Thorns FC: Cold Open

It was always going to be tough opening the 2025 season on the road. It was going to be tougher opening in Kansas City, one of 2024’s top four clubs that we discussed as a likely repeat for that high table finish this year.

So what would have been a good notion for Coach Ken to consider was how to “…not make this any tougher“.

By, say, not starting a makeshift backline that included a true rookie’s first professional start, a recent centerback signing unfamiliar with her squadmates beside the least-used returning centerback from 2024.

By, say, not starting a frontline with a false 9 and two inverted wingers, and then hucking repeated crosses in to (checks notes) the center forward that wasn’t there.

So it was pretty frustrating when I watched Ken’s squad start the match with this:

Cute! Right? Clever little trick play to work on the go-go-run-in-behind-you Current? Olivia Moultrie taps the ball forward as Sam Coffey lights off the burners and she and all three forwards bomb forward through a stunned KC midfield.

Only one teensy little problem…

See center referee Alyssa Nichols? With her arm in the air? Signalling offside?

Ummm….yeah. Moultrie apparently didn’t tap the ball, or tap it enough. The moment Coffey touched it she was offside, and the Current got the turnover and free kick.

If that doesn’t sum up KenBall’s 2025 debut in a single moment I don’t know what does. A cute little idea completely undone by inadequate training, individual error(s), or some combination of both.

So the whole “let’s throw together a backline and put on a show!” thing?

That worked about as well as the kickoff gimmick. For about two minutes:

Because Portland is playing a ridiculously high line both in back and through midfield once the pass to Debinha breaks the midfield line the Brazilian has a crap-ton of time and space to pick out Temwa Chawinga blowing past newbie fullback Kaitlyn Torpey and Isabella Obaze and huck a long pass to her.

On the weak side Torpey and Obaze’s teammates Reyna Reyes and Jayden Perry are keeping Chawinga onside, because, hello, makeshift backline?

From there it’s Chawinga with the simple run and dunk on Mackenzie Arnold for the opening goal, 1-nil Kansas City, and it feels like deja vu all over again.

I could hammer on this some more but, frankly, you could just follow the link to my report of Mike Norris’ 5-4 implosion on Opening Day 2024 and read a perfectly valid critique of Rob Gale’s 3-1 detonation to the same team last Saturday:

“I honestly don’t have any sense for what (the)…tactical plan was last weekend. It looked narrow and underdeveloped…and disconnected…because KC did a good job disrupting the Thorns. Some horrific turnover problems didn’t help, either, which also seems more than likely on…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…”

Yep. We’ll discuss this in a bit, but the Thorns were a mess, both tactically and technically, in the first half, which was all Vlatko’s troops needed to run the table. By the time Kansas City took their boot of Portland’s neck in the second it was over.

Tactically? Here’s what the broadcast team thought the Thorns ran out:

4-3-3 and that’s Peak Ken, so, sure. But here’s what FBRef thought:

4-4-2? Really? What the…wait. Here’s what it looked like with Portland in possession:

Yeah, okay…that looks like a 4-3-3 but…what the fuck is Reyes doing? Is she more of a wingback, pushed up so high? And is Coffey the lone six? This looks more likes a 3-1-3-3. It just emphasizes what a dog’s breakfast this match was.

The passing diagram looks even weirder:

Based purely on the player position abbreviations the creator of this diagram thought the Thorns were playing a 4-4-2; there’s two forwards and four midfielders. But what the actual fuck is that coffeklatch going on in the center circle? All four midfielders plus the “right center forward” (which is presumably Deyna Castellanos, who was actually playing more of a withdrawn forward/false 9, but whatever…) shoved inside there.

WTAF?

All this just points out what a gormless mess this outing of KenBall was. Here’s Moultrie trying to explain it:

What Livvy seems to be trying to describe is something like “totaalvoetbal”, “Total Football”, that became famous with the Cruyff Netherlands in the 1970s.

In it’s original form it’s described as a tactical scheme in which:

“…any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team. A player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team, thus retaining the team’s (shape)…tactical success depends largely on the adaptability of each footballer…to quickly switch positions depending on the on-field situation…hence, it requires intelligent and technically diverse players.”

But that means that before all this fluidity can happen, every player can – must – be able to play and understand the requirements of every position. Completely. Thoroughly. Immediately; every player must be able to switch instantly and correctly.

That doesn’t mean “…being free and not being in a set role and that’s all you do on the field.” Oh fuck no.

That means hours and hours, days, weeks of training and drilling. Learning the demands of your position. Then everyone else’s position. Then how they interact, how your teammates move and pass and think.

Then more training putting it all together.

So what Livvy is describing doesn’t sound like Total Football at all. It sounds like what this club often looks like; a gormless chowder, ten field players doing individual things, freelancing as often as not, with little or no understanding of what they and their team is doing.

Set that against an organized club like Vlatko’s Kansas City?

Well…you saw what happens.

Short Passes

Per OPTA Portland and Kansas City were both kinda meh; Portland a bit better at 77% completion of 438 passes to the Current’s 73% of 391. Passing turnovers were a recurring problem for Portland, though, especially in the first half.

I usually hit up our “vaudevillian cane” blogger andre carlisle for his lovely passing diagrams, but in the interest of getting this published I’ll forego that this time.

But we’ve already seen the Portland chart that gives you an idea of what Ken’s product looked like; smushed back into their own half and clumped together in front with no width.

The result was attacking sterility for Portland; FBRef has Portland’s total xG as 1.2, but that includes Olivia Moultrie’s 0.7 xG for the missed penalty attempt. Without it the “non-penalty xG” for 97 minutes comes to something like 0.4 to 0.5, and breaks down as five players with 0.1xG each, including Moultrie’s goal.

Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work so well.

Turnover and over.

Here’s how things are going;

Opponent (Result) – 2025	Turnovers
Kansas City (L)	38

Recall from our work last season that when the Thorns turn over more than about 30-35 times in a match things usually get ugly and so they did in Kansas City.

Twenty-one turnovers in the first half, 17 in the second. Kansas City struggled a bit in the second half – coughing up 12 to 17 for our side – but were much tidier in the first, only 12 giveaways to Portland’s 21.

Recall that the way this works is an unforced turnover – an errant pass, getting caught and tackled for loss if a pass is open – is one turnover for the guilty player. If the passer and receiver both do poorly each gets “half” a turnover.

The Thorns Biggest Loser was Perry with eight, but several veterans had surprisingly poor games; Hina-san with five turnovers and Sam Coffey with four-and-a-half. Torpey also coughed up four-and-a-half, and Alexa Spaanstra turned over three-and-a-half times.

Several more players lost two or three each.

Several of these hairballs were fugly. Perry dished directly to Debinha in front of her own box in the 20th minute, and again (to Chawinga) at 45+3′. Several Thorns responded to a spell of second half Current pressure with a string of ugly “clearances” – Obaze in the 57th minute, Coffey in the 58th, Perry in the 61st.

Arnold’s distribution was, as usual, not very effective at getting the ball into play but, also as usual, mostly because her field players lost their aerial duels. But she stonked a horrific short goal kick right to Debinha in the 77th minute that she was then forced to make a pointblank save when Debinha fed Chawinga in 1v0.

Corner Kicks

Four, two in each half. Three long, one short.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
38′	Coffey	Long	Into the mixer, headed back to Coffey, who was offside
45+4′	Coffey	Short	To Castellanos, who was tackled for loss that KC tried to turn into a fast break, but the long pass went to Arnold
89′	Coffey	Long	Pinged off heads, cleared, recycled, cleared again and turned over
90+7′	Coffey	Long	Cleared, recycled, cleared again and the fulltime whistle blew.

Nothing.

Player Ratings and Comments

Castellanos (87′ – +2/-1 : +5/-0 : +7/-1) First, before we begin, let’s recap what a “plus-minus rating” is and how it’s compiled. If you’re new to Riveting! you might spend a moment taking a peek at the link.

I want to emphasize this bit: “A match PMR (for a full ninety minutes) that looks like +2/-2? That player did very little of note, either good or bad.”

We’re going to see a lot of those sorts of single-digit PMRs here, which drives home the point that the Thorns did very little in Kansas City.

The stats show Portland with 53% of the possession, but the PMRs (and the actions on the field) show that the vast majority of that was “possession without purpose”; aimless passing about, failed attempts to go forward, nothing of real soccer creativity or value. Indeed; my match notes show Portland with exactly four semi-dangerous or better attacks:
32′ – Moultrie fed Spaanstra, whose strong run into the box was stopped by a blatant push from behind which went uncalled.
37′ – Castellanos with a nice rasper of a shot that forced Lorena to parry out for a Thorns corner.
49′ – Hina-san fed Moultrie, who scored, and
79′ – Turner made a good right-side run and crossed (to nobody), the clearance went to Moultrie, whose shot/shoss drew the PK (which she shanked off the bar in the 84th minute).

That said…Deyna Castellanos was as close to a bright spot as Portland had. Active, clever, creative, of the slew of forwards on the Portland roster Reina Deyna looked head-and-shoulders better than anyone else in black in Kansas City.

Let’s hope that is a starting point.

Tordin (3′ – +1/-0) No real impact, but too little time on the pitch to really see anything.

Spaanstra (64′ – +2/-0 : +0/-0 : +2/-0) Had the good attack in the first half noted above but otherwise nerfed by her own relative lack of pace, KenBall, or both. Not really a winger, so probably more the latter.

Linnehan (26′ – +1/-0) Pacier than Spaanstra so should have had more of an impact but, again, the Thorns “attack” was a welter of individuals working not just “not together” but often at odds against each other, so no real value for her almost-half-hour.

Moultrie (+4/-1 : +4/-1 : +8/-2) Gonna want that one back, eh, Livvy?

But the poor penalty shot aside, Moultrie was the other “good Thorn” in Kansas City. I want to call out that of her pluses all four in the first half are for tackles, including a brilliant tackle-for-gain in the 38th minute, this from a player who got a lot of stick from me last season for lazy lack of defending.

Add the goal – a slick finish from a tough angle after a clever run into a tight space – and a good afternoon in a tough loss from Moultrie.

Fleming (64′ – +3/-1 : +2/-1 : +5/-2) Longtime Stumptown commentor kielbj discovered this Ken quote which they accurately described as “one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard a coach say”.

What Gale was saying (I think) is that 1) his wingers either couldn’t or wouldn’t track back, so he had to sit Fleming behind his RW (who? It looked like Fleming was the RW…) to keep Chawinga in check (which as the scoreline shows, worked for less than three minutes…).

Which means that Ken either 1) had a plan that involved his wingers being either unable or unwilling to track back, so he had to sit a midfielder behind them (which sounds like a player personnel problem to me…), or 2) doesn’t understand how wingers work.

Which is kind of worse. #1 is your welder complaining that the weld failed because of poor quality rods or inadequate penetration, while #2 is more like “which end of this does the sparky thing come out of again..?”

Anyway, Fleming wasn’t able to overcome the incoherence of KenBall, but she put in a decent shift aside from appallingly poor shooting, particularly a 35th minute Palmer moonshot. Not bad, just not good enough.

Turner (26′ – +1/-0) Like Linnehan, Turner’s pace didn’t help because the Portland attack hadn’t been set up to use it effectively, so no real impact.

Coffey (+2/-2 : +3/-0 : +5/-2) Worked hard but lacked any sort of tactical framework to be effective, and was frankly outworked by the Current midfield and Debinha. Surprisingly poor outing from a Thorns mainstay.

Sugita (73′ – +2/-2 : +5/-0 : +7/-2) Another poor match from a usually reliable midfield veteran. As always, having to play a hybrid 6/8 meant Hina-san couldn’t do much going forward, and the high line meant that she as well as Coffey were always in danger of being caught by balls behind. Still…unsettling.

Hanks (17′ – no rating) Hard to notice she was even on the pitch.

Torpey (+0/-3 : +0/-1 : +0/-4) Before we consign the newest Thorns Matilda to the dustbin of soccer history let’s recall Reyes’ disastrous debut match and her subsequent rise. Yes, Torpey was rough as a cob, but better and more experienced fullbacks have been run over by the Chawinga Express. Let’s see how, and whether, she recovers.

Perry (+0/-3 : +2/-1 : +2/-4) See “Torpey” above, along with being a complete rookie noob. Good? No. But blame her gaffer for throwing her to Vlatko’s wolves in a scrambled mess of a match with an unfamiliar backline crew.

Obaze (+1/-3 : +1/-1 : +2/-4) On the other hand…Obaze has seen this Vlatko Show before. To get skinned by Chawinga is not in itself a shame, but to be exposed repeatedly suggests naivety or hardheadedness.

Whiffed on a chance to clear away the cross that Debinha converted, tho it was a desperation play so somewhat pardonable, but still not a good outing for her or the backline in general.

Reyes (73′ – +4/-1 : +2/-0 : +6/-1) Best of the backline, which is kind of “damning with faint praise”, but on a day like that you take what you can get…

Mackenzie (17′ – no rating)

Arnold (+2/-0 : +1/-1 : +3/-1) Not really at fault on the concessions, and a huge kick-save in the 58th minute. Still not a brilliant keeper, but not responsible for this turkey.

Coach Ken: What did this one tell us that we didn’t know in November of 2024?

I laughed at the goofy kickoff stunt; it just seemed so Peak Ken. Then the appalling lack of organization, piss-poor lineup, individual errors, and poor tactics showed up as usual and it stopped being funny.

What bugs me is not knowing how tight a leash this guy is on.

In a sane and just world Ken would be coaching some nice rec league side in Toronto and Elon Musk would have already had the closest of shaves from the National Razor. That we’re stuck with both of them is a powerful argument for the irrational cruelty of our existence.

Until proved otherwise we’re stuck and can only hope for a quick and merciful deliverance.