Thorns FC: It’s a Magic Number

The 2025 Thorns finally have a W. Three points. On the road, no less.

Okay, now, they were in Utah, which ain’t exactly like beating Kansas City in Kansas City. The Royals are dire, and their performance last Friday was just more crap from the same Zion Bank septic tank:

Wow. 0.09 post-shot xG from almost a goal-and-a-half’s worth of shots?

(When I typed this my first attempt included the typo “post-shit”; I should have left it because yeah, that’s pretty shit.)

It’s also worth noting a couple of other issues:
1) Portland’s xG is almost entirely from two-and-a-half events; the Turner 14th minute goal, a Turner missed sitter in the 43rd minute, and another Turner miss in the 70th minute, and
2) After thoroughly managing the match for the first half the Thorns lost all control of it after the break. Utah ran at will and had they been able to hit water if they’d fallen out of a fucking boat this one should have ended in a draw at best. Sofascore rated it something like 55% chances of a Utah win.

But Utah sucks pipe. Here’s the Sofascore possession graphic:

Compare that to Henderson’s xG race above. That’s practically the definition of “possession without purpose”. Some of that was Portland disrupting the Royals already-anemic attack.

But a lot was just Utah worthlessness in front of goal. Utah got behind Portland’s backline repeatedly in the second half:

46′ – Sam Coffey is stripped after a pressing tackle. Ally Sentnor feeds Bianca St. Georges wide left as Kaitlyn Torpey is doping off too far inside. Luckily for Portland Kerrington Ream shanks Double Bird’s good cross wide.
48′ – Same again but this time St. Georges is offside.
50′ – Same again but this time Janni Thomson shanks wide left.
54′ – Thomson is wide open at the back post but shanks her shot wide.
57′ – Same again…long ball finds St. Georges tearing past an out-of-position Torpey forcing Sam Hiatt to make a terrific saving tackle.
65′ – Fucking same again. This time it’s St. Georges again, this time it’s Reina Reyes who’s not marking Brecken Mozingo, but Mozingo shanks wide.
71′ – Fucking same again! This time it’s Mallie McKenzie caught woolgathering as Sentnor dimes Ana Guzman, whose looping shoss forces a big leap and box away from Bella Bixby.
87′ – Guzman races under a free kick with Hiatt, Reyes, and Jessie Fleming all lollygagging behind…but the service is just a skosh too far over the byline.

That’s “getting chances and doing jack shit with them” if ever I’ve seen it.

Most of the Utah success was produced the bizarre lack of width in Portland’s backline. Here’s the 65th minute:

You can see where the Thorns backs are weirdly stacked right in the center circle. Who’s got Double Bird..?

…down near the bottom of your screenshot? Nobody! That’s who. So unsurprisingly St. Georges uses that to get space.

With all the Thorns closing Ream down – unsuccessfully – Ream finds St. Georges for the run at goal and the eventual inevitable Utah failure to convert.

Lucky? Hellyeah, I’ll take it! But…gudDAMN! You can’t do shit like this against teams-not-like-Utah.

Over on the Stumptown thread soccer savant kielbj talked me down off the ledge I was jittering on by reminding me that most matches go through these on/off cycles. Sitting on a lead it wasn’t entirely shocking that Portland sat up a bit after the break.

But. I’m still unhappy about the degree to which Portland sat in and lost control of this match. It was only a one-goal lead. Yes, Portland has been stingy over the past seven halves.

But how long does it take to surrender a crap goal? Sure as hell less than forty-five minutes. This wasn’t just an “off cycle”; this was losing control of the match for damn near a full half.

C’mon, Ken. Don’t let your club sit under the cosh for three-quarters of a goddamn hour! That’s just dumb. Kansas City and Orlando and Washington will eat your damn lunch of you let them do that.

Lots more to talk about in the comments.

Short Passes

Per OPTA both sides were about even; Portland had 73% completion of 344 passes to Utah’s 74% of 368. That’s pretty consistent with possession; Utah 52% to Portland 48%, with the caveat from the Sofascore possession bar graph above shows that this wasn’t a uniform equity – the field tilted strongly against the Thorns after halftime

I’m going to wait for our “vaudevillian cane” blogger andre carlisle to post his Matchday 04 plots; my guess is they’ll look better than last week, because here’s Sofascore’s player positions charts (starters on the left, subs on the right):

Still kinda jammed up front, with Olivia Moultrie nearly on top of Deyna Castellanos and Reilyn Turner tucked inside. Caiya Hanks’ position shows how far she had to drop back to get involved; Ken still hasn’t figured out the whole “winger” thing.

Notice, too, how McKenzie shades inside and deeper compared to where Torpey was. Might explain that space for Double Bird, Sentnor, and Guzman after the break.

Here’s Carlisle-sensei:

Yeah, better, though the Moultrie-Castellanos Collision looks worse here than Sofascore, too. Ugh. At least the logjam in the center circle is gone. But the colors up top…that’s some weak-ass shit. Our passing-fu hasn’t been terrific to date, but this is a new high in mediocrity.

I’ve included the sensei’s comments on these because I think he makes two points, one good, one not-so-good.

Turner was crashing the box. Menace? She potted one sitter, missed two more. That’s kind of a “minor” menace and in a match where the Thorns profited immensely from playing a crap team.

And Hina-san? Yes. Very much so.

We’ll talk more about both in the comments.

Here’s Utah:

This looks uglier than I thought this cack-handed mob looked on screen. Yeah, that’s kind of a headscratcher. What was the point to this?

Kind of a race to the bottom and we “lost”, so, fine. I’ll take the points and run like a thief.

Turnover and over.

Here’s how things are going;

Opponent (Result) – 2025	Turnovers
Kansas City – Away (L)	38
Angel City – Home (D)	38
North Carolina – Home (D)	32
Utah – Away (W)	25

Much better! And we’ll discuss this in depth, because there’s a moral here.

Fourteen turnovers in the first half, only 11 in the second, but a lot of the lower figure was not having the ball enough to turn it over.

Here’s the thing, though; Utah was appalling. Nineteen giveaways in the first half, eight in the second. Losing turnovers 27 to 25 is the first time Portland was out-lost this season. Did I happen to mention how dire Utah is? Yep.

The Thorns’ Biggest Loser was Reyes with five, second match in a row for her leading the loss line. Hiatt coughed up four, and a bunch of people lost two each.

Several of these were dangerous, including a sixth minute Hiatt pass right to Sentnor, and the other was this one:

The ninth minute lazy backpass that damn near gave Solarzano a 1v0 except that…

…Bixby tackled the ball away. We’ll go into detail in Bix’s comment, but that was a match-changing moment.

press!

Second match tracking the effect of each side’s the press. I counted either a 1) turnover (either from a tackle-for-loss or a mishit forced pass), or a 2) forced retreat or drop-pass that killed off a progressive action, as a pressing “win”.

Here’s the results:

Match time	Utah presses (wins)(%)	Thorns presses (wins)(%)
0-15′	2(2) (100%)	9(4) (44.4%)
15-30′	9(3) (33%)	3(2) (66%)
30-45+2′	7(2) (28.5%)	6(5) (83.3%)
First half	18(7) (38.8%)	19(11) (57.8%)
45-60′	3(3) (100%)	3(2) (66%)
60-75′	3(2) (66%)	2(2) (100%)
75-90+4′	4(4) (100%)	3(0) (0%)
Second half	10(9) (90%)	8(4) (50%)
Match Total	28(12) (42.8%)	27(15) (55.5%)

My thoughts about this:
1) The Thorns bossed the first quarter hour on the pitch, though their high press was only moderately effective as part of that. Most of the Portland attack bypassed Utah’s press successfully.
2) As altitude and fatigue worked their way into the half (?) Utah pressed harder but – Utah, dire, right? – generally unsuccessfully. Portland settled in and did well pressing; the bosses were Hina (6), Moultrie (3), Coffey (2), and Hanks (2).
3) As with everything else about this match, Portland “won” the pressing battle in the first half, too.
4) Then the clubs came out after the break and everything went to Hell for Portland. Utah won the vast majority of their presses. Portland just couldn’t catch anyone to press them and in the final quarter-hour, when Utah had to go more direct chasing an equalizer, the Portland press was utterly bereft.

What I find fascinating is the last half-hour before the break. Utah is pressing like mad but failing. Why? You’d think altitude would hamper the Thorns’ evasion and escape attempts more than Utah’s pressing. Was it just luck? Different players pressing/evading?

Here’s the running tally:

Match (Result)	Opponent Press (Success)	Thorns Press (Success)
Utah Away (W)	28/12 (42.8%)	27/15 (55.5%)

We’ll keep tracking this.

Corner Kicks

Three. All in the first half, two long, one short.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
37′	Moultrie	Long	Onto Turner’s head; her header was soft and wide right.
41′	Moultrie	Short	To Castellanos. She backheeled back to Moultrie. Livvy’s cross found Turner’s head again, and Turner headed wide right. Again.
45′	Moutrie	Long	Into the scrum, cleared out but a Thorns foul gave a Utah FK.

A couple of soft headers. Meh.

Player Ratings and Comments

Turner (84′ – +3/-0 : +1/-1 : +4/-1) I’m putting this here because she put the biscuit in the basket, but it’s really one of the prettiest team goals I’ve see this squad create, beginning with Hina-san’s tackle for gain.

Sugita could have run directly at goal – and she begins a forward run – but she sees Castellanos bolting into the wide space to her left and slices a perfectly weighted pass into Castellanos’ path. Note that all three Thorns attackers – Sugita, Moultrie, and Turner – are also pushing forward.

Castellanos then beats Utah to the byline where she finds her teammates threatening the Utah goal. She chooses the nearest – Sugita – and crosses to Hina-san’s feet because Hina has already beaten two defenders and is clear in front of McGlynn with only the keeper to beat.

The cross is right on Sugita’s boot, but with McGlynn cutting down the angle the direct shot is chancy. Instead Hina-san squares across to Turner, charging the back post.

And boom! It’s 0-1 and all Portland needs.

That was a tidy finish from Turner.

But.

It was her only tidy finish. In a match where per FBRef her xG was nearly two, a whopping 1.95 from her five tallied shots. One was the goal (xG 0.74)…and four clean misses (combined xG 1.21, PSxG 0). Two of the other four were longshots, but the 43rd and 70th minute misses were sitters; 0.86xG and 0.27xG respectively, the highest and third highest expectations any Thorn worked all match.

That’s brutal, and could have been fatal if Utah’s second half pummeling had produced anything at all.

I like a lot that Turner brings. But if she’s going to start consistently she has to finish consistently – better than that.

Spaanstra (6′ – +1/-1) No impact.

FWIW, I’m kind of scratching my head why Spaanstra >> Linnehan in Ken’s head depth chart.

Castellanos (84′ – +5/-4 : +4/-1 : +9/-5) Hmmm.

I really want to like Castellanos. When she’s on point, as she was in the goal sequence, she’s got a deft touch and some clever movement. But she’s often – often as in “usually” – not on point. She’s soft as warm butter, gets dispossessed easily, drifts out of matches for long periods and seems to have developed little or no rapport with her teammates. She’s not a threat on goal (no goals in 299 minutes so far, xG 0.4 in four matches).

At this point I’m not sure if Ken wouldn’t be better off moving Moultrie to the #10/false 9 and starting Fleming.

Tordin (6′ – +1/-0) No impact

Moultrie (+9/-2 : +4/-0 : +13/-2) I want to post this because it’s just so fucking pretty.

The 43rd minute, Moultrie in possession down the Utah right flank, with Thomson marking her. Livvy taps the ball around a bit and then the burners kick in as Moultrie dodges to her right and…

..smokes Thomson like a brisling sardine. Thomson tries the classic last-resort-of-a-beaten-defender-shoulder-pull and Moultrie shrugs her off, fuck that, and is away towards goal.

Now Moultrie has some support – Turner is loafing beyond the penalty spot with Castellanos and Hina-san running in across the base of the penalty arch – but there’s a lot of untenanted greenspace in front of her so, why not?

Things are starting to develop, as Moultrie dodges left toward the byline. But as she reaches the near corner of the six Utah’s defense is starting to congeal. Livvy has Castellanos or Hina-san for a drop pass, but they have defenders in front of them and Moultrie doesn’t. Turner is completely masked.

So…boom. Moultrie puts her boot through the ball.

It’s a good hard shot that’s far enough to McGlynn’s left that the Utah keeper can only parry it across her goalmouth…right to Turner!

This time Madison Pogarch actually has marked Turner (unlike 29 minutes earlier when Turner scored from damn near the same spot) but it doesn’t matter; the ball gets to Turner who, as we discussed, shanks it badly wide.

Never mind; this is about Moultrie, and for all that I wish she’d had better coaching this was damn pretty work. And she’s defending well! As I keep saying; Moultrie is having a hell of a good season so far.

And a hell of a fine match.

Sugita (69′ – +14/-1 : +3/-0 : +17/-1) Woman of the Match. Again. There’s just not enough superlatives to discuss her. She is, like the mirror, and sword, and the jewel, a 三種の神器, Sanshu no Jingi, a Sacred Treasure. Domo arigato gozaimashita, Sugita-senshu.

Fleming (21′ – +4/-0) Decent work, but at a time when the Thorns were on their heels. As discussed, I’d kind of like to see a full match from her. What little we have seen has looked good.

Hanks (69′ – +5/-1 : +1/-1 : +6/-2) Not being used as effectively as I think she should be. Hanks has speed to burn, but she’s being asked to play like a typical Ken inverted winger and that’s not her strength. The result is that she seldom gets a sniff at goal and doesn’t do much with the ones she does get; FBRef has her “shot-creating actions” as barely than one per game (1.38 per game in 2.2 matches, 3 total over 195 minutes) and “goal-creating actions” as zero.

This is more on her gaffer than her, obviously.

Alidou (21′ – +3/-2) Had a sitter in the 63rd minute that she headed tamely right into McGlynn’s frantic hands. Other than that not much of note. Good intelligent positioning, rubbish finishing. No way to tell what we have yet. We’ll see.

Coffey (+7/-0 : +2/-1 : +9/-1) Allowed to go forward in the first half Sam Coffey rewarded her boss with four “plus” passes and a strong run. Once penned in back in the second half Coffey ran around like a woman on fire only to try and tackle smoke; her midfield was often passed through, and their clean sheet was more Utah ineptitude than Portland ferocity. It’s kind of dispiriting to see Coffey working so hard for such meager reward.

Torpey (64′ – +5/-2 : +3/-3: +8/-5) The Matilda seems determined to become This Year’s Hubly; decent defending for long periods then a colossal, horrifying derp.

Torpey’s were in the second half, first at 46′, when she was loafing somewhere in Zion Bank as St. Georges took off through her space, and then in the 61st minute when she stepped up to Double Bird to tackle and was utterly undressed, giving St. Georges a free run at goal.

Torpey does some nice work going forward, so there’s that, and so far the impact of her derps has been more psychological that physical, but, still…ugh.

McKenzie (21′ – +4/-1) The contrast with Torpey’s replacement makes this harder for me, because McKenzie is no more challenged but looks steadier than her starting teammate, which for a veteran international is pretty damning. McKenzie was positionally solid, tho still kinda bitten by the “loafing around getting burned by Royals” bug her backline teammates suffered from in this one.

Hiatt (+3/-1 : +2/-2 : +5/-4) The Bad Girl of the Backline, Hiatt always seems to be either on her ass or in your face, which is not ideal for a supposedly-rock-solid centerback. I was hopeful that the downratings I read from her work in Seattle and Gotham were exaggerated, but now I’m not so sure. She still makes terrific plays like the 57th minute run and tackle, but her fundamental defending often looks iffy and her passing can be, as it was in the 9th minute, downright horrifying.

Perry (+3/-0 : +2/-0 : +5/-0) Tough tackling, good positioning, sensible passing. One of the few Thorns backs who had her “beard on her shoulder” most of the match and didn’t get caught loafing.

Take ten bucks outta petty cash, rook, and when you have take a moment to have a chat with your partner centerback. She might want some of your coaching.

Reyes (+4/-1 : +3/-3 : +7/-4) Decent match overall with the same second half problems as her backline sisters; caught lollygagging way too often. I sometimes wonder if this wasn’t because there was no one to “be Beuhler or Sauerbrunn”, the veteran with the steel to snap at people and keep their heads in the game. Hiatt doesn’t seem to do it, Perry and Tordin are both too new, and neither of the keepers ever seems to really crack a whip.

The defending hasn’t been punished for this inattention, mind, but when you look at the opponents it’s hard to wonder if it’s not more about the lack of attack than lockdown defending. I guess we’ll see when the top three come around.

Bixby (+1/-0 : +1/-0 : +2/-0) Bix got a lot of online love from this game, and she deserved all she got for two big moments; the 9th minute tackle, and a fine leap-and-box-away of the Guzman shoss.

That said, she wasn’t really troubled, and especially on balls in the air which she struggled with so badly in her nightmare season. I want to believe that she’s put that behind her, that she’s 2022 Bixby again.

But. The spectre of that awful season remains, and until we’ve seen more of that composed, safe hands Bixby? Let’s keep tha heid, as Mike Norris would say.

Coach Ken: Well, you got all the points so yay, you.

You kinda let the second half run out of your team’s control, and your handling of your forwards is still kind of an inexplicable mess. But you got the W in Utah, so I’m just gonna shut up and soldier. We’ll see how this translates to the Clink this coming weekend.

Endnotes:

The header image is Zion Bank right before kickoff. I can’t find attendance numbers, but look at it:

That looks like “fucking nobody” to me. What’s ridiculous is that the league made big promises to the Royals fanbase when their team was raptured back to Kansas City largely based on the enthusiastic turnout in Salt Lake for the v1.0 Kroyals.

This? Sure, the team sucks, but that’s what good fans do; turn out in bad times as much as in good. That’s just embarrassing, for the team, for the fans, and especially for the league with all the vaunting recent talk of expansion. If you can’t draw in Salt Lake..?

The game did draw these nice people…

…our own Riveting! former-podcasters Richard and Jeanette Hamje. Hi!

Riveters, represent!

And finally…I’m not one of these “Once a Thorn Always a Thorn” huggers. No, fuck that. You walk out on this pitch wearing enemy colors? You’re the enemy. We want to kick your ass and send you home with big sadz.

Now. That said…although she fucked up here and is now an enemy, I still have a soft spot in my heart for…

…Emily Menges, and her kitty, Turtle, who popped up on the goofy halftime “pets” feature of the Utah match. Hi, you two.

Still want to see the Thorns kick your BFC ass, Em, but afterwards? I’ll buy you a round. You done lots of good here and made lots of good memories.

And I still follow your lit zine “Bel Esprit“