I plan to discuss the roster in depth probably in January when we get started on our “Final Grades” series, but the past couple of weeks have seen the club make several roster moves, one a bit surprising, one a bit inconclusive, the others…very much neither.
Rob Gale
Out.
This caught me by surprise.
I assumed that making the semifinal would at least lock in the opening half of 2026 for our Ken. He’d done a bit more than he might have given the casualty list he was handed in 2025 (I’ve discussed why I don’t think he really “overachieved” in a significant way in the comments on the last post) but his tactics were never better than unfocused and crude and his squad never really seemed to develop a real understanding going forward, or come up with a way to keep possession and relieve pressure on the very-fallible backline.
That GM Agoos and the owners were too ambitious to settle for what he did bring was a pleasantly unexpected development.
Of course, clearing the deadwood out of the lumber room is just the beginning.
Now the club needs to replace him with someone who has a vision and technical skills to do more with the club, while retaining the “vibe” that pulled the squad together this past season. Who is a decent person, as well, since the lesson of Paul Riley (spit!) is that skills aren’t enough. Let’s not hunt up some genius-level manager with the soul of a pizza rat.
Sophia Wilson (Update 12/18)
Still talking. Re-signed.
Wilson exercised her one-year option for 2026. She’ll get something like $1M for her work, which seems entirely reasonable.
What’s kind of intriguing about this story is the-story-that-isn’t-part-of-the-story; the part that the “High Impact Player” proposal that the owners proposed after their meeting didn’t play in it.
In the initial post I suggested that Wilson and her agent were, sensibly, waiting on the league to raise the cap, or come up with an MLS-style “Designated Player” exemption, that would hand Wilson the Bhathals’ checkbook.
Instead, Wilson went for the option, and I suspect that’s because she or her agent or both got word of what the owners were going to propose, and, like the other players, responded with a hearty “fuck that shit”.
Because, frankly, the HIP Rule, as proposed, IS shit.
The MLS DP rule is simple; you the team declare someone a “DP”, you fill their pockets with gold.
This HIP nonsense is rolled into a chunky cluster of fuck by requiring the “high impact” player to have been selected to league Best XIs, or be picked as one of “WoSo’s Top 100 Players” by ESPN, or been capped for X number of minutes or several other ridiculously subjective and/or bullshit popularity contests the following “criteria” plus represent some fraction (I’m reading 12%) of their team’s total payout.
Update 12/23: Here’s more about what the league decided are the appropriate criteria for designating a “high impact player”:
- Player is on SportsPro Media Top 150 Most Marketable Athletes within the one (1) year prior to the current league season; or,
- Player is selected in the Top 30 in Ballon d’Or voting in the two (2) years prior to the current league season; or
- Player is selected in the Top 40 of the Guardian Top 100 football players in the world in the two (2) years prior; or
- Player is selected in the Top 40 of ESPN FC Top 50 football players in the world in the two (2) years prior; or
- Top 11 minutes played for the USWNT in the prior two (2) calendar years for field players for all competition types; or
- Top one (1) minutes played for USWNT in the prior two (2) calendar years for goalkeepers for all competition types; or
- Player selected as NWSL MVP Finalist within previous the two (2) league seasons; or
- Player selected to the End of Year NWSL Best XI First Team within the previous two (2) league seasons.
Here’s my problems with this:
1. It’s insanely Eurocentric. “SportsPro Media” is based in London, the “Ballon d’Or” is largely run out of two French sports magazines, France Football and L’Equipe, the Guardian is a British news outfit, ESPN FC is largely U.S.- and U.K.-based.
2. What’s not “UEFA” is “USSC”; the only cap minutes that “count” are for the USWNT.
3. Most of these are just popularity contests; the “Top 40”, “Top 50” and Ballon d’Or and the Best XI. The MVP, not so much, but that only takes in two players.
4. The “most marketable athletes” is just embarrassing. What? Why? That’s ridiculous, not even a “popularity contest”, more like a fucking beauty pageant.
Anyway, it’s still beyond idiotic, harder than Chinese algebra to figure out, and unsurprisingly the NWSLPA clapped back at it and good for them.
But outside of that nonsense, Wilson is on the roster for 2026, so that’s a step in the right direction.
Waivers/Releases
A total of five players from 2025 will be gone in 2026.
Laila Harbert’s loan ended without an extension, renewal, or contract offer, so she takes her 62 minutes over 4 matches (no starts) back to the Arse, or wherever she lands. I didn’t think we’d see enough of her to get a sense of what she does or how good she does it, we didn’t, and we won’t.
Four other players were waived:
Two fullbacks; Kaitlyn Torpey and Nicola Payne, and two midfielders; Olivia Katoa and Naomi Powell.
Powell is the simplest; she never had a role, never came close, never played a minute, and now is gone. Sad for her dream of playing professionally, but not surprising.
Katoa and Payne have similar career arcs.
Payne came from Paris St. Germain in 2024 and played quite a bit (just over 1,000 minutes in 19 matches), was injured in preseason 2025, lost her fullback spot, and became too deep on the chart to regain it. Presumably she returns to PSG.
Katoa was never more than real depth; 34 minutes in 5 matches in 2024, picked up a knee in October, then went on maternity leave in March 2025. Kind of the same story as Payne; got lapped by several other players while out for reasons one or another.
Torpey, on the other hand, played quite a bit in 2025; over 1,040 minutes, 18 appearances, 13 starts. My guess is that the big piece of her waiver was the Sugita-for-Vignola deal (which played into Payne as well, I suspect).
Assuming that Marie Muller returns healthy in April my guess is that the FO is thinking Vignola and Muller as the starting FBs, Reyna Reyes and Mallie McKenzie as reserves, with Isa Obaze as fifth reserve.
All four of those players are (and were in 2025) better than Torpey, so she became expendable.
What’s next?
I think the single biggest open question is the head coach.
We love to talk players because they’re the fun, bright, colorful moving objects. But the whole point to the manager’s (or HC, gaffer, whatever you call them…) job is to set up an overall fraemwork, vision, for how the team plays, and then train them to play that way.
So who we see play is going to depend a lot on how we see them play, and that’s the gaffer’s job. 4-3-3? 4-2-3-1? 5-3-2? Wilson at the #9? Castellanos at false #9? Moultrie at the #10? Wingers…Hanks and Weaver? If so, where’s the place for Tordin? Turner?
Do we need a stronger centerback than Hiatt to lead the backline? This season was the first we lacked a tower like Emily Menges or Sauerbrunn, and I think it showed…but what will the new HC think?
The bottom line is that the club is going to have to get the coaching hire right first. Then the new gaffer will have to work with the GM and the owners to straighten out the roster to get the club that she wants to play the way she wants it to.
And remember; camps open in, what, ten weeks or so? So the coaching hire can’t just be right, it has to be right quick smart to get the FO – scouts, agents, owners – rolling toward 2026 ASAP.
Can they do that?
We’ll just have to see…
- Notes on the silly season, part 1 - December 2, 2025
- Thorns FC: FWE - November 22, 2025
- Thorns FC: A damn nice thing - November 17, 2025
Getting the Coach is absolutely critical here. It really sets up everything else, and is likely more important than the Wilson decision. I would hope that Agoos has been working to identify who the next coach should be since he got here, since Gale wasn’t hired by him. If Agoos gets this right, the Thorns are in a great position to be a top team next year and going forward.
I really believe there is a lot of talent on this team, and if the coach can find a way to get them to play together as a team it could be special.
The “talent” part of the equation has always been true, though, and (outside of the 2016-2019 period when The Damned were the 1,000-pound gorilla of the NWSL and Portland had no real answer for them…) we’ve gotten to the top step only once.
So I think it’s even more critical than you state (and you stated that pretty clearly); the key is going to be a manager/HC that can get this squad to play like they’ve known each other more than a week, as well as showing that in things like passing and moving to space quickly, fluidly, and accurately. If you look back at the “possession” tallies from the last six matches you get a really good feel for how often the 2025 Thorns shot themselves in the foot with turnovers, either their own or forced by opponent’s press.
The thing with the whole “Agoos looking for a new gaffer” timeline is that I don’t think the FO could have been doing that until midseason at the earliest. Soccer is a small world, WoSo even smaller, and had the Bhathals put feelers out for a replacement I don’t know how word of that doesn’t get back to Gale, or the players, or both, and I can’t THINK of a better way to detonate morale during the run-in to the playoffs than that.
We’ll see – if there’s a solid HC hire in the next week? Then, yeah, maybe. But I’m not going to bet the farm on that. I think Agoos is going to have to get lucky, or turn out to be an exceptional GM, to turn up a new HC before the New Year.
FWIW…
I’m not even going to speculate on coaching hires. I see the Stumptown crew has a post up throwing out names like Denise Reddy and Laura Harvey.
I have NO fucking idea what 99% of those names would do here and am going to suggest that 99% of the STF crew and the rest of us know, either. To evaluate a potential HC hire (if done right) will take hours of hard work; viewing tape of their teams’ play, reading interviews and outside assessments of their technical and tactical skills, talking to people who know and have worked with or for them.
THEN sitting down with the finalists and digging deep into how the see their squad playing and how the Thorns roster fits with that…or not (i.e. where they see needs to fill…)
So floating random names? Why even? Unless it’s something like “Let’s try and steal Seb Hines!” Reddy? Who knows? No record in this league, and horses for courses, so…
The one name who’s mentioned in the STF piece who does?
Laura Harvey, and there’s a hard fucking no. Bad enough we have to watch 180 minutes of Sufferball every season. Bring that awful grinding negativity here? Fuck that noise. I’ll take fucking Montoya before Harvey. Ugh.
Wow, I didn’t read the STF article and didn’t know they even suggested Harvey. Please dear God no, for all the reasons you name. We can do better, much better. I don’t know the coaching landscape well enough to name anyone, but just about anyone would be better than Laura Harvey. Even if hiring her meant we win games – which I don’t think it would – I still wouldn’t want to watch.
After I made the same objections on the STF comment thread Phuoc replied that his reasons for adding Harvey to the list was the players’ liking and respect for her.
Which in itself is fine, but which only raises the subsequent question “Why Harvey rather than, say, Hines?”
I’m really over the whole “let’s hire someone the players like” thing. I get Norris because the Wilkinson implosion. But in hindsight making Ken permanent in midseason 2024 was an unnecessary own-goal based largely on the vibes and a dead-cat bounce, and we have the opportunity to rectify that now. Let’s not waste it!
The blogosphere is full of reports that Wilson has exercised her 2026 option. Supposedly the fee she’s looking at is something in the neighborhood of $1M, which is entirely reasonable for a player of her skills.
Now, as I think I’ve hammered on sufficiently up to this point, the question becomes “how does she and everyone around her play..?” which – as I think I’ve also pounded on enough – is almost entirely dependent on who the FO brings in to the technical box.
I’m not trying to minimize Wilson re-signing. That was an absolute must-do, a “put on your socks before putting on your shoes” kind of chore this FO needed to get right first.
But.
It’s JUST THE FIRST chore, and now the really hard part starts.
How does this club play her? Play around her? Support her? Use her as a weapon, and as a tool?
Remember that Norris had her in ’23, and Ken in ’24, and got knocked out short of the top step (indeed; Gale came damn close to finishing below the red line in ’24…) playing Wilson hero-ball.
So the head coach hire is still critical, Wilson or no. And we still have no idea where the FO is going there.
A: Wilson signing – I think this has a tremendous amount to do with the Rodman situation. Give Rodman a Mil a year and why does not Wilson get that. The league MUST resolve that or they lose 2 star players with STAR power. And that’s just stupid. The CBA has approved Rodman’s salary, why not Wilson?
B: Why not Wilson? If we don’t play hero ball, do we need her? Yes, I’d absolutely love to see Sophia in a Thorns uni next year. However, it felt like she wasn’t happy last year (read: the red card for stuffing the ball under her). Maybe that was Ken, maybe that was something else.
C: (and this is only because of Wilson’s Instagram,) maybe she just wants to be a mom? IDK. She has posted a ton of pics about her child and her home but nothing about getting back into shape for the season. No slight for any reason, maybe she wants not deal with football anymore. The contrary is that she has posted about Nike and other sponsors. I’m really up in the air about this.
Side note: did anyone else notice that on Dec1, we released Laila Harbert and on Dec. 2 the Thorns had a video celebrating her?
Silly season, indeed.
Or, I could be completely wrong: https://www.thorns.com/news/portland-thorns-forward-sophia-wilson-returns-to-rose-city-for-2026-season
I noted Harbert’s loan ended in the post. Given how little she was uses it’s hardly surprising, tho I’m also not surprised that the club gave her a little video. It doesn’t cost them anything and is a nice PR gesture to ensure the player remains fond of the club.
And as discussed, I think the coaching hire is still the single most important piece. It’s great that Wilson is back. But Norris had her for a year and got nowhere, so she’s not magic. We need a manager who can figure out how to use her – and her teammates – well.
The good news about Wilson re-signing is that the team should be loaded next year. A superstar at forward with potential up-and-coming stars around her. The Midfield is loaded with Coffey, Moultre and Fleming. If they can shore up the defense, or make it league average this team should be able to go blow to blow with any team in the NWSL.
At this point the coach is the lynchpin. Hopefully having Wilson back makes it an easier sell.
I think Portland is a tough gig for a WoSo manager.
Expectations are wildly high here; playoffs are expected, championships highly anticipated. Anything less is seen as failure, or at the very least underperforming.
Contrast that with ACFC or San Diego or KCC. How long has ACFC been just kind of faffing around in LA? Four years now? Is anyone looking at ACFC as an underperforming club?
This club has often had a roster staffed with outstanding players; the 2013 champs, Riley’s (spit) 2015 squad, Parsons’ clubs from 2016 through 2018, the ’22 champions, Norris’ 2023 squad…we’ve never had a true “rebuilding” (i.e. bereft of real quality) season.
But has this team ever been the monster of the league?
Maybe in 2016…but That Rat Bastard Marco Vega shiked them out in the semi.
2018? Riley (spit) had our number all season.
So I won’t disagree that the 2026 roster has the potential to be stacked with quality. Will that mean anything in terms of “running the table”?
So far it hasn’t.
We’re just going to have to see who the FO brings in to run this outfit.