Thorns FC: Luck Runs Out

The past several match reports have followed the Thorns on their three-match-week odyssey of home-and-road wins, and each one has been, I think, a bit nervier and more skittish than the last.

At the end of April the opponents were Angel City, and the Thorns dispatched them handily, albeit by having to pack it in and slog for a bit.

Then at the beginning of May San Diego came here midweek and Portland dropped a 2-nil hammer on them despite underwhelming in nearly all the metrics.

Finally it was Chicago’s turn, and by the same score…but all the little cracks in the Portland edifice – randomish, freelancing hero-ball attack, scary amounts of open space in midfield and the back, late-match dropoffs in pressure and attacking brio – seemed a bit wider each time.

The Thorns had almost a week to recover after that, though, and their next victim opponent was the even-more-hapless-than-Chicago bottom feeder. Racing Louisville.

So while I won’t pretend I was “confident” I thought that Portland could scrap out a road win somehow and then kick back and enjoy a more-than-a-week’s-rest before facing the Weeping Angels in the reverse fixture here this coming Sunday.

So when Sophia Wilson ran onto a long Olivia Moultrie pass in the 6th minute and coolly slotted the opening goal underneath Racing keeper Jordyn Bloomer I think I can forgive myself for thinking “Okay, we got this. Now let’s press ’em back and grind out the win” only to find that…

1) Portland’s press wasn’t there. The line of confrontation against Louisville – opposed to against Chicago where the Thorns dispossessed the hapless “Stars” so close to their goal it was practically in their own dressing room – was barely halfway to the midfield stripe when the press wasn’t absent altogether.

We’ll go over this in detail in a bit, but of Portland’s total of about 62 “presses” I recorded only 11 inside Louisville’s defensive third, and of this only two produced a turnover.

I’m not sure how much of this was by design (Coach Vilahamn sitting in a low-mid block to grind out the road game?) and how much was the cumulative effect of four matches in 12 days, but the cascade effect was that…

2) Portland was unable to produce much of anything going forward. Playing direct Wilson latched onto a couple of long boots – the goal and another that Gigi’s mom shanked wide – in the first eight minutes, and after that the Thorns did put together a buildup or three.

Unfortunately Portland just couldn’t string any of those buildups long or far enough; there was always a breakdown somewhere along the way.

Here’s a good example from the 32nd minute, beginning with a Sam Hiatt pass up to Reyna Reyes.

Nice, right? Reyes has a lot of green in front of her and uses it, until she sees Pietra Tordin open in the right channel and, in turn, hits her.

Tordin pushes towards midfield but is confronted by a wall of green shirts; she sees Moultrie open inside the center circle and knocks a flat pass over to Livvy.

You can’t see her in the screenshot above but when Moultrie’s head comes up she sees Reilyn Turner tear-assing up the left channel. The opportunity to break Louisville’s line is there!

But…

…Moultrie’s pass is undercooked and way too far inside, forcing Turner to turn back to receive it. By the time she does Louisville’s defense has solidified, Turner is tackled and then fouls trying to break away, and the “attack” is done.

This sort of thing – underhit or mishit passes, late or missed runs, shanked shots – meant that Portland wasn’t keeping Louisville busy defending, so the Whiskey Chicks could spend their time ensuring that…

3) Louisville’s press was savage and effective. We’ve seen this before; one of my constant whines about Rob Gale (and Mike Norris before him, and going back as far as the late Parsons period) was that Portland tended to fall apart when pressed.

Typically if a high press is layered (i.e. the pressing team has effective depth, covering the spaces behind the line of confrontation) and coordinated along the line of pressure the pressed team has to either a) pass out quickly and accurately while the players off the ball move quickly to open space to receive that pass, all the while scanning for teammates who are themselves moving to get open in turn – in other words “tika-taka”, the classic Barcelona “triangles” – or b) go direct over the press to deep-running forwards and AMs.

Portland…has never played tika-taka well, and seldom tries. Thorns “style” – again, going back to Parsons – has always been more deliberate, back-and-forth, probing for openings rather than making them. “Dink-dink-boot” was what I called it, because often the final pass was a long downfield “boot” when no openings were found.

In Louisville the Racing press kept Portland from putting together much of any sustained possession and, as noted, little productive attack at all. The “dink-dink” was forced back or turned over, the “boot” was intercepted, or the receiving player immediately closed down and turned back or dispossessed.

Here’s Sofascore’s “attacking momentum” plot:

Ouch. Ain’t shit for blue there after the first 10 minutes or so, is there?

And, as we noted in Chicago,

4) Louisville found space to work in behind Portland’s backline. Which included lots of passing through the gaps in Portland’s scattered and disconnected midfield, like this example in the 38th minute, which begins with Ella Hase dribbling up the Thorns right touchline. Note, please, Makenna Morris making what looks like a jog towards the top of the 18 but marked by M.A. Vignola.

Within one second, however, Hase bypasses four Thorns with a pinpoint lead pass whilst Morris sprints into space to receive it.

Well, shit! Luckily for Portland that time Sam Hiatt sprinted out wide to block Morris’ shot but had to conceded the corner.

Ironically, with all this Portland vulnerability to pressing and through-balls, the Thorns’ concessions were almost all from one-off breakdowns rather than this sort of smart pass-and-move play.

The first O’Kane goal was off a cross into and panic inside the box, a frantic scramble in front of goal that saw a breakdown of Portland marking.

Here’s the buildup just moments before. Jessie Fleming has picked up O’Kane drifting in from her spot at DM.

But as the ball crashes into the box Fleming and O’Kane collide, both trying to get a head to it. Neither can, and instead the ball scoots through to Lauren Milliet.

On separating, though, O’Kane and Fleming have turned opposite directions, and, worse, Fleming has gotten tangled up with Calzada and lost track of O’Kane.

I tried to get a screenshot of that – as O’Kane drops free Fleming literally looks around to find her like a woman peering around to see where she’s put her car keys – but Milliet sure didn’t miss that opportunity.

She picks out O’Kane, slips the ball to her, O’Kane fires through the tangle of legs past Arnold and it’s all square less than a quarter-hour in.

Louisville’s second was over an hour later; beginning with a poorly-judged Hiatt tackle and ending with a a gorgeous free kick golazo that gave O’Kane her brace.

The third? Pure second-half-injury-time comedy gold; Calzada bonked a…clearance? Forward pass? Something, anyway, that rebounded off Emma Sears straight back past the rook. Sears ran it down, carried it forward, and potted it inside Arnold’s right post for the “don’t forget to tip your server” lights-out.

Ugh.

So kind of the Perfect Shitstorm. Long-term tactical (and roster) issues. Failure to correctly assess the what in the Army we called the opponent’s “most dangerous course of action”; in this case, hard, high pressing and opportunistic chance-creation. Mental and, possibly, physical fatigue.

Result; second loss of the season and thus endeth the lesson.

Short Passes

This is one of those “possession without purpose” markers; with slightly more time in possession (52-48%) Portland out-passed Louisville handily, completing 81% of 416 passes to Racing’s 78% of 364.

From all that? Gained…

…0.5xG and two goals less than the home side. Our turn in the barrel, indeed.

Here’s Henderson’s xG race that gives a bit better context to Carlisle’s “four quality shots”. They weren’t actually four quality shots; they were four quality shot locations, only one quality (and that not a high-percentage) finish:

Here’s Carlisle-sensei with the passing. First, Portland:

Yeah, the overlapping DM circles? That’s a giveaway.

After Chicago I wrote:

“But the whole “generated six good chances and only finished one”? The Thorns have been riding their high-GF-relative-to-xG differential through the whole early season. But, like any kind of “odds”, those sorts of skews tend to even out over time, and…”

In Louisville it was “created four, finished one”, so, yeah.

Louisville:

Just as the pushed-back, lopsided Thorns formation shows the effects of the Louisville press, this pretty pattern shows how little the Thorns’ pressure (or more accuaretly, the lack of pressure) did to disrupt Racing’s tactics.

The degree of penetration Hase worked on Portland’s right-side midfield and defense (Tordin, Bogere, and Reyes – and the extent to which Fleming had to shift over to cover for Bogere getting skinned) is wordlessly shouted by Hase’s position. That’s spawnkilling at it’s most brutal.

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
Kansas City – Home (W)	23
North Carolina – Away (D)	25
Angel City – Away (W)	22
San Diego – Home (W)	17
Chicago – Away (W)	32
Louisville – Away (L)	25

Like rain on your wedding day, sometimes turnovers are ironic. Despite recovering from a sloppy day in Evanston, the relatively lower number of mistakes in Louisville was 1) still substantially more than Racing’s total of 13, and 2) too much to concede easily at a time when the Louisville press was denying Portland’s attack.

Everyone took a turn coughing up the ball; Calzada, Fleming and Moultrie with three losses each, Hiatt with two-and-a-half, several people with two.

Calzada-to-Sears-to-Goal #3 was obviously the most appalling.

Press!

Ninth 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”.

The mirror image of Chicago; Portland with only 62 total presses, 29 in the first half (only 14 wins – 48.3% – and 4 ball-winning turnovers), 33 (21 wins – 63.6% – and 7 turnovers) in the second. Louisville went nuts; 101 total, 58 first half (38 wins – 65.5% – and 4 turnovers), 43 second half (32 wins – 74.4% – and 9 turnovers).

As we noted above, the other huge difference was depth. In Chicago Portland was camped on Naeher’s goalmouth, in Louisville, almost back at the midfield stripe. At the other end Louisville attempted over half – 53 of 101 – of their presses in Portland’s defensive third.

Yep. That’ll do it.

Match time	Racing presses (wins)(%)	Thorns presses (wins)(%)
0-47′	58(38) (65.5%)	29(14) (48.3%)
45-97′	43(32) (74.4%)	33(21) (63.6%)
Match Total	101(70) (69.5%)	62(35) (56.4%)

My thoughts:
1) As we discussed above, I’m not sure whether this was a case of Portland “wouldn’t” (Vilahamn deliberately set the confrontation line deeper) or “couldn’t” (the cumulative effect of 360+ minutes of soccer in twelve days). Whichever, it worked like lead water wings.
2) Racing coming out with a high press was so expected that even the usually-gormlesslly-clueless announcers knew it enough to keep chattering about it.
3) So you’d think that the Portland coaching staff would have, too, and worked on means and methods of countering – counterpressing, passing around, or lobbing over – that expected tactic.
4) Well..?

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%)
Kansas City Home (W)	26(15) (57.6%)	43(23) (53.4%)
North Carolina Away (D)	35(22) (62.8%)	56(26) (46.4%)
Angel City Away (W)	52(37) (71.1%)	61(32) (52.4%)
San Diego Home (W)	45(71) (63.3%)	45(80) (56.2%)
Chicago Away (W)	68(34) (50%)	97(51) (52.2%)
Louisville Away (L)	101(70) (69.5%)	62(35) (56.4%)

Corner Kicks

One.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
90+3′	Moultrie	Long	Into the scrum, cleared.

Both the paucity of corner kick attempts and the sorry production are what happens when your opponent has their boot on your neck. Selah.

Player Ratings and Comments

Wilson (+7/-2 : +7/-2 : +14/-4) Got the one through pure hero-ball, had another couple of almosts; the 8th minute shank and a 91st minute interception-and-attacking-run that ended when Wilson failed to slide the pass to Moultrie open beside her and was, instead, tackled and stripped. By that time I’m thinking Wilson was on fumes and just not capable of doing anything but bulling ahead.

But there are other issues here, which we’ll have to ponder as we consider…

Turner (45′ – +8/-4) and Alidou (45′ – +4/-1). Because as we keep banging on about; these forwards aren’t wingers. They’re mostly, by training and by inclination, center-forwards. And when you put three center-forwards in your attack, your attack often looks like this:

That’s narrow as a knife blade, and way too fucking easy to Louisville to close down. This 62nd minute attack was promising, too; direct, Hiatt hoofing out of the back to Tordin with the burners lit, Turner receiving the pass well behind the Racing midfield.

But the back four were still to beat, and as you can see, both Alidou and Wilson were running inside, not wide, so Tordin had no passing option. She had to try and dribble through the swarm of green shirts in front of her and was, as you’d think, brought down and dispossessed.

This is something that other opponents are seeing, and for which our coaching staff needs to figure out a workaround.

One other thing to note: this wasn’t quite “Bad Alidou”, but the problem of Alidou’s lack of shooting skills really stood out in Louisville. The Thorns did some business in the 56th minute, beginning when Moultrie took the ball off the feet of Kayla Fisher, fed Wilson, who ran up the gut to draw the defense, and slid the ball to her left to a wide-open Alidou.

Alidou’s “shot” was a ridiculous softball that blooped right into Bloomer’s gloves.

You can’t fucking miss those sorts of chances. Not ever. Not like that.

Moultrie (+12/-4 : +7/-1 : +19/-5) Picked up the assist, but otherwise not really a threat. Lots of other good work, and with a frontline like Wilson/Tordin/Turner shouldn’t have to be involved in every goal-scoring opportunity. Tough result for a hard evening’s work.

I’m still pretty skeptical about the non-call in the 37th minute that Muhammad Hassan didn’t bother with even reviewing; sure looked to me like Moultrie went down from a shove from behind while attacking hard at the top of the box.

Tordin (64′ – +6/-1 : +1/-2 : +7/-3) I had her with a weak shot in the 19th minute, but OPTA doesn’t agree, crediting her with nothing (noting here that Alidou and Turner show only one shot each, and only Alidou’s sad blooper was on-frame).

Some of this is Louisville defending and stifling Portland’s attack. I think some of this is the “Wilson Effect”; when you have a Sophia Wilson, you tend to push as much as you can onto her. Sometimes that makes perfect sense; she is that good.

Sometimes it just puts a target on Wilson’s back and allows the opponent to shut her, and the Thorns, down.

Muller (26′ – +2/-5) And here’s where we come back to the whole “is this roster built right?” question that keeps popping up for stuff like this.

As Tordin’s PMR shows, she was gassed by the hour and fairly bereft of attacking ideas all match. A substitute was visibly, obviously called for.

But who was on the bench to replace her? Castellanos – a whole ‘nother nutroll – was already subbed in, leaving just a couple of rooks, Padelski and Lyles.

So instead we got wingbackforward Marie Muller, that worked about like you’d expect. Three of her five minuses are for defensive positioning failures as the poor woman tried to adapt her fullback repertoire to a sort of mid-winger spot on the field and got spun instead.

That suggests the answer to the question is “it does look like there are some problems…”

Bogere (52′ – +3/-3 : +2/-0 : +5/-3) My heartburn with Cass Bogere in Louisville wasn’t so much that she was having an off day (though she wasn’t playing very well) but that when the Thorns were ceding Louisville lots of time and space to build out of their own half Portland needed the DMs to be everywhere all the time, cutting off passes and intercepting runners.

Instead Racing passed, and ran, through Portland’s midfield like they were alone on the pitch. Bogere was so ineffective that Fleming had to shift to her right to cover enough of Bogere’s ground to try and control things there. That just made it harder for…

Fleming (+4/-2 : +6/-3 : +10/-5) …who was just stretched too far and it showed in her play, with Fleming making some goofs like the O’Kane failure-to-mark we illustrated above. Tough day for both the DMs when the club needed them to be on top of everything. Well, they and their whole club payed the price.

Castellanos (38′ – +3/-3) All the things I wrote about Muller and then some.

The acquisition, and persistence, of Deyna Castellanos has become an increasingly fraught question hanging over this organization. Regardless of her potential or possible value, she’s currently a nullity. She doesn’t have a starting role, and she doesn’t really have the kind of late-match, game-changing skills that would make her a good substitute, either.

I kind of hate to write this, because she seems like good people, but whenever I see her number on the lineup card or the fourth official’s substitution toteboard, the old expression we used in the Army about someone who had a similar problem finding a role to play in an organization; “I’ll trade you him/her for a case of C-rations and a hundred rounds of blank ammunition and it you’re hard up, you can owe me the C’s and the blanks.”

Reyes (88′ – +3/-3 : +8/-1 : +11/-4) Took a while adapting to Hase’s pace, which led to some problems including the initial service on the first Louisville goal. When she did, things on Portland’s right stabilized…to a point; it was her failure to take on Hase that set up the Hiatt foul and the O’Kane brace. So not a great outing.

A defense that ships three goals cannot be said to have had a good day, but Reyes wasn’t really that big a part of that problem.

Padelski (2′ – no rating)

Hiatt (+1/-1 : +3/-3 : +4/-4) Hiatt, on the other hand, kind of was part of the problem, including the crude tackle on Hase. The problem with that is that Hiatt is, effectively, the Emily Menges/Becky Sauerbrunn figure for the 2026 backline. That means she doesn’t have to be perfect, but she needs to be the best, most composed, most situationally-aware player in the backline.

That doesn’t look like it’s happening.

Calzada (+1/-3 : +4/-4 : +5/-7) How’s that pro career lookin’ for ya now, rook? Tough gig, eh? Fucking hard way to make a living, throwing it all out there in front of a crowd of thousands (okay, maybe hundreds if we’re talking Houston or Chicago, but y’know what I mean…) who get to scream at you about your slightest mistake.

I love that you’re out there, giving it your best, living that dream of pro glory. But you had to know there’d be days like this; sometimes the bear gets you, and sometime the furry bastard grabs your ass, chokes the shit out of you, throws you off a cliff, lands on you with all fours and fucking stomps you flat as fuck.

And then you wake up the next day and go to practice.

Vignola (87′ – +4/-2 : +4/-3 : +8/-5) Like her backline sisters, not a great day. No individual horrors, but just overrun and outplayed in a tough loss.

Perry (3′ – no rating)

Arnold (+2/-1 : +1/-1 : +3/-2) Big save in the 11th minute to deny Fisher, and a good high vault to pick a dangerous cross off in first half injury time and another in the 57th minute. Probably could and should have done better on the Sears goal, but not going to beat her up too hard about it.

Coach Vilahamn: We’ve been going through the First Week of May Hellscape looking at these seemingly-increasingly-improbable victories like a party of adventurers creeping into the lowest level of the dungeon.

Every creepy noise that was just the drafty walls, every sprung-trap-barely-avoided, every huge shadow that turned out to be nothing but a two-hit-dice San Diego midfielder, we kept asking; “Okay…is this it? Is this the Final Boss? The Old Red Dragon? Is this where the floor goes out from under us and up comes the goddamn Balrog?”

Well…hopefully this was it.

Tough loss, yes. Something the coaching staff – and Front Office – can learn from before this Sunday and beyond.

But, at least for now, just one tough loss. We’re still clinging to a slim lead atop the table, though a much tighter table since last weekend; two points separate the top four.

Meaning we can get some space – if the lessons this match has to teach us are learned and applied before this coming Sunday rises and the Angels fall.