As I type this the first partial week of January rolls into the first full week of January.
The only date we have for the 2025 season timeline is February 16th. That’s the first Thorns match at the “Coachella Valley Invitational” versus Angel City FC. That give the club six working weeks to prepare.
Typically the Thorns have done an Eastern Oregon squad retreat kind of thing in mid- to late-January. Camp opened on January 24 last season, but the first match was later, February 24th, so presumably this season the camp will open in about two or three weeks, possibly as early as the 13th, a week from Monday.
(FWIW, the league dropped the 2024 schedule the same date, which suggests that this season we won’t know the 2025 campaign until the third week of January or so…)
What does the Thorns’ short-startup-timeline suggest?
Well…to me, that Rob Gale will be the head coach at the start of the season. Two or three weeks is simply too little time to bring in a new gaffer.
The slow-walking of the general manager hire has made the head coaching situation effectively locked up on Ken.
That’s…not promising.
Regarding the general manager process, I’m going to guess that one of the “Acting GM” hydra heads – Smith, Norris, Martinez, Myrtle the employee cafeteria lady, who the fuck knows? – will be the next GM. It’ll be another internal hire. That’s been a RAJ standard-procedure for the past year. While they could be bringing in someone – and I still hope they will – the long lag makes that seem less and less likely.
That, in turn, suggests that these seemingly-weird-making-it-up-as-we-go roster moves – stuff like “dump the squad-player CB, sign a squad-player CB who needs an international slot” and “dump all the #3 keepers, then sell a starting keeper so there IS no #3 keeper” – that look random and clueless are probably KenPlans, since 1) his player assessment has been consistently poor and 2) not all “plans” are intelligently thought out.
“Starting land wars in Asia” is a kind of plan, too.
The bottom line is of all this is that this offseason is giving me REAL strong “What if you re-ran the 2015-16 offseason…only instead of hiring a new HC in October (within a month of the end of the season) who would work with the (admittedly kind of a dick but) competent GM to land Klingenberg in the expansion draft in November, bag Emily Sonnett in the NCAA draft in January, and land Amandine Henry in March, you just kind of faffed around aimlessly for months.” vibes.
That doesn’t really infuse me with confidence in the organization.
The league is growing, both financially and organizationally, and if the Thorns want to remain competitive this ownership will need to get better at the things they’re, well, not seemingly very good at, like hiring and scouting and roster-building.
I’d like to think they can.
But right now?
I’m not very confident.
Thoughts?
- Now what..? - January 5, 2025
- The Last of Kling… - December 30, 2024
- This is fine… - December 28, 2024
I think you’re right Ken will start the season as the HC, and the GM hire will be internal.
Hey! Let’s dump more salary and make Ken HC and GM. Sorry for the cynicism, but I’m convinced our developer owners are here to develop and ride the rocket ship of escalating WoSo franchise value.
Quite a bit of salary has come off the books in recent weeks. Let’s see if they spend a like amount on new talent; players that can take some of the scoring pressure off SS. If they don’t – and I don’t think they will – that all but guarantees she leaves for the mountain air.
I think it’s important not to attribute to financial greed what can be explained by sports ownership stupidity. It’s entirely possible that the Bhathals WANT to build a winning club (and why not? It’s more valuable!) but 1) aren’t good at it and 2) can’t or won’t bring in someone(s) who are.
I think the problem is…who’s gonna scout that new talent? Ken? He couldn’t sort out the players he already had! LeBlanc? More misses than hits. Smith? No idea!
And Smith is gonna do what she’s gonna do. Horan left for Europe even tho she seemed very happy here under Parsons. Sinc stayed – long past her sell-by date! – through good and bad. It’s complicated.
I’d like to see RAJ build a good, solid squad. But not just to keep Smith happy; there’s no point in building an entire squad around one player. The NBA? You can do that. But not in this game. If the owners get it right – and as I pointed out, 2015-16 is a morality play on “how you turn around a club inside six months” – things can change most quick smart.
Unfortunately I think you are right about how this offseason is going. With no information coming out regarding the GM position, we are likely to be in a position where Gale is retained and who knows what the season looks like. I’ll still support and cheer the team on, but I won’t have high hopes.
The key going forward is to build a well rounded team with a real identity. Right now the team is based on good pieces, with no real thing they are elite at. Perhaps we will see the mid-field players take that step forward and control the game, or (more likely) we turn into a defend and boot it to Smith team. I don’t see this team as a real contender this year, which is a shame because it really should be a top-4 team in the NWSL.