Thorns FC: Road Rash

I’m going to make this a quick writeup, both because I’m not sure how much I (and we) can infer from last Wednesday’s 3-1 loss in San Diego, and because it was a brutally short-rest week and I’ve got another match to discuss before the coming weekend.

And because I came away with a much different impression of the San Diego match after watching the replay that I did after watching it live. At the time, well, let me quote myself on my initial impressions, from the match thread at Stumptown:

“1) Return of an unloved KenBall problem; slow passing/movement = reeeeal vulnerable to the high press = lots of turnovers, little possession.

2) The whole “well-organized defense” thing seems to have gone surfing or something. Both concessions featured opponents with WAY too much time and space on the buildup, failure to close down on attackers once inside the 18, failure to clear the ball away when that was an – or the only – option.

3) The return of the “formless attack” that was another unhappy KenBall feature. Lots of long lobs, lots of random running. The goal – pretty as it was – was pure Tordin hero-ball. Moultrie and Turner just not on the same page (hell, not even in the same book…)”

After rewatching this thing, though…

1. The “slow passing/slow movement” issue was not as big a problem as I’d thought. San Diego was faster and more deft, especially in tight spaces, but the differential wasn’t as gross as it had looked to me at the time. The San Diego press wasn’t nearly as effective as I had thought it was (in relative terms); it was still hampering, but the Thorns press – when activated – was almost as effective. Looking at them now, it…well, we’ll get there.
2. The Thorns defending had some bad moments (both the first-half Wave goals featured some pretty shambolic individual or small-group work; failure to close down Dudinha on the first, and a collective breakdown on the second) but, overall, the problems weren’t as comprehensive or systemic as I’d thought. There were some pretty big question marks about the midfield-backline setup, but the concessions were way more about moments than the system, and
3. The whole “formless KenBall attack” impression? I’m gonna stand by that. The Thorns have shown some upticks from 2025 so far this season but, far and away the least-improved portion of the team tactics has been the attack. It still relies on way too much dink-dink-boot-Route One/hero-ball.

I haven’t watched the Kansas City match here from last Saturday, so I’ll be curious to see if I have any revisions to make to my revisions from San Diego.

Instead, let’s get right to the match breakdown.

Short Passes

The stats reflect San Diego’s control of the match – its not entirely shocking that when you score in the second minute you can play keep-away and force your opponent to chase for the remaining 88+ – with possession running over 60-30 to SDW, and passing stats similarly lopsided (San Diego 87% of 567 passes, Portland only 72% of 293)

Sofascore’s “momentum” plot looks much the same. Lots of San Diego attack (meaning possession), lots of San Diego goals.

The xG plots? Same-same. First Chris Henderson:

I wouldn’t go that far.

Instead the first half looks like, well, what it was; mostly neither side getting much done in front of goal outside three moments, and even then the Dudinha goal looks more like a “what the fuck? How’d THAT go in..?” than the “huge xG individual effort” risers from Pietra Tordin at one end and Lia Godfrey at the other.

Then after the hour Portland – probably Coach Vilahamn, anyway – realizes they have to take risks and chase, and the San Diego chances start rising as they can then turn Portland over and counter.

Dudinha gets post in the 69th minute and Morgan Messner utterly stones Ludmila on the rebound – that’s the first big black riser in the second half – and the other is Melanie Barcenas scoring on a Route One breakaway in the 82nd minute and then, yeah, it’s lights out.

Here’s Carlisle-sensei with his “shot map”:

“Chaotic” is a kindly way to put that fucking rat-scramble. As I said, Portland’s defense wasn’t “nuked from orbit” last Wednesday. But when it fell apart, it reeeeally fell apart, fell apart as in “twelve monkeys fucking a football” apart, and, yeah, the 27th minute was just that bad.

Now Carlisle with the passing. First, Portland:

The shape of that shit! There’s a lot of KenBall looking crap there, particularly the utterly weird Shae Harvey-Jess Fleming-Tordin conjunction at the front of the center circle, but the whole thing is just bizarre; Marie Muller a step away from sitting on the bench, the Vignola-Obaze Double Star, whatever the misshapen Mimi Alidou-Olivia Moultrie-Reilyn Turner supposed-front-three is.

San Diego:

A big part of this that Carlisle-sensei doesn’t hit hard is Dudinha in Minute 2. “Goals change games” is a cliche for a reason.

One thing worth noting in particular is that San Diego did have a fair bit of success passing through Portland’s midfield as Vilahamn was forced to push them up to try and press/turn SDW over:

That combined with Portland having to go wide to avoid the good midblock Eidevall set up, and, later on, going to the three-back set (something that this squad hasn’t historically done well), and having those moments of disorganization in back, you tended to wind up with a lot of this…

…in the defensive third.

Turnover and over.

Here’s how things are going;

Opponent – Venue (Result)	Turnovers
Washington – Away (W)	26
Seattle – Home (W)	11
San Diego – Away (L)	29

Can you say “wildly inconsistent”, boys and girls? Ummm, yeah. From “not great but good enough to beat a staggering Spirit” to “wow terrific” against an 11-on-9 Seattle to “ugh kinda back in the shitter” in San Diego.

Especially in the critical first half; 20 of the 29. The Wave were tidier overall (17) and in the first half (7, to 10 after the break).

Several players were sloppy in San Diego. Moultrie turned over five times, Obaze four times, Vignola three-and-a-half, Messner two-and-a-half times. It’s worth noting, though, that three of Moultrie’s turnovers were long passes through the San Diego backline that were either too far for Turner to reach, or caught Turner flatfooted. Killed off attacks, but didn’t result in danger to Portland’s goal.

Hiatt only coughed up twice, but one was truly awful, a straight-up pass to Dudinha right in front of goal, but the Brazilian didn’t have a clean shot or any teammates to serve to, and her speculative cross was cleared. Still, another entry in my “Hiatt, girlfried, let’s talk…” diary.

Press!

Third match tracking 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”.

Both squads came out pressing, Portland more often but a bit less successfully; Portland tried a total of 44 presses in the first half (25 wins (so about 57%), 12 (27%) that turned San Diego over for gain). The Wave tried 25 total, winning 16 (64%) and gaining possession from 9 of them (36%).

With their foot firmly on the brake San Diego only pressed hard eight times in the second half (but won 75%, 6 of 8, and turned Portland over 4 times). Portland continued to press – 44 in the half – but even less successfully (15 wins, 34%, with only 5 turnovers, just over 11%) than earlier.

Match time	Wave presses (wins)(%)	Thorns presses (wins)(%)
0-47′	25(16) (64%)	44(25) (56.8%)
45-93′	8(6) (75%)	44(15) (34.1%)
Match Total	33(22) (66.6%)	88(40) (45.4%)

My thoughts:
1) Portland had to press after falling behind early (twice). Whenever you’re forced into a tactic it’s often easier for your opponent to nullify or react to it, making your chances of success less likely.
2) San Diego was also a bit quicker to space and more accurate with the passing, which helped them evade Portland’s press.
3) And because of both of those it made San Diego’s press more effective against the Thorns.
4) So while this match didn’t turn on pressing, once the Wave were solidly in control it made their press more effective at further-disconnecting Portland’s none-too-well-organized buildup and keeping their boot on Portland’s neck.

Here’s the running tally:

Match (Result)	Opponent Press (Success)	Thorns Press (Success)
Washington Away (W)	40(27) (67.5%)	69(41) (59.4%)
Seattle Home (W)	61(30) (49.1%)	35(20) (57.1%)
San Diego Away (L)	33(22) (66.6%)	88(40) (45.4%)

Yeah; the Thorns “high press” looked like that all too often.

Corner Kicks

Six, all long, two in the first half, four in the second.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
18′	Moultrie	Long	Into the scrum, cleared for a Portland throw-in.
37′	Moultrie	Long	Good delivery onto Turner’s head, but Turner headed poorly, side right.
55′	Moultrie	Long	Went over the scrum to Muller, who also headed wide.
72′	Moultrie	Long	To the far side of the pack again, onto a Thorns head again, this time Obaze who headed wide (again).
75′	Moultrie	Long	Same again, only Obaze’s looping header was cleared. The Thorns held possession, recycling several times, including a Wilson blocked shot, until Wilson got another crack and blasted into the upper deck.
87′	Moultrie	Long	Same again; this time Obaze’s shot was blocked and cleared out to Perry, whose low shot was saved by Freeman only after Pedelski was offside.

Five of six corner produced at least a shot, which is great, but only two on frame, which is not; Wilson’s block in the 75th minute and Perry’s, which would have been called back anyway, so very little actual danger from those shots.

This match looked like there was some sort of attempted “set play” – Moultrie kept serving to the far top corner of the 18 – but the resulting headed attempts were a mess, so not a really effective set play. Needs to be better.

Player Ratings and Comments

Tordin (+4/-0 : +1/-0 : +5/-0) So remember the Seattle match, where I complained about the lack of incision, the lack of organization, to the Portland’s forward line?

Okay, here’s where I complain about a bigger-picture issue to Portland’s roster construction. Specifically, that the Thorns have a lot of good (or better than just “good”) center forwards (Turner, Tordin, Wilson) but the rest are either rookies (Padelski), injured (Dufour, Weaver, Hanks), or just-not-that-good (Alidou, Castellanos). In particular, the ones who’re 1) good and 2) not injured are more center forwards than wingers.

So when you play a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 and bring on, say, Wilson, either she displaces another forward who isn’t a natural winger, as she did with Tordin in this match, or she has to play wide…which she can – it’s Wilson – but not as well as she does as a true #9.

Tordin’s skill at the nine was on display in the 8th minute, when she both created, and finished, a gorgeous pure striker’s goal, a little treasure of pure implacable aggression.

Other than that, though…the lack of organization and methodical buildup in the first half contribute a lot to Tordin’s low PMR outside the goal, while Wilson’s halftime entrance made her disappear in the second.

One of Vilahamn’s biggest challenges is figuring out how to unfuck the forwards.

Moultrie (+7/-6 : +6/-0 : +13/-6) It says a lot about Moultrie’s importance to this squad, and about this squad in San Diego that
1) Moultrie was far and away the best player on the pitch for Portland, while
2) having, by her own standards, a mediocre match in a road loss.

A lot of her first-half minuses were those long-pass-intended-for-Turner-giveaways that stopped after the break (hence the “-0”), but San Diego also did a good job of marking her out of the match (hence the low overall PMR). Go back up and look at the individual xG numbers on Henderson’s plot. See who’s not there?

Alidou (45′ – +1/-3) I don’t get it. Does Alidou have incriminating photos on one of the Bhathals or something? Is having a torrid affair with someone in the FO? I’ve been willing to accept that “Alidou does almost nothing” as her baseline. But this was poor even by that low standard, and she still got a start on the road and – as we’ll see in the KCC writeup – her bed-shitting performance in San Diego still didn’t move her ass to the bench for that match. WTF? Seriously.

Wilson (45′ – +7/-1) Sophia Wilson has the kind of quality that means she can play well in difficult situations, such as being down a goal on the road to a team whose tactics are working effectively. But she’s also only part superhero, meaning that if a part of her game isn’t 100% on – in this case, her shooting boots – that might not be enough to change the game state, and it wasn’t.

Also having the same formation/roster problems discussed in the Tordin comment above.

Harvey (45′ – +5/-4) and Castellanos (45′ – +2/-3) At least with the Wilson-for-Alidou move Vilahamn was replacing a sub-replacement-level performer with a genuinely dangerous player. Here?

The problem isn’t that Harvey is poor, or, for that matter, that Castellanos has not been consistently dangerous, but that while it made sense to replace the midfielder with an attacker when down a goal at the half, the available “attacking” replacement was a player whose NWSL form ranges from “meh” to “holy shit that’s awful”.

It’s not Vilahamn’s problem – this turd was put in his pocket by Karina LeBlanc, mostly – but it’s now his to solve.

Fleming (+5/-1 : +1/-3 : +6/-4) Like Moultrie, Fleming is crucial to the success of this squad. So when Fleming has an off day, as she did in San Diego, it hurts worse than, say, Harvey or Turner, having a bad day. Still worked hard, but was largely handled by San Diego’s midfield and disconnected to her teammates.

Turner (68′ – +5/-3 : +4/-1 : +9/-4) See “forward problem” above. Like Tordin and Wilson, worked hard but was hampered by a “system” that doesn’t showcase buildup and team goals in favor of free-lancing hero-ball, and Turner’s supersuit was at the cleaners last Wednesday.

Padelski (22′ – +2/-1) I can’t repeat myself on this often enough; the new gaffer can write himself a chapter in Thorns history if he can figure out how a use a mad level of midfield and forward talent – imagine having a roster with Wilson, Tordin, Turner, Fleming, and Moultrie (and, when they get healthy, Weaver, Hanks, and Dufour) all on it – in ways that get them working together creating team goals.

Just imagine…

Vignola (78′ – +6/-6 : +0/-0 : +6/-6) Not the roughest outing of the Thorns backline (that’d be Muller…) but made rougher by having Godfrey and Dali in her face for over an hour. So getting yanked for…

Perry (22′ – +0/-1) …wasn’t inexplicable. But it wasn’t really effective, either, in that it didn’t measurably help the attack and ended up getting Perry onfield for the Barcenas goal so her ice hockey plus-minus numbers take a ding.

The Perry Clan turning up at Snapdragon is the Cutest Thing Ever. No? Fight me!

Obaze (+2/-5 : +3/-2 : +5/-7) Speaking of hockey plus-minuses, pretty much all the Portland defenders have a piece of the clusterfuckery that shipped the first two San Diego goals. I didn’t see Obaze with any real howlers, but when the headless-chicken moments exploded she was running around flapping with the rest of the flock.

Hiatt (+1/-4 : +4/-1 : +5/-5) See above.

Muller (57′ – +4/-5 : +2/-3 : +6/-8) On the other hand…

Holy Hell.

Coming off a long layoff, plus having Dudinha and Ludmila all over her? I get it. That said…holy Hell. What a disaster. Her failure to close down Dudinha led directly to the 2nd minute concession and, from there, much of the following goat rodeo.

Let’s hope it was rust and something we won’t see again.

McKenzie (33′ – +2/-1) Stopped the bleeding, so. Still shipped a goal during her shift, so.

Messner (+3/-1 : +3/-1 : +6/-2) Hey, rook! How’s it goi…

…goddamn!!

Morgan Messner was lights-out in San Diego. Huge saves in the 27th and 38th and 68th and 70th and 82nd minutes or this would have been a blowout.

Mind you, your keeper having a play a blinder is not really a good thing.

Still. Wow. You’re my Woman of the Match, rook. Take an extra orange slice.

Coach Vilahamn: This is where I have to remind myself that it was only three games into the post-Ken Era, so seeing a lot of KenBall reappear shouldn’t be either shocking or irking.

Plus some of the things I thought I saw watching live turned out to be more my own dread than the squad’s problems. The defending was, overall, much better than I thought, as was the reaction to San Diego pressing. The attack? Mmmmyeah, that still needs work.

One bad day on the trot is just one bad day. So long as the squad continues on a positive trajectory? I’m fine with that.

Well, no, not “fine”. I hate dropping points, whatever the circumstances. But “fine” as in “let’s put a pin in that and move on”, which we’ll discuss in our next episode, “Everything’s Not Okay In Kansas City”.