Thorns FC: Kiss

Last Saturday’s NWSL-Apertura-ending match was billed as a Titanic Top-of-Table Clash.

Given the two clubs’ records and positions – Utah 1st of 16 (7-2-2, 16GF, 8GA), Portland 2nd of 16 (7-2-3, 23pts, 18GF, 12GA) – that wasn’t exactly unreasonable. And the result – a 2-2 draw – seems superficially to suggest the two league leaders slugged it out and came away with the honors even.

It wasn’t actually remotely like that, and it was a very bizarre game when you come right down to it. It did expose some of the things we’ve been talking about the Thorns all season.

Lots of observers felt that the Royals had Portland pinned down all match and just couldn’t stick in the dagger, and I’ll say this; the first quarter hour sure as Hell looked like that. If I hadn’t screened the devil out of this match I’d probably agree that Utah was the Final Boss and Portland got lucky to escape with the point.

But, yeah…that opening fifteen minutes or so sure were ugly.

I want to post a series of screenshots that drive home how hard the Royals were bullying the Thorns through that time, starting in the 7th minute with a terrific pass through the Thorns midfield from Ana Tejada:

The ball finds Kiana Palacios, but she immediately knocks it back to Utah’s drink-stirring-straw, Mina Tanaka. Tanaka drives to the top of the Portland box and hammers a strike that Macca Arnold can only parry wide.

The ball trickles out to Reina Reyes, who picks it up but is immediately pressed hard by Cloe’ Lacasse, so Reyes has to boot it away into touch.

The Royals immediately put the ball back in play, throwing in to Kayleigh Riehl, who whacks a long diagonal cross back into Portland’s 18:

There, Palacios gets up over Pietra Tordin and flicks the ball towards the Royals’ far right attacking corner. Note Miyabi Moriya lurking on the near side of the box.

Miyabi outruns everyone in black (most particularly Tordin, who’s the closest Thorn) to gain possession…

..then takes the ball to the corner, turns and crosses back to the near top corner of the box…

…where Tejada outruns Jessie Fleming and belts the ball right back to Miyabi.

Miyabi gets there almost at the same time Tordin does, but takes it right off the Thorns forward’s boots slicker’n water off a cat’s ass…

…and takes off on what Toby Charles used to call a “mazy run” towards Portland’s near goalpost.

There she picks out Cece Delzer crashing the top of Portland’s six and slides a low cross in to her; Delzer has skinned Cassandra Bogere and has no one but Arnold between her and the opening goal, but…

…1) Delzer shanks the tap-in wide, and…

…2) Palacios had run to the near post too soon, and blows up the play offside.

But…holy shit, you get the feeling, right? Utah is organized like a big-ass yellow Clockwork Lemon or something; every Royal is beating every Thorn to every ball and to every open space.

Portland feels like they’re back on their heels, and it looks like it’s gonna be an ugly rout until, in the 20th minute and completely against the run of play, Sam Hiatt pressed Narumi Miura into turning over a Mandy McGlynn goal kick in Narumi’s own half.

The ball ran to Sophia Wilson who, as Sophia Wilson is wont to do, ran at goal and, as Wilson had been wont to do (up to that point in the match) was tackled and pickpocketed, in this case by a trio of Royals…

…who then proceeded to take that moment to mill around in a sort of cerberus-headed-clusterfuck allowing Wilson and Olivia Moultrie to bore right through them and come away with the ball right in front of McGlynn.

Credit where it’s due; Moultrie did what Moultrie can do; finished tidily under McGlynn’s arm for the opening goal. Which seemed to 1) spark her team (spark? Fuck that. That was one of those “AED jolt straight to the heart” things that brought Portland’s up-to-that-point-corpse-like play back from the fucking dead) and 2) knock some of the confidence out of Utah.

After that it was mostly back and forth until halftime.

Here’s my notes, with annotations, for the first half.

Yellow boxes for Utah possessions of some attacking value, black for Portland’s.

The weird thing was that, having opened up with all that pretty, connected, clever attacking play Utah’s equalizer came from a random piece of direct play.

Tanaka did show off some nice holdup work down the center of the pitch, then knocked back to Nuria Rabano, who hucked a cross into Portland’s six. There Palacious outjumped both Hiatt and M.A. Vignola to head a goofy bloop Texas Leaguer over Arnold’s off-balance hop. All square at the half.

Oh…but I should mention this bit from the first half, because it sort of illustrates the sort of problems Portland had going forward.

Five minutes after Moultrie’s goal the Thorns got another chance. Hiatt played out of the back through the middle to Tordin. Tordin fed Wilson with a gorgeous through-ball, and Wilson, as Wilson is wont (…wait, did I mention this already..?) took off towards Utah’s goal, except…

…this time she passed! To Marie Muller! Who put in a fine attack, and crossed in to Wilson, who neatly potted what-could-have-been-the-dagger.

Except both Muller and Moultrie (circled) were offside.

That was Portland going forward all match. Here’s another attack, in the 47th minute, again beginning with a good sequence of passes out of the back, Reyes-to-Muller-to-Moultrie, who sees Tordin kick in the burners and puts a sweet through-ball up to her.

Tordin has defenders in front of her, but she also has teammates in support, especially Moultrie coming up on her right. A square (or lead) pass would have put Moultrie in 1v0 on McGlynn…

…but instead of passing to her right, Tordin turned to her left, was boxed in, and had the ball kicked away from her out to…

…Vignola, who was also following the play. Vignola lofted a hopeful cross into the box, where Moultrie, apparently unaware that her teammate would (or could..?) do that, remained planted as the ball sailed past her and over the byline.

Remember how in the Bay FC writeup I moaned that:

“…the Thorns “attack” consisted of:

1. Wilson hero-ball,
2. Buildups that fell apart before any real dangerous shot-creation, and
3. Direct play that was usually cooked by poor timing, from the run, the pass, or both.”

Well, yep, same-same against Utah.

Got the opener on pure want-to and ferocity, but then, struggled to put together anything of value. This wasn’t lack of effort; this was Utah doing a damn good job of pressing and disrupting what attack and possession Portland had, and Portland having the same problems with understanding and the sort of intuition that comes from long familiarity and good training.

Worse yet, the Royals got a second goal, also off another piece of what felt like random shit.

Wilson – who was defending deep, as the Thorns forwards have been faithfully doing all season – bonked what I think was supposed to be a clearance right off Miyabi.

Tanaka pounced on the loose ball, then in true Nadeshiko fashion cleverly held up the ball, shielding Isabella Obaze off until Lacasse ran open to gave Tanaka the square pass across the face of goal.

Lacasse skinned Reyes, Arnold was caught slew-footed, and suddenly (as the fucking announcers kept saying again and again and again…) Utah was three points clear at the top.

For the next half hour. Which, frankly, degenerated into a chippy, choppy, ugly-ass hackfest. Again, here’s my notes:

Notice the huge blank white areas all over the bottom three-quarters of that page? Yeah, the second half wasn’t really all that much fun to watch.

Utah at least had the excuse that they were sitting on a one-goal away win. Portland, on the other hand, simply couldn’t figure out a way around Utah’s press. The movement was too slow (or too soon), the passing to early or too late or just not accurate enough.

Okay, there was this…

…a bizarre NWSL After Dark goalmouth scuffle in the 81st minute, with almost a third of both clubs’ field players (that’s Tordin, Hiatt, and Reyes there in black) doing one of those U-6 ball-mob kicking-clumps. How the hell the ball didn’t go over the goal line I have no fucking idea.

It didn’t.

This looked dire for our heroes until, nearly at the stroke of full time, with Utah seeming in control of both possession and the match, the Royals went completely to fucking pieces.

Beginning with McGlynn, who – holding onto the ball trying to timewaste her way through a goal kick – got dinged by the referee for violating the league’s enforcement of the “keeper-has-to-put-the-ball-back-in-play-in-eight-seconds” rule.

Harsh? Perhaps, but that;s the rule, and it gave Portland a corner kick.

Which, when Fleming lofted the delivery into the mixer, encouraged Portland-to-Utah loanee Alexa Spaanstra to put her hands on Portland substitute Jayden Perry’s back what I thought honestly was a softer-than-church-music shove.

Perry went down like she’d been shot, though (cunning creature!), center referee Sergeii Demianchuk pointed to the spot, Sophia Wilson stepped to the ball, and, six minutes later, the final whistle blew.

I’m not sure I agree with Chris Rifer on the whole “lucky” part:

Yes, Portland got a bit lucky. Had McGlynn and Spaanstra not fucked up the Royals would have taken all three points. Or had Utah finished any of their other chances. Or had the 21st minute Utah defenders just booted that loose ball into row ZZizzo-was-his-name-o.

But.

Part of this wasn’t “luck” but getting bit in the ass by season-long issues.

The Thorns attack is still what it has been all season; disconnected (or, at least, poorly connected and prone to breaking down before the shot or final pass) and heavily dependent on individuals creating something-out-of-nothing (call it what you will, but “hero-ball” is good enough shorthand for me). That the Thorns have been creating goals is outstanding, given that, but this match emphasizes how a truly good opponent can take those chance-and-heroic goals away and force the Thorns to hunt and hope.

The Thorns midfield still lacks the two-way monsters of Sam Coffey and Hina Sugita (and that’s hardly a surprise – those two are all-world-class players, after all). Fleming and Bogere are decent, but just not at that stratospheric level.

The Thorns defense has been remarkably solid in general but still, at the 7th minute sequence showed, can lack discipline and understanding that ships goals at critical moments.

Let’s put a pin in that and we’ll get back to it.

Short Passes

Let’s start with Sofascore’s “attacking momentum” plot:

That looks uglier than what I saw on the stream. Utah had possession – 64% to 36% in the first half, probably closer to 50-50 in the second – but for all that they used it to get into Portland’s final third the Royals attack, like Portland’s, often broke down there.

Here’s Carlisle-sensei with the xG plot:

Had Utah been as dominant as their numbers suggested? The Thorns should have been out of the match at halftime.

Mind you, going the other way 2.52xG is insanely flattering of the Thorns attack. Almost a third is from Wilson’s penalty conversion. The other “good/great shots” are the Moultrie goal and two Reyes attempts (which we’ll discuss in her comment).

OPTA’s passing numbers are pretty even; Portland completing 78% of 340 passes, Utah 76% of 395.

Carlisle with the passing plots, first Portland:

One of the worst effects of this deep mid-block (if that’s what it was and not just Utah pushing Portland into a corner) was that, again, the average line of confrontation was almost at the midfield stripe. And to actually gain possession, the centerbacks…wait. We’ll get there in pressing. Let’s stay on-topic here.

Here’s Utah:

Yep. Again, that 7th minute sequence is all about the Royals moving and passing to space, and immediately looking for outlets there. They’re a damn good side. Better than Portland at the moment, and in this match for long periods of the match. I don’t look forward to playing them in their house.

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
Angel City – Home (D)	No data
Bay FC – Home (W)	33
Kansas City – Away (L)	29
Utah – Home (D)	23

I think the number is deceiving. The Thorns weren’t particularly tidy in possession, but they didn’t have that much possession so I don’t think they were that careful, they just lacked the opportunity to turn over more often through their own carelessness!

Utah, who was fairly crafty, lost 24, and noticeably more in the second half hackfest; 15 turnovers of their total came after the break. Portland’s losses were almost even, 11 before the break, 12 after.

Reyes was the Biggest Loser, turning over four times. Vignola coughed up three, and four players lost two each.

None led to any particular danger, other than breaking down attacks, although Arnold had some really poor goal kicks and clearances, but that wasn’t the worst part of her afternoon, as we’ll discuss.

Press!

Twelfth 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”.

Lopsidedly in Utah’s favor. The Royal put in 44 presses in the first half, winning 24 (54.5%) and forcing Portland to turn the ball over in half of them. After halftime they really went to work; 55 presses, 31 wins (56.3%) and 15 ball-winning takeaways.

Portland managed only 60 total; 34 in the first half (17 wins – 50% – and 10 takeaways), 26 in the second (14 wins – 53.8% – and 7 takeaways).

Surprisingly, the percentage of presses in their opponent’s defensive third were about the same; Portland 27 of 60 (51.6%), Utah 49 of 99 (55.5%). What the deep line did force Portland to do was send up their backs, particularly the centerbacks, to press in the midfield; with the forwards and AMs already shoved damn near back into their own half Vilahamn’s midfield pressing needed support from behind.

Match time	Utah presses (wins)(%)	Thorns presses (wins)(%)
0-46′	44(24) (54.4%)	34(17) (50%)
45-97′	55(31) (56.3%)	26(14) (53.8%)
Match Total	99(55) (55.5%)	60(31) (51.6%)

My thoughts:
1) So unlike Kansas City, the difference here was quantity, not quality (or location). Utah was able to press Portland more often, despite the Thorns having significantly less possession.
2) Why that matters is that Portland – as we keep saying – still has issues with one-touch passing and moving to space. So a high, hard press has an exaggerated effect on an attack (and possession) that’s vulnerable to begin with.
3) Portland’s press was not ineffective – holding Utah to a brace when their xG was well over three isn’t shaved fish – but Utah is so good at those same skills that they were difficult to press and, I think, helped wear the Thorns out because pressing them often means “chasing them”. That sucks.

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%)
Angel City Home (D)	No data	No data
Bay FC Home (W)	59(34) (57.6%)	59(37) (62.7%)
Kansas City Away (L)	52(29) (55.7%)	34(20) (58.8%)
Utah Home (D)	99(55) (55.5%)	60(31) (51.6%)

Corner Kicks

Four, all long, all in the second half.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
81′	Fleming	Long	Cleared over the byline for the next corner
81′	Fleming	Long	This was the nutzo goalmouth melee pictured above. McGlynn started it with a clumsy box that spiraled up and then back down into the mob. It resulted in a goal kick, suggesting a Thorn was offside at some point, but I didn’t see that, or a foul. Dunno. Weird play, tho.
88′	Fleming	Long	Into the pack, where Spaanstra handed Portland two points
90+5′	Fleming	Long	Into the scrum again, cleared out to Fleming. Fleming’s good cross found Turner’s head. With a chance to win the match in injury time, Turner headed into the MAC Club seats.

Almost shocking; three of four were either dangerous (Turner’s header), very dangerous (the doorstep melee), or a goal-producer (Spaanstra’s shove). And we’ve been saying, oh, 25% production is terrific! Well, okay, then…

Player Ratings and Comments

Wilson (+8/-2 : +7/-3 : +15/-5) Worked her tail off (day ending in “y”), tried to do it all herself (see #1 – look at her passing circle on the plot above – deep, dark red), and ended up saving two points, anyway (oh, yeah, well, you’ll always be a Thorn, Alexa…).

We’ll talk more about this in the gaffer’s comment, but I really hope the squad works on a “support for Gigi’s Mom” GoTrainMe during this month of time off. Really.

Muller (85′ – +6/-1 : +4/-2 : +10/-3) Given how she’s been used, Muller has been surprisingly decent. Not a winger, no, and I still wonder whether giving one of the other forwards (coughPadelskicough) might not work better, but Muller is out there giving it her all, so, Ausgezeichnet!

Harney (5′ – no rating)

Moultrie (61′ – +8/-3 : +3/-1 : +11/-4) Hard to call a Woman of the Match for this one (Ooh! Ooh! I know! I know! – Spaanstra!!! $#%!&!!#!!!Shut uuupppp!) but Moultrie has to be one of the top three (Wilson and Fleming would be my other suggestions) especially given that she was coming off a knock.

One thing I particularly noted in this match was Livvy’s pressing; for a player I once siloed as “pure #10, all attack, no defense” Moultrie has really grown into a fully-rounded attacking midfielder. Would I play her as a #6? Ohfuckno! That’s be leaving too much of her skillset on the bench. But could she play a successful #8? She has, and can. Well done, OM.

Turner (29′ – +1/-2) I’m not sure what happened with Turner in this match. Rust? Nursing a knock? Just not really substitute material? Aside from the injury-time miss Reilyn Turner didn’t do a damn thing, good or ill, in over a half hour, at a time when her squad needed her most. That’s…not a good shift.

Tordin (+4/-0 : +4/-2 : +8/-2) I didn’t record Tordin with a shot; OPTA disagrees, crediting (if that’s the right word) her with two, neither on frame. For a forward that played 96+ minutes, that’s not okay.

This is what I’m talking about when I keep banging on about Wilson not getting support. I think we picked on Tordin enough in the 47th minute screenshots above, because she’s not the only piece of this puzzle. I think the whole not-a-winger thing plays in, too, so if this club can get Hanks (and/or Weaver) back in July and put in a month training on ways to distribute the attack more effectively?

Hmmmm…

Fleming (+6/-4 : +9/-0 : +15/-4) The Good: Fleming is a solid #6/8 and is working hard to combine with her teammates.

The Bad: Fleming is not Sam Coffey.

The Ugly: There’s no way Fleming, or Bogere (or Immethun, or anyone else on this squad) can be Coffey.

So the trick – and talk more about this when we get to him – is to find a Replacement Coffey, or figure out a tactical scheme or schemes that doesn’t/don’t require the squad to have to have a Coffey.

Bogere (62′ – +4/-0 : +0/-0 : +4/-0) Cass Bogere had gotten to where she was usually combining well with Fleming, but the last couple of matches have been troubling.

She dropped off badly in the second half here, to where she got yeeted at the hour. Dropped off in Kansas City, too, and even worse in the Bay FC match here. I’m not sure what to say. Is she a terrific DM? No. But she’s been generally serviceable since her awful debut match, and I was hoping that she and Fleming would develop something approaching the Coffey-and-Sugita sort of chemistry. That doesn’t seem to be happening, and Bogere has recently developed this drops-off-the-table-after-halftime problem. Injury? Fatigue/conditioning? Just how she is?

It’s tough enough for Fleming being Not-Sam-Coffey, but if her double pivot isn’t pitching in for the full 90? That makes it even tougher.

Immethun (28′ – +0/-1) I didn’t even notice her except when she hoofed the ball away once, so, yeah, that’s not really a “you’ll-want-to-sign-me-to-a-three-year-deal” kind of outing.

Reyes (+2/-1 : +3/-0 : +5/-1) Like Kansas City away, shipping three goals (or three expected goals) isn’t really a good look for the backline. That said, unlike Kansas City the Thorns defense didn’t ship three goals.

Still, Reyes struggled, as she has in the last several matches (the Sofascore 5.9 she shared with Spaanstra was the lowest overall match rating of both squads) particularly in the first quarter hour of Utah bullying. Skinned by Lacasse in the 6th minute, dangerously poor clearance moments later, ballwatching on the 14th minute attack that forced a good save out of Arnold, perhaps worst of all was utterly pantsed by Lacasse on the second concession. Ouch.

Reyes came damn near to scoring twice; once in the wha-a-a-cky 81st minute scramble, and again just before that fun mess, off a fine Fleming free kick in the 79th minute. Reyes crashed the ball at the far post, but McGlynn was in position to save with her face and “headed” (“faced?”) the ball over the byline for the first of the two corners.

But Reyes is a fullback; scoring – even had she scored – doesn’t let her off the hook for not doing her primary job well.

Hiatt (85′ – +4/-3 : +0/-1 : +4/-4) I think Hiatt had a better match than her PMR numbers show (though to be fair, Sofascore disagrees, handing her a 6.1 rating, not just the second lowest score for the squad but the overall second-lowest rating for the match, so…). Did good work coming forward to press, too. So perhaps not a terrific day, but came off with honors even. Okay, then.

Perry (5′ – +1/-0) Possibly the easiest “well done!” of any player in any match ever. Comes on, does effectively nothing of note for five minutes until a cunning faceplant (and, sorry, that was as good a performance as any Oscar winner…) and then scuffles about for another six minutes or so and nicks her side the draw. Hey, there are days when you scrap and hustle your ass off and get nothing for it, so if I was Perry I’d be juuuust fine with that.

Vignola (+5/-4 : +5/-1 : +10/-5) Like her backline sisters…not an awful match; some good, some not-so-good. Still, for all that this might have been one of those “draws-that-feel-like-wins” it could easily have been a home loss, so there’s that.

Arnold (+1/-3 : +0/-3 : +1/-6) I’m not usually on the Arnold-haters bus, but this was not a good match from her. Big save in the 14th minute, but…

Slow to come out to take a cross in the 29th minute that forced Reyes into a desperation clearance. Didn’t get up high enough (because she was off-balance and poorly positioned) on the Palacios goal, and was caught shifting her weight on Lacasse’s goal. Moments later Arnold was slow again to come off her line that allowed Lacasse an open shot, and on the ensuing corner was roundly beaten by Del Fava and saved only by the linesman’s flag.

Like her squad, ran off with the point, but not because she was killing it. If this is her worst match of the season, though? I’d be okay with that.

Coach Vilahamn: Got out of that one by the skin of his squad’s collective butt, and Coenraets’ mob pretty thoroughly outplayed your Thorns for a significant chunk of the match that was supposed to lock your crew solidly in the top two…

(and hilariously, while the Thorns were scrounging a point and the Royals giving away two, the Soccer Gods handed San Diego the key to the points-dispensing-machine that is Chicago, from which they unsurprisingly extracted all three to go top of the table on 25 points. Utah, on 24, has a game in hand, though. Our 24 points do not)

…so I think you’ve got a busy month of June.

The forward line, and the attack in general, needs some serious work. Roles need to be defined, connections and understanding need to be improved, and (hopefully) the training staff needs to get one, or better, both, the injured wingers back on the pitch. Dufour, too, even better!

The DM situation…I dunno, but I’d suggest sending some people to see if there’s anyone whose contract in Europe is up who’d like some RAJ money. I like Fleming, and Bogere isn’t awful, but Sugita and Coffey are losses that are still being felt, and I don’t see an off-the-shelf solution in the current roster.

And in back, I sure would like to see Naomi Girma. Or someone like Girma. That’s not on the gaffer; he can’t wave his magic Swedish wand and turn Sam Hiatt into Girma. But he can light a fire under the General Manager and get Jeff Agoos out there running down potential international-grade CBs (along with Replacement Coffey?). Can he? And if he does, can (or will) the Bhathals lay out the jack for her/them?

Y’all have a month to figure out what needs to happen to make this squad bulletproof against opponents like Utah (and San Diego and the revived Kansas City and Washington…).

That’s your whole-ass job; take this squad to the Final. And your second pre-season started this past Monday.

Get to work.