Thorns FC: Well-deserved

Has there been a more bipolar club in this league this season than the Thorns?

Start the season by being spectacularly wrecked in under an hour by Kansas City? Then thrash out a dour good-news-bad-news 1-1 draw against ACFC? Follow that with a wild how-did-this-end-in-a-scoreless bunfight with The Damned Courage? Go to Utah and play three quarters of an hour of “solid road win” followed by a “how-can-we-throw-these-points-away-oh-never-mind” second half?

Then drive up I-5 and drop all those points in another weird not-good-but-also-not-lucky trainwreck complete with Laura Harvey sufferball?

Then…go utterly nuts in the final half hour to thump visiting Gotham! Follow that by shipping three goals to a crap Louisville side (but score three to pull out a gift home point), and then…

…for the first time all season, put together a complete, solid-performance win against the other co-league-leading club, Orlando.

Go figure.

Especially because of the way this match started. Here’s my notes from the first quarter hour of tape review:
1′ – Barbara Banda runs through the Portland backline; Makenzie Arnold out well to clear the lead pass away before Banda can collect.
9′ – Banda through again, but offside.
11′ – Route One to Banda (Hiatt woolgathering, WTF?!) who drops a short pass to Marta whose good shot is blocked.
13′ – Another Orlando attack results in a Hiatt block over the byline for a corner kick which is cleared but recycled; finally Arnold has to make a good take to end the possession.

Portland? Nothing. For a quarter hour, not a goddamn thing; literally barely a foray across the midfield stripe.

But then in the 16th minute the Thorns pushed up the right flank and forced Orlando to knock into touch. Isabella Obaze took the throw-in and hit Reilyn Turner, who played the 1-2 back to Obaze, who found Olivia Moultrie at the near edge of the 18. Moultrie didn’t have any particularly good options other than to try and force a low cross in to Turner.

But Turner was (as you can see) pretty well covered, and could only drop to Reina Reyes inside the penalty arch:

Reyes took a nifty little backheel-to-herself to slide across the arch but she had a peach-colored wall in front of her. This also looked like nothing until…

…Reyes bent the ball into the far post for what turned out to be the matchwinner.

Talk about “something out of nothing”, both from the match to that point and from that sequence!

Not to take anything from Reyes’ golazo; the ball was struck well, bent sweetly, and took advantage of her opponents screening their own keeper.

But when the smoke cleared there I was on in the stands thinking; Oh, shit. Orlando, Banda, Marta, Watt…there’s no fucking way we can make this stand up.

Until we did.

For several reasons:
Excellent team defending. For the first time all season Ken stuck a genuine center forward – Turner – at center forward. Turner started the defending with outstanding hold-up play.

The midfield was anchored by Sam Coffey and Hina Sugita; enough said.

Here’s an interesting note; I thought at the time that for much of the match the Thorns midfield and backline stayed compact and disciplined. Orlando thrives on open space; Banda running through, as she started out doing in the opening quarter hour, and especially Marta, the ultimate midfield string-puller. As the match went on I thought the Thorns denied her that space.

Carlisle-sensei had other thoughts, though. See the passing diagrams. Okay; agree to disagree. But along with that, there was a lot of…
Excellent individual defending. Particularly in the backline. Here’s a perfect example of that, starting with Banda in possession deep in Portland’s defensive third. She’s well marked by Hiatt but is looking to find Marta open inside, finds her, and feeds her.

Marta turns with the ball, and…

…has the ball tackled right off her foot by Obaze, who’s seamlessly switched inside when Hiatt pushed wide to front up Banda.

Notice where the other black shirts are; Orlando has no options once Banda passes to Marta and Marta is stripped. Attack over.

Better still, Obaze looks to find an outlet – which, admittedly, was a bit of a struggle this match; Portland still has issues playing out of the back – but this time has Turner upfield instead of Castellanos;

Turner doesn’t have anything in front of her. But that’s okay! Instead of trying to force a run into traffic and get tackled for loss, or force a bad pass to turn over (sorry, Castellanos, but I’m looking at you…) Turner holds the ball, back to goal, and then drops calmly to Coffey when Sam gets open, just after this screenshot.

That’s how you stymie a running attack like Orlando’s. Hold up top, keep spacing in midfield, solid team defending in back, good goalkeeping.

FBRef had Ally Watt as Orlando’s biggest threat (0.7xG), and most of that came from a single 62nd minute shot (0.52xG/0.59 post-shot xG) against which Arnold made a terrific kick-save.

Banda? 0.5xG from six shots, highest PSxG 0.1. Marta? 0.2xG from two shots.

On one hand, this could have been a more definitive win, mind; substitute Payton Linnehan had the best Thorns opportunity all evening, a solo run in the 82nd minute that she should have buried but between last-second defensive pressure and her own poor touch went wide left.

On the other, here’s a caveat worth considering, though. We’ll see when we look at possession, but Orlando had a lot of the ball in the second half.

Which was utterly fucking shattered into pieces by long injury breaks and VAR pauses.

I felt like every time Orlando started to build up some steam, someone would go down hard, or center referee Nabil Bensalah would be standing there with his hand to his ear waving a player away whilst chatting with Anya Voigt in the VAR room.

Would a less-choppy second half have changed things? I dunno, but it’s a thought.

Here’s Carlisle Sensei on the “vibes” from this match:

That’s…fair enough; after beating Orlando and Gotham? “In-form” seems not unpossible. But…but…

Don’t get me wrong. This was an outstanding match. Not just the win, but solid team play all over; this was a Thorns squad playing like they had a plan and knew how to execute it. That was gorgeous and fun and great to see.

But we haven’t seen that consistently so far. There’s been a LOT of KenBall since Kansas City away.

One swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one win – regardless of how good a win – a season.

I’m hopeful, though, for the first time all season.

But just a little hopeful. I’m also patient, and a natural skeptic.

Can Ken & Co. build on this?

Let’s see what happens next.

Short Passes

OPTA shows Portland being outpossessed by a wide margin, 42% to 58%. That seems right; Orlando had a lot of the ball, but mostly in the second half.

Which was as stop-and-go as we’ve discussed. The Thorns had their moments – indeed, we’ve mentioned the 82nd minute! – but fewer and fewer as the match went on.

Here’s Carlisle’s “xG race” plot:

And here’s his passing plots. First Portland:

Yeah, that’s a pretty weird look. I agree, sensei. Also the suit. WTF, Ken? That was not something grown men wear in public.

We’ll talk more about Castellanos, Turner, and Moultrie in the comments, but there’s a fair bit of truth in that Orlando really didn’t look sharp moving to space and passing. How much of that was them and how much was Coffey – and Hina-san, and Moultrie, and the fullbacks – doing “Sam Coffey things”, though? I

I’m not sure. Yet.

Here’s Orlando:

I think a lot of the “Banda was much closer to Marta” was that Obaze and Hiatt were pressing her high and forcing Banda backward to receive service (when she could…) and Perry and Reyes doing a similar workover to isolate Watt. Hard to be sure, but it looked to me as much like Portland’s hard graft as Orlando struggling.

Again…I think we need to put a pin in this game and see what happens over the next several matches to see if this was part of an actual trend or just a one-off…

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
Seattle – Away (L)	34
Gotham – Home (W)	26
Louisville – Home (D)	16
Orlando – Home (W)	18

As opposed to Louisville this was due to Portland tidiness; only nine turnovers in each half. Orlando was better; 15, five in the first half, 10 in the second. Well played, both teams.

The Thorns’ Semi-Biggest Losers were Moultrie, Turner, and Reyes, but with only three each. Perry turned over twice. Nobody else with more than a single turnover.

Portland didn’t have any really ugly giveaways outside Perry’s heavy touch that sprang Banda in the 62nd minute for the Watt shot we discussed. But Orlando had a similar hairball, coughing up a pass to Hina-san who used it to tee up Moultrie and forced Moorhouse to make a huge blocking save. Honors even, then.

press!

Fifth match tracking the effect of each side’s 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	Pride presses (wins)(%)	Thorns presses (wins)(%)
0-15′	11(10) (90.9%)	7(5) (71.4%)
15-30′	6(3) (50%)	10(7) (70%)
30-45+1′	5(1) (20%)	5(2) (40%)
First half	22(14) (63.6%)	21(14) (66.6%)
45-60′	4(2) (50%)	5(2) (40%)
60-75′	1(1) (100%)	8(3) (37.5%)
75-90+11′	1(0) (0%)	9(5) (55.5%)
Second half	6(3) (50%)	22(10) (45.4%)
Match Total	28(17) (60.7%)	43(24) (55.8%)

My thoughts about this:
1) Neither side really pressed very well in terms of “success”; Overall only a result about half to less than two-thirds the time, while Orlando forced a Portland turnover (as opposed to a drop or retreat) slightly less than a third of the time (nine of the 28). Portland slightly less; 13 of their 43, or about 30% of their presses.
2) I’m intrigued to see the Orlando press fading, and the Portland pressing growing, as the match went on. Makes sense, though; Orlando was chasing, Portland parking.
3) The Thorns most active pressers were Coffey (10 attempts) and Moultrie (8 attempts). Alidou tried six times, Hina four, and several others had three press attempts.
4) Coffey was only successful half the time, Moultrie slightly better, winning five of her eight. Alidou won half, too. The most successful were Hiatt and Reyes, winning all of their three press attempts. Hina-san won three of her four.
5) The Thorn most victimized by Orlando was Castellanos by a huge margin (eight attempts, five losses). Moultrie and Reyes were pressed six and five times, respectively, with Moultrie slipping her presser a third of the time (two of six) while Reyes won three of five.
6) What’s instructive is that the two Portland DMs were pressed only lightly; Hina-san four times, Coffey only twice, and Coffey slid away from one of the two. Hina lost three of her four defensive challenges.

The real bottom line is that Portland got an early goal and was able to make it stand up. Orlando needed to turn the ball over more, and closer to Portland’s goal (since the Thorns were cutting off their runs and service) and couldn’t.

Here’s the running tally:

Match (Result)	Opponent Press (Success)	Thorns Press (Success)
Utah Away (W)	28/12 (42.8%)	27/15 (55.5%)
Seattle Away (L)	32/23 (71.8%)	21/15 (71.4%)
Gotham Home (W)	28(20) (71.4%)	19(15) (78.9%)
Louisville Home (D)	34/25 (73.5%)	14/8 (57.1%)
Orlando Home (W)	28/17 (60.7%)	43/24 (55.8%)

More to come.

Corner Kicks

Two. Both laaate second half, both pure timewasting.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
90+5′	Moultrie	Short	To Coffey, who held the ball up for a time but was finally tackled and turned over.
90+10′	Coffey	Short	To Linnehan, but her touch was heavy and turned over nearly immediately.

Meh. Didn’t get anything, didn’t need anything.

Player Ratings and Comments

Alidou (71′ – +8/-0 : +2/-0 : +10/-0) Young Alidou did a lot more good defensive work than attack (five of her pluses are defensive, and FBRef has her with a cumulative xG of 0.14 off one shot). So not a bad shift on the day, but I’m not sure the whole “winger problem” is really solved. Ken still has more forwards than he can play because so many of them are center forwards and so few are true wingers.

I like what she brings, though, so I hope she continues to start to see if she can start bringing more attack.

Linnehan (19′ – +6/-1) A combination of “good work” (dangerous attack, tough tracking back) and “frustrating” (the missed chance to put this one away). I’m starting to like Linnehan more as a substitute, though, so let’s see if this continues to work.

Turner (71′ – +7/-0 : +2/-0 : +9/-0) Remember how we kept saying “Reilyn Turner is not a winger”? That’s because Reilyn Turner is a center forward, and when you play her there, she does what center forwards can do and good things happen. We’ve mentioned the holdup play, but she also got the assist and provided some danger going forward. Needs to put more of her rounds on target if she’s going to continue at the #9, but a good start.

Castellanos (88′ – +4/-2 : +3/-3 : +7/-5) I’d still like to see her 1) control the ball better in tight space; you’re supposed to be a #10, Deyna…”ball control” is kind of what they do, 2) hold onto the ball better (see the “pressing” stats, above), and 3) shoot better. Two shots off target? C’mon. If you’re going to start over players like Fleming or Hanks or Tordin, you need to show something more positive.

In fairness, this was much better from Castellanos that we’ve seen so far, though. So…

Hirst (~13′ – no rating)

Fleming (19′ – +2/-0) Saw out the win working hard. Nothing remarkable, but a good solid working shift.

Moultrie (96′ – +7/-2 : +5/-1 : +12/-3) Good game with the caveat that she had the same issue as Turner did. Moultrie took four shots, put only half on target, and got only 0.19xG (0.22 PSxG) out of them. I’m thrilled to see Livvy busting her butt on defense, but how about a bit more the other way? You can score, you have in the past…now?

Tordin (~5′ – +3/-0) This…

…was pure fun. Tordin took the ball into the far northwest corner and just played footsie with it to waste time and fuck with Orlando. She eventually drew two defenders but still nicked a corner kick out her little skill demonstration. The NWSL+ announcer mistook her for Sugita which was, indeed, quite the compliment.

Coffey (+8/-1 : +3/-0 : +11/-1) All the Thorns defenders – DMs and backs – share a similar issue with PMRs for this match.

The squad defended as a unit. Players marked well, moved to close down space, covered for each other, showing a level of communication and discipline and understanding I don’t think we’ve seen up to this point.

That meant that nobody had to make “big” defensive plays, though, of the sort that earn pluses. Sam Coffey had a night like that; good solid defensive work and useful passes. So, yes; Coffey had an excellent match. No, her PMR doesn’t look like that. But her real plus comes from the scoreline, and that’s all she needed to see.

Sugita (+14/-1 : +5/-0 : +19/-1) My pick for Woman of the Match again, providing service to the forwards and cover for the backline. I still kind of miss her in the attack, but she’s doing the hard work in back the team needs, so. Her clever footwork is always such a treat, you could say it’s almost Tordinesque.

Reyes (+5/-2 : +6/-0 : +11/-2) You takes your goals when you gets ’em, right? An xG of 0.1? Hah! Reina Reyes laughs at your xG. Reyes also laughs at your Ally Watt; she’s got that wench in her pocket.

Sofascore had Reyes as WotM by a huge margin, and if you agree I won’t fight that. She had a huge game, and the club owes her for the hours she spent in practice working on that shot. Brava, Reyes!

Perry (+5/-2 : +3/-2 : +8/-4) A couple of rookie moments, but overall? Another fine match from our kid centerback. I’m impressed both at her field vision and understanding with her unit; she’s a damn quick study. If she continues to start and play at this level I won’t be unhappy.

Hiatt (+4/-2 : +4/-2 : +8/-4) Perry’s progress has made Hiatt my “back I worry about”, though, and she did have some issues; caught lollygagging on the Banda run in the 11th minute, and was doing something (texting? ballwatching?) when Marta blew her doors off in the 28th minute.

But in general? Solid and, like her unit, kept Orlando in front of them and largely in check.

Obaze (89′ – +6/-1 : +1/-0 : +7/-1) As discussed, with Hiatt helped put a muzzle on Banda and Marta and kept them controlled most of the game. I wondered which centerback had “drawn the short fullback straw” before kickoff, but Obaze performed like she’d been running the touchline her whole life. Well done.

McKenzie (~12′ – no rating)

Arnold (+3/-0 : +3/-0 : +6/-0) For a match in which the opponent racked up an xG barely over one (if that; FBref has Orlando at 0.9 for the match) Arnold had to come up huge numerous times.

This included being alert to come off her line to clean out Orlando long balls such as the 1st minute clearance we mentioned above. Saves include the monster 28th minute block, the Watt 62nd kick-save, another couple of big blocks in the 65th minute, and a strong take off a looping Banda shoss in the 84th minute.

Coach Ken: Okay. You got me; big props for this one. The squad looked ready, well-drilled, confident, and cohesive. Finally figured out the whole “Turner is not a winger” thing.

(No, you don’t get credit for that. Seeing a battleship in the driveway doesn’t count as “perception”…)

Keep doing this and I’ll get off your butt.

But the reward for good work is more work! For you and the gang that’s a long two-week road swing; San Diego this coming weekend, then a long Champions Cup swing through Mexico, the back to California for Bay FC in early June.

BFC is kind of a mystery wrapped in an enigma (WTF is going on with the “investigations”, and Montoya?) but the Wave is outright good.

Get all the road points in San Diego?

Go ahead. I dare ya.

Final CommentS:

I yield to no one in my poor opinion of Corbyn May, the nincompoop CR responsible for the Racing atrocity here a couple weeks ago, but in some respects our guy Bensalah who called this one was – not worse! Christ, a chimpanzee would have called that Louisville match better than May did – but more frustrating.

For example, this…

..was a foul ON Sam Coffey, the one Haley McCutcheon is flipping over in the air like a bit of WWE kayfabe. And that was just the one.

Bensalah was wildly inconsistent, calling ticky-tacky little pushes while looking at stuff like this…

..and seeing not a full-on-studs-up-from-behind-red-card-worthy cleating but a business-as-usual foul and one that he considered barely caution-worthy. Notice the location of blue shirt in both screenshots? Yeah, it’s not like the guy wasn’t in position to see this stuff.

I get that officiating is subjective. But if you’re going to be subjective, at least be subjective in a consistent way. If you’re not going to protect the players, at least let them know they can protect themselves, can retaliate without fear of a sending-off.

Play by the rules, or play jungleball, but don’t play the rules one minute and jungleball the next. Give the players a chance to figure out what you’re gonna call and what you’re not.

If they don’t know? That’s going to affect the match, and is likely to get someone hurt.

And preventing that is the single most important part of your job.

Do your fucking job.

Also…

You know you’ve made the Big Time when even the mannequins at the “Fantasy” smutty clothing store across the street from the field are flying your colors.

Oh, my. “By Any Other Name”, indeed.