site, so YMMV, but I got a lot of good stuff from him last season, so it’s worth a dime. His take on Sam Coffey (and Ken) is spot-on:
“(Last season Coffey was)…nowhere near her best and probably not a year that was great for her continued development at the position. (In 2023)…she led the league in assists (8) while putting up outrageous defensive numbers. That Sam Coffey wasn’t around this season, and in fact only had three open play passes into the box that even led to shots. A lot of this is the way that team was constructed, and a midfield that is full of similar, rather than complementary, pieces. (S)he (and the USWNT) could really use Portland getting their shit together so she can get back to the trajectory she was on.”
Yep.
Sadly, all too many others are paywalled. Meg Linehan is at The Athletic. Jeff Kassouf is at The Equalizer (where he just reported our former Thorn Yazmeen Ryan was sold from Gotham to that soccer Devil’s Island, Houston)…
…which, coupled with the sale of Lynn Williams to Seattle and her comments thereafter, raises some real questions about 1) what kind of show was Amoros running there last season, and 2) how far outside the league roster cap WAS Gotham, to be shedding so much contract weight right now..?
…while Steph Yang is supposedly over at All for XI, the Vox WoSo site, with (among others) Stumptown’s Phuoc Nguyen (and for those who are unfamiliar with, or don’t remember, the old Vox Stumptown site, don’t be misled by the utter lack of comments on the posts. Vox is all about clicks. They could care less about fan engagement (ironic for a “fan site”? Ohhellyes.) so long as they can report site activity to their advertisers, who are what they’re in it for. They don’t pay their writers (or they didn’t when I wrote for them) and a insanely cheap everywhere else. So.)
Chris Henderson has a BlueSky (tho most of his activity is still on Musk-o-vision) and, sadly, his All White Kit is a zombie blog and has been since 2018.
Final Thoughts:
With Denver and BOS Nation (and I can’t believe they’re STILL going there…) coming in 2026, is the east-west conference split inevitable? Boston-Washington-Gotham–Carolina-Orlando-Kansas City-Chicago-Louisville and Seattle-Portland-Bay FC-San Diego-ACFC-Houston-Utah-Denver…which seems like a “western” site to me, but so does Houston. Maybe the Dash goes west, Denver east?
And I try to be optimistic. But the silence from SW 18th and Morrison is getting past oppressive and verging on ominous.
Let’s hope for better in the New Year.
- The House-Carpenter - January 24, 2025
- Sing, sing a song… - January 14, 2025
- Goose (updated 1/11/25) - January 7, 2025
This is totally off topic John because until we get some news there is not a lot to say.
So there is going to be a FIFA women’s club World Cup. Do you think any of the NWSL teams could hang with Barcelona, Chelsea, PSG, or Bayern. I think the 2018, 2019 Courage would have done alright. But even though I consider the NWSL the most competitive league in the world I am not sure that even Orlando, KC or Gotham would be able to beat all those teams and win it. I really loved the 2016 – 2018 Thorns, but could they have risen to the top?
So I guess the question is not could the 2025 Thorns win it, that seems rhetorical. But really, could they even qualify? I think a club World Cup is a great idea.
So…
First, yes; it’s long overdue that the women’s sides get a piece of this cashgrab. Let’s hope that FIFA does the right thing with re: prize money. If players are gonna put more minutes into this thing they deserve to be paid well for it.
Second, well…if you recall we had a little mini-cup here a while back that included Lyon and Barca. In preseason, mind, and so probably not taking the WICC thing real seriously, but, still…The Damned Courage won it in 2018, we won in 2021, and OL won the other two, so…50/50 NWSL/Ligue1 Feminine, right?
We tend to think of the UEFA clubs as monsters because their huge budgets allow them to hoover up so many great players. And there’s some validity in seeing that as making them unbeatable. But I think that gap is closing. I think the 2017-2019 Damned were that good. I think the 2016-2021 Thorns were. I think this season’s Orlando was, and Washington, Kansas City, and Gotham were, or were close.
So…I think it’s very do-able. Not for us, not with Ken. But for the top four? I think they have a legit shot at OL or Barca, yes.
I for one DON’T think NWSL clubs, even Orlando, are the equal of Barça or Lyon (heck, even Lyon isn’t the equal of Barça now), but the top four NWSL teams could hold their own with the best of the FAWSL, and almost all NWSL teams have the edge on the rest of the FAWSL, D1F, and Liga F teams.
I should also mention that the NWSL clubs DID look better than European women’s teams, excepting Lyon, up until around 2020 or so. That was when substantially more money started to flow into the women’s sides, and when Barcelona’s superteam started forming.
That cash flow is starting here, tho. Look at the buy-in fees being quoted for Boston and Denver. Barca’s bankroll dominance may be more transitory than we think today…
A big question about the Club World Cup is its timing. Will it be in the middle of the NWSL season, or the middle of the season for most of the rest of the world? The summertime WICC suffered from this problem: European teams were in pre-season training and treated it somewhat like a development exercise, while NWSL teams rested some key players because they needed them fresh for the season. (For instance, in their WICC final, the Thorns didn’t bring on Weaver, Dunn, Sinclair, or Horan until the second half.) Also, will the NWSL give the teams involved a substantial break so they DON’T need to keep their players fresh, or will the CWC be wedged in tightly between league games?
A bigger question in the long term is this: When will soccer’s powers-that-be stop adding games to the players’ calendar? It’s a classic tragedy of the commons, with each organizer (FIFA, the confederations, the national teams, the clubs, independent promoters like for the WICC, etc.) benefiting from additional games under their auspices, but everyone losing if they keep pushing the limit – and the players losing most of all. There’s grumbling about this from players, currently louder from the men than the women, but as yet there’s no organized pushback.
Sadly, if there’s $$$$ in it? There’s no reason for the owners/FIFA not to maximize revenue that’s in their player’s bodies. The players will need to strike to stop the endless piling of minutes on minutes.
When we talk about injuries in women’s sports particularly in Soccer (Futbol) to me the number of games they are playing now is a big issue. I am not sure what the answer is. Men play a lot of games too, but their travel is a lot more luxurious. Even with the young men, I don’t remember so many injuries occurring 30 to 35 years ago.
I like to watch soccer, but I hate seeing so many SEIs.
The Equalizer ran a comparison of Sophia Smith and Alex Morgan. Interesting but a bit unfair to compare the last three Morgan years to the last three Smith. Both players are great, but I think in the future it will be hard for Soph to get as many caps as Morgan because the pool is just so deep now.
There are so many similarities between the two and both are relentless competitors, but the biggest difference between the two I think is in the box Soph refuses to go down. She can have defenders pulling everything but her hair, but Alex will go down with any kind of interference. Soph hates to be stopped.
I see them as such different players. Morgan, especially in later years, was a back-to-goal target forward who would redirect balls to runners; Smith sometimes plays back-to-goal, but much more with the idea of receiving the ball on the turn and sprinting at goal. Morgan’s signature move was a quick turn and a shot; Smith does this occasionally, but you’re much more likely to see her dribbling opponents and using other quick footwork in the box to open up a shot. Morgan was very good in the air while Smith … not so much. Their impact on goalscoring might be similar, but the way the do it (or did it) is so different.
I’m not sure how you can run that side-by-side comparison. Maybe Morgan in 2015-2018 against Smith 2021-2024? But if you use just their time with the Nats the elephant in the Morgan room is Abby Wambach. The Nats of that era were a VERY different club with a very different style. Morgan was an attacking forward for her club teams (as she was here) much more similar to Smith now than she was in her final years.
Both “great strikers”. That’s kinda the bottom line.
I’m not sure how that could mean anything. Morgan and Smith 2021-2024? Talk about apples/oranges!
Maybe if they compared Morgan 2015-2018 to Smith 2021-2024…but that ignores that those Morgan years overlapped with Abby Wambach’s, who was the centerpiece for the Nats of the time and as a result created a USWNT that played VERY differently than the Vlatko/Hayes Nats.
And Morgan in her prime was played a lot more like Smith does now.
I enjoy the Equalizer, but some of their content seems purely click-driven…
A better Morgan match with Smith in terms of goalscoring might be 2012-15, which is when Morgan was at her best. Her 2012 for the nats was a monster year – 28 goals in 31 appearances (there was no league then so the nats had games galore). Morgan looked like she was going to dominate WoSo for the foreseeable future, which she did in terms of publicity though not in on-field play. Despite all the goalscoring then, she still didn’t play much like Smith.
And as you point out, Morgan was helped then by the presence of Wambach, who for instance scored 27 for the nats in that big 2012 year. However, Wambach retired after the 2015 World Cup – more specifically, after its victory tour – so she wasn’t really part of the Vlatko team. Smith is similarly helped by Rodman and Swanson; of course neither of them is anything like Wambach, the point is just that they help out Smith and she reciprocates.
“Abby Wambach’s, who was the centerpiece for the Nats of the time and as a result created a USWNT that played VERY differently than the Vlatko/Hayes Nats.”
That was my point; the USWNT that Wambach played for (IIRC that began with Dorrance and ran thru DiCicco, Heinrichs, and Sundhage) played very differently from the WNT after 2019. Those teams used Wambach as the back-to-goal/holdup forward that Morgan became in her later years…