“Whoa, and it’s a hollow feelin’
When it comes down to dealin’ friends
It never ends.”
I wasn’t going to bother with this Women’s Concacaf match, and I still wouldn’t have bothered had not Rob Gale’s responses to the dreary 2-nil defeat on the UANL Tigres trashed pitch been so utterly, perfectly Ken:
“Thorns coach Rob Gale pushed back at the suggestion from a local media member after the game that the opening minutes were a “nightmare” for Portland.
“I totally disagree with that,” Gale said. “We controlled the ball. It was a set piece and a mistake. We camped out in Tigres’ territory the entire night, so it wasn’t a total nightmare.”
Gale asserted that the Thorns “…will learn from the experience,” but contended that his team was the superior side.
“I’m disappointed in the goals we conceded, they didn’t earn those goals,” Gale stated. “The second goal was just unfortunate and it gifted them the opportunity to control the game and slow it down. We’re a young team and we’ll learn from this, but the better team didn’t win tonight, I’ll argue that with anyone. We want to put this right in the next game.”
What makes it art is how well we the fandom know our Ken. Here’s a sample of the comments on the match thread:
Nailed it!
On the one hand, yes, it’s possible that the Thorns were “better”, in the sense of being better at “soccer-y-things” like passing and possession, than Tigres.
On the other…no. Fuck no.
“Better” in soccer is what the scoreline says you are, and the hosts grabbed a setpiece goal and an appalling Bella Bixby turnover and then relied on Portland to do KenBall Portland things – fail to finish, mishit passes, show a brutally ugly lack of understanding and coordination, freelance, just generally play like a rec league side meeting for the first time – to sit back, make that score stand up, and cruise to the Final.
UANL was the better team last night in the only way that counts.
The only reason I bothered to come here to even chat about this turd is how it screams of why I’m so hesitant to credit matches like Orlando here or Houston away as signs that “today is the day Rob Gale became Head Coach”.
Because we’ve seen this. Again and again, all the way back to Washington here in the Dead-Cat Bounce run of 2024. The squad comes out on fire. Plays well, looks good – intelligent, cohesive, informed – and dispatches their opponents. We smile and sit back, convinced that the organization has turned the corner.
The next game? Hot mess, just like this was. Possession without purpose. Grotesque defensive errors. Utter lack of coordination. Attacking futility.
And the signature issues of this season’s KenBall showing up all over the pitch. Castellanos at center forward? Check. Castellanos and Moultrie onfield together? Check. Turner as winger? Check. The whole mess resulting in mishit passes, turnovers, lack of quality chances, failure to finish the chances that are made? Check, check, check.
And Ken, after the beating, claiming to be the “better team” and that “we’re learning”, i.e. “the process is working”.
Jesus wept.
If there’s any one thing about this that I’m concerned about in a “more-than-the-usual-WFT-are-you-doing-in-training-Ken?” way it’s Bixby’s awful derp.
I’m not as convinced as a lot of fans that Bixby’s horrific 2023 was all about grief over her father. I think she’s got some fragility issues, and that each awful match built on the next to destroy her confidence until finally she was wrecked as a keeper, a hollow shell of the 2022 Bixby. I hoped that part of her post-partum rehab included working with a sport psychologist to help her with that.
The turnover in Neuvo Leon wasn’t just any old derp; it was genuinely horrific, and very much in the 2023 style. So I hope that Bix DID work with her psychologist and is shaking it off even as I type. Given how this season has gone, we need more 2022 Bixby.
But the bigger problem is that we still have the Ken of 2024.
And so long as we do, he’s gonna crap out crap like this.
I hope the FO gets that. And cares.
- Thorns FC: On Hiatus - June 8, 2025
- Tequila Sunset - May 22, 2025
- Thorns FC: Houston Wild Wings - May 20, 2025
For every step forward, we take a step back. Turner at RW? Castellanos at Striker? Nobody on the end of the passes from Hanks when she burns her defender to the endline? Its almost as if these things are connected.
I guess we just have to see what happens going forward, but the real telling story is going to be what the FO does in the next 3-4 months. Getting a real coach is the first step, because Gale simply isn’t cutting it.
I’m just going to enjoy Hanks on the wing, Sugita and her footwork on the ball, and Coffey being awesome. Perhaps I’ll even get to see Tordin play more.
Here’s the thing; like it or not, Ken has the team lying fourth, and tied with Orlando on points (they’re third based on GD). So for all that to us he’s “not cutting it” in the most fundamental metrics of sport – record, standings – he IS cutting it. If he takes this squad into the playoffs in third or fourth? I don’t see the FO canning his ass given the baked-in “we lost Wilson, Weaver, Muller, &tc…” excuse.
So I wouldn’t expect anything before October unless the squad craters the way they did last season – which wasn’t enough to get him fired, either..!
So…
I sincerely hope that the GM knows better than to think Gale is doing a good job with this team. I get that we are sitting in (now) fifth position in the NWSL, but the team is really underachieving. We, as fans of the Thorns, are in trouble if Agoos can’t determine that Gale is struggling as a coach.
I agree that Gale probably has until the end of the year, but I really hope (and expect) that Agoos is looking into improving the coaching staff.
I know it feels like the Gale Thorns are underachieving..but, again, does their record and results shout that in terms the FO can’t ignore?
Over Ken’s tenure the only top-four squad that’s owned us has been KC (0-2) and KC has owned everyone except Orlando. We’re 2W-1L against Orlando, 1-1 v Washington, and 1W-2L against Gotham. That’s fairly reasonable; our roster isn’t shockingly better top to bottom as any of them without Wilson, and you can kind of hand-wave away the end of 2024 if you try. If I’m the FO I’d love to see more, but given how 2025 has gone I wouldn’t be hating on that enough to sharpening knives for Gale.
So I think it depends on inside information we just don’t and won’t ever have; how plausible Ken appears to Agoos and the Bhathals, what are their plans, how do they see the club…
Obviously I hope they’re on the hunt for a really top tier HC. But I suspect we don’t know and won’t until this coming offseason at the soonest.
Spot on, Chief. Especially about Bixby- could turn out to be the worst outcome for the Thorns from that game
This team hasn’t won 2 league games in a row since Rob Gale’s 6 game winning streak ended. The last win of those 6 was on May 17th 2024. It has been over a year. We did win against San Diego in the league and then against Tijuana in the summer cup. We beat Orlando who already won the shield and then beat up on children up in Vancouver. Other than that a win has always been followed up by a loss or a draw.
The sad thing is in an effort to rest players I can see us going gangbusters against America in the 3rd place game only for the team to revert to Deyna centrally Turner on the wing, Moultrie forced to try and be everywhere all of the time, and completely fall apart against Bay.
God, I hope not. The third place game is REALLY worthless; we’re already knocked out of the WCC. To “play for pride” with a league tie coming up would be beyond stupid.
To me the real heartburn isn’t so much the run of form in terms of W/L, it’s the weird way that Ken seems to find a way to set up the team to play well, then sort of wander away from it. He sees the difference that swapping Castellanos out for Tordin or Turner at CF makes in Houston or against Orlando…then with Turner rested in Leon…swaps Castellanos back in!
I don’t get it; the differences that playing people in their strong positions seem starkly visible to me. But not to him, apparently. It’s so frustrating to watch.