The Thorns have started on their 2026 campaign for NWSL silverware; the squad reported for training this week.
With one exception; the new permanent head coach.
Presumably Sarah Lowdon will run the practices until the new hire is announced, but RAJ Sports hasn’t made any sort of move to identify her (or anyone else) as interim manager, so I’m also presuming that the plan is to have someone in place prior to either the regular season (when it begins in March), or possibly before the preseason games (in February).
Whether that’s a realistic presumption? I have no idea.
I’m kind of intrigued by the state of the roster, and how, like the tale of the elephant and the blind men, it seems to look very different depending on how you look at it and what you believe when you do.
Stumptown’s Sam Sivlar just posted something about how this is a critical year for both Portland professional soccer clubs, the Thorns because:
1. “This Thorns roster is championship-caliber”, and
2. It’s likely the final year we’ll see Sophia Wilson in Thorns…well, whatever color we’ll see her in (I’m hoping not fucking Doritos orange; 2025 was Year Two for that atrocity, and typically Thorns kits have a two-year lifespan. We’ll see.)
I won’t disagree on Wilson, but as far as his Point #1 goes…wellllll…
Let’s take a look at this “championship-caliber” roster, shall we?
As of tonight the Thorns website lists the following players as signed for 2026. Players with the tag (SEI) were out with injury at the end of 2025, players with (R) are college players signed this offseason:
Forwards: Sophia Wilson. Caiya Hanks (SEI), Deyna Castellanos, Maddie Pedelski (R), Pietra Tordin, Morgan Weaver (SEI), Mimi Alidou, Julie Dufour (SEI), Reilyn Turner, Alexa Spaanstra, Valerie Loboa
Midfielders: Olivia Moultrie, Shae Harvey (R), Jessie Fleming
Defenders: Reyna Reyes, Isabella Obaze, Sam Hiatt, Marie Muller (SEI), Jayden Perry, M.A. Vignola, Daiane (LOAN), Mallie McKenzie
Goalkeepers: Bella Bixby, Makenzie Arnold, Morgan Messner
If that’s championship material if may be the most lopsided goddamn champion thing I’ve ever seen.
The one unit I’m not particularly stressed about is the keepers.
I know, I know. The Arnold Haterz Klub is gonna be all up in my grille about that.
But numbers don’t lie. The Thorns keepers in 2025 conceded 29 goals on an post-shot xG against of 34; both values were fourth-best in the league (behind KC, Gotham, and Orlando, not bad company there).
Bixby was a trifle better in her 7 matches (4GA on a PSxGa of 5.6, so +0.37GA/90) than Arnold was in her 19 (25GA from PSxGa of 25.4, so +0.23GA/90) but compare both of them to the best starting keepers in the league:
Lorena (KC, NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year): 13GA, PSxGa 18.2, +0.26GA/90
Ann-Katrin Berger (Gotham): 21GA, PSxGa 20.6, +0.11GA/90
Anna Moorhouse (Orlando): 26GA, PSxGa 27.1, +0.08GA/90
Jane Campbell (Houston): 22Ga, PSxGa 25.8, +0.22GA/90
and the actual 2025 Keeper of the Year?
Claudia Dickey (Seattle): 29GA, PSxGa 39.9, +0.46GA/90
So the keepers are fine.
But forward of that?
I know we’re worried about centerback, but to me it looks like the starting backline is in pretty decent shape…if Marie Muller is fit and if the current centerbacks step up. If so, the Thorns have three solid starting fullbacks (Reyes, Vignola, Muller) and three starting-ish centerbacks (Perry, Obaze, Hiatt).
Would I like a better centerback? Yes. I’m not at all convinced by Hiatt, and Perry and Obaze are pretty much replacement-level or a bit better. Daiane and McKenzie are pure depth.
Moving up the pitch, though, the two other units couldn’t be more different.
In midfield we’ve got two excellent – if not “championship-caliber” at least very good starting midfielders, a #10 (Moultrie) and a #8 (or 6/8, Fleming). Harvey is a pure rookie, so who knows?
But only two. That’s it. So call it two starters and a reserve.
Forwards? Christ, they’re all over the place…if a bunch of knees are rehabilitating and if a bunch of people have a better 2026 than they had in 2925.
Wilson, obviously. Turner and Tordin, solid starters. Castellanos was a repeated Gale starter who didn’t really perform well as such, but might be a decent reserve. Alidou and Spaanstra are very much the same; not really starters but not awful as depth. Loboa? Who knows, and Pedelski , no idea.
But if Hanks and Weaver and Dufour are healthy and in form? Who needs midfielders? Fuck it, play a 4-2-4!
Kidding aside, though, the weird distribution of resources; decent keeping and fullbacks and Wilson, but no midfield (and, in particular, no real #6), forwards all over hell but with injury/rehab questions all over the best forwards (and a bunch of somewhere-between-question-marks-and-dead-weight), three not-particularly-dominant centerbacks?
I’m not saying you can’t…but I have no idea how the hell you forge a “championship team” out of that mess.
Fortunately, it’s not my job.
- Notes on the Silly Season 2.5 Redux: Well…….? - February 1, 2026
- Notes on the Silly Season: Not So Silly Anymore - January 19, 2026
- Notes on the Silly Season, Part WTF!? - January 8, 2026
Losing Coffey really changes the outlook of the team in 2026, as she is one of the all-world players in the game right now. Even with the return of Wilson it simply makes the roster change an even swap (in the sense of an elite player replacing an elite player). But adding in the positional difference it becomes more of a problem for the team and new HC. Wilson missing last season allowed Turner, Tordin, and even Hanks to step on as forwards. We simply don’t have any players on the roster who can step up as our next 6, unless you want to assume a NRI midfielder can do the job. With Coffey the roster was championship level, without her it is simply a good roster.
My biggest concern right now would be seeing the midfield shifted backwards with Fleming at the 6, Moultre at the 8 and Castellanos at the 10. That is a nightmare scenario unless each player really changes how they play. Hell, I would rather see something like Reyes/Mueller filling in the Coffey role until the FO can find an actual replacement. This is one of the reasons I have been hoping the team would sign a rotational level defensive mid the past year. I didn’t expect Coffey to leave, but that type of player would be able to fill in if/when she wasn’t available to play. Now it is critical to find someone who can as a defensive mid.
I think we will just have to see, both how (or if) Agoos and Carr can scout and sign a starting #6 and an upgrade at CB, and what the new manager does with the existing roster and those signings if they occur.
I’m not sure that even with Coffey things would have been on a direct track to another Shield. The midfield-forward balance is still WAY off – too many #10s – and too many post-injury fitness questions at winger. We’d have been in better shape, yes, but I still don’t see us as a complete lock and that’s without even knowing who’s going to be driving this bus.
The club has another couple of months to sort things out. Then…we’ll see.
I thought we had an excellent pre-season roster, one with some holes to fill (top-level centerback, more backup midfielders) but they seemed fillable. But the departure of Coffey changes all that; we’re not going to get a replacement of her caliber and that will have repercussions all over the field. I still think we can compete but it’ll be a lot harder.
Plus I love watching Coffey play, so I’m not nearly as high on this season as I was before. Hopefully this will change once the games start and I get to watch some Thorns soccer again.
P.S. We’ll have Daiane for at most half the season, since her loan to Monterrey stretches to July 16. But I don’t think we’ll even see her that much – I’m expecting her transfer to become permanent at some point.
And she’s depth even if she stays here.
See my reply above. While I agree in part – you don’t lose a player of Coffey’s quality without suffering a drop in form – the head coach might have some ideas we haven’t thought of yet.
I think I said in one of the earlier silly season posts that I thought this coming season had a wide range of potential outcomes, from bossing the league to “rebuilding”. I still believe that. There’s just too many moving parts, and I’m not sure we will even have a clear idea by midseason.
I will say that without Coffey, the likelihood of the team bossing the league has all but disappeared. We could have a dominant offense that masks a lot of the defensive shortcomings, but I don’t see how this team as constructed doesn’t give up goals. Of course, that might make for a really fun season of high scoring games!
What makes me unwilling to completely abandon the possibility that this outfit runs the table is the sheer number of moving parts. The existing roster. The possibility of signings. The huge unknown of the future head coach’s abilities. The rest of the league! Will KCC be the KCC of 2025? Will Seattle be the Seattle of 2025? Plus two expansion sides!
Yes, losing Coffey hurts our chances of being a lockdown defensive club…probably, almost surely…but how badly? Regaining Wilson (and maybe Weaver, Hanks, and Dufour) helps our chances of scoring…probably, almost surely…but how much?
I fall back on my mantra “Soccer is the teamy-est of team sports”. It’s damn unusual for a single player to grab a squad, or a season, by the throat. Maybe if you’re Messi or Chawinga…or maybe Coffey. But we frankly won’t know until we see this squad on the pitch, and – since AFAIK we’re still not quite in the final descent to landing a new gaffer – maybe not even then.
So my thought is “Keep calm and soccer on.” If we implode because we lost one player – every a worldy like Sam Coffey – then we had more problems that we thought we had to begin with.
In another episode of “Why Does This Fucking Plutocrat Have His Hand In My Wallet”, OPTA cut off access to advanced player data from FBRef. No more xG, xGa, PSxG, keeper goals prevented…not for free. You could buy it from OPTA, if you have some spare change left from your last yacht purchase; it’s crazy (as in “thousands of dollars”) spendy.
So…one more piece of “The People’s Game” put out of reach of most people. One more sonofabitch who demands they get hit in the palm to do anything. One more paywall. One more damn thing.
I’ll try and figure out something.