Thorns FC: Goalless in Seattle

I don’t think that too many Portland fans believed that the bizarre Two Players Up Two Goals Down game on Matchday 2 made any sort of definitive statement on the relative quality of either Seattle’s Reign or our Thorns. Even at the time it was fairly obviously a weird one-off, fun, sure, but not something that you’d expect to see repeated over a full season.

However, as we noted in the Prediction Game post, the two clubs’ trajectories since that match did seem to suggest the difference in their respective abilities:

“Since that loss Seattle has dropped five of their next ten fixtures. From the beginning of April the Reign have gone 1-2-5 until today they stand 12th of 16 (4-2-6, 14pts, 11GF, 16GA, GD -5). Meanwhile Portland has won six of the subsequent 12 matches to sit 3rd on the table (8-3-3, 27pts, 24GF, 14GA, GD +10).”

Soccer, unfortunately, is a cruel and unpredictable game, where as often as not form does not hold, and to drive that nasty little lesson home I direct you towards the result of last Sunday’s reverse fixture, a thorough 2-nil Portland beating at the cavernous Lumin Field in Seattle.

Thorough?

Where to start?

Okay, how about this; The Thorns took 26 shots (to Seattle’s 17), put 10 on frame (Seattle? 6.), put up an expected goals number somewhere between 1.5 (American Soccer Analysis) to 2.4 (Sofascore) and got no – zero, zip, nada, bupkis – goals.

Why?

Largely because Seattle’s defense, and goalkeeper Cassie Miller, played a blinder. But also because Portland’s attack, as it so often has this season (and over the past several seasons), depended on individual efforts to finish the buildup, and in the final third a combination of Seattle’s defending and Portland’s connectivity-breakdowns meant that the final pass or goal-creating shot just weren’t there.

Here’s just one example; 19th minute, Seattle already up a goal, Sophia Wilson in possession at the top left corner of Seattle’s 18:

Look around the penalty area, though. There’s a white shirt touch-tight on every black one, ball-side/goal-side just like Coach told you to do back in rec league.

At the moment Wilson has only one semi-decent option; Olivia Moultrie, stationary at the top center of the 18. Wilson has two defenders on her, though, and while Sam Meza on her left is blocking the goal Phoebe McClernon to her right can cut her off from Moultrie with a simple step. And did.

Unable to break down the Reign further, Wilson cranked off a shot that flew five yards over the goal.

That kind of symbolized Wilson’s whole day in Seattle. Aside from this miss she took seven other shots; five were blocked, two were right at Miller. Here’s Carlisle-sensei’s xG plot:

That’s pretty grim for Portland. Poor quality shooting, and when the shots were on frame, such as Cassandra Bogere’s 67th minute doorstep…

…Seattle’s defenders cleared them away, as Mia Fishel did to Bogere, or Miller stoned them, as she did Pietra Tordin’s good effort in the 24th minute.

So, as we’ve seen when this squad has a bad day as they did in Louisville and Kansas City and San Diego, the attack breaks down and sputters out, is shunted into poor chances and turnovers, while going the other way Seattle was simply quicker to nearly every loose ball (and there were quite a few, as we’ll discuss) and did a terrific job of passing through Portland’s press. I picked this series because it was just so brutal.

It starts out of Seattle’s goal; Miller plays a simple ball out to Sofia Huerta out near the west touchline. Mallie McKenzie immediately moves up to press Huerta, so Huerta drops the ball back inside to Jordyn Bugg.

Now Sofia Wilson has arrived to try and press Bugg, who dribbles out towards the touchline, spots McClernon open downfield and splits Wilson and McKenzie with a pass to her teammate

Marie Muller is just a couple of yards from McClernon, though, and steps up to pressure her. But McKenzie and Wilson are left behind the play while Huerta has moved up along the touchline and gives McClernon the simple square pass

The two Seattle players then play a pretty 1-2 to work the ball past Muller. Huerta receives the return pass with lots of green and only Jennie Immethun upfield. In a piece of brutally contemptuous footwork Huerta shifts her weight, puts the ball on her left foot, shifts it to her right, and rounds Immethun like a practice cone.

Ouch.

Once past Immethun Huerta could probably have dribbled past the midfield stripe. Instead she picks out Sally Menti, who’s already open in Portland’s half, slots her a pass, and…

…there Menti is, with nothing but fields and fields of lovely green grass ahead of her.

Luckily for Portland Menti hucks a big cross that flies to Macca Arnold, danger over, but…Jesus wept.

Let me shout out Sam Meza, too. She had a monster game, bossing the midfield like a boss. Immethun might think she was pwned by Huerta, but here’s Meza in the 43rd buildup to the second concession schooling both Moultrie and Muller in succession. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such flat, cold, contempt on a soccer pitch. Seattle had this match locked down just that hard.

Bad day’s work from Portland, then. Frustrated going forward, fragile in back, individual errors, collective futility…it was a perfect shitstorm, and all the shit rain fell on the visitors.

Well, at least some folks went home happy.

Short Passes

Sofascore’s “attacking momentum” plot:

What’s interesting about this is how little “attack” Seattle needed. The first concession was a pure against-the-run-of-play defensive collapse. I had a hard time believing that Ryanne Brown wasn’t offside until I saw this on the replay stream:

Initially I thought that Sam Hiatt was lagging behind her backline’s high line to keep Brown onside. But it’s even simpler than that; Brown is still in her own half when the McCammon hits the long ball that puts her through the Thorns defense.

Seattle did put together a dangerous final twenty minutes or so in the first half that culminated in the second concession, the Mercado point-blank header, but after that? Sit back, lock down the game, let Portland flail, and it’s a party in Pike Place, no fish sleeps safely tonight. Well, fuck me sideways.

Carlisle with the passing plots, first Portland:

Notice the lack of service to the front, Wilson dropping to try and get possession, and the KenBallesque Fleming/Immethun pileup in the center circle. Lots of work, little reward…yeah, that is kinda Spursy.

Here’s Seattle:

You want to jam things up and frustrate the visitors? That’s how it looks. Harvey played 90-plus minutes of more-deft-and-sophisticated-than-usual Sufferball. And it worked. What a hosejob.

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
Louisville – Home (W)	21
Seattle – Away (L)	33

The eye test was “the Thorns were sloppy in possession”, which the numbers pretty much bear out. Seattle was surprisingly poor, too, giving away 28. Portland lost 17 before the break, 16 after, Seattle 17 before, 11 after.

The Biggest Loser by a long chalk was our Giveaway Queen, Marie Muller with 7 turnovers again (she coughed up seven in the Louisville rout, if you recall). Fleming and Hiatt were right behind her with five each, Wilson was shockingly untidy, giving away four times. Five more Thorns gave away two each.

Most of the unforced turnovers were more annoying that critical. That wasn’t true for the losses forced by pressing, which we’ll now turn to.

Press!

Fourteenth 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”.

My initial impression – from the live match and the initial screening – was a Portland undone by relentless, high, hard, Seattle pressing (or counterpressing).

That was…sort of true.

After a full second screening I’m convinced that the real problem for Portland was that the Thorns had no answer to Seattle’s press while the Thorns press was disjointed and easily evaded. Thorns tended to get caught isolated, trapped, and stripped or forced into giveaways. As we’ve seen in the screenshots above, Seattle was quicker to pass out of pressure and (the other part that’s needed to make that work) to move to space to be open for that pass.

So while the two sides pressed at about the same rate overall – in fact, Portland actually pressed harder in the first half than the Reign did – the success rates were wildly different, because Seattle’s press was an organized defensive scheme while Portland’s was a bunch of individual attacks. It was like those chanbara movie fight scenes where the lone yojimbo is surrounded by bandits, who, instead of mobbing him attack one after another and one by one get sliced into sashimi.

I counted Portland pressing 43 times in the first half. Of those 18 were “wins” – the Seattle player turned over, was forced back or into a hurried pass – so only about 42% of the time, with only 6 forced Seattle turnovers. In the same half Seattle pressed 37 time and won an astounding 32 of them (86.4%) including 13 forced turnovers.

After the break Portland had more of the ball so pressed less – 23 times – but with even less success (7 wins, just over 30%, and only 5 forced turnovers). Seattle, sitting on the two-goal lead, dropped back a bit, pressing 30 times and winning 14 of them (46.6% with 9 ball turnovers).

Match time	Reign presses (wins)(%)	Thorns presses (wins)(%)
0-49′	37(32) (85.4%)	43(18) (41.8%)
45-94′	30(14) (46.6%)	23(7) (31.4%)
Match Total	67(46) (68.6%)	66(35) (53.0%)

My thoughts:
1) I hate to say this, because usually her signature style makes me want to hurl, but our Swedish chef was thoroughly out-managed by Laura Freaking Harvey.
2) The Damn Reign pressed like a team. The Thorns pressed like a bunch of individuals.
3) Remember that after the Louisville rout we agreed that their press was actually fairly effective and had they not shipped three early goals their pressing might have had some value, meaning a better side might have been more effective?
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%)
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%)
Louisville Home (W)	55(31) (56.3%)	28(13) (46.4%)
Seattle Away (L)	67(46) (68.6%)	66(35) (53.0%)

Corner Kicks

Eight. Three in the first half, five in the second. All long.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
4′	Moultrie	Long	Into the near side of the scrum to Tordin, her cross was cleared to Immethun, who returned to Moultrie. Livvy’s cross was cleared over the byline.
5′	Moultrie	Long	Onto Perry’s head. Her header was low and hard, but right at Miller.
14′	Moultrie	Long	The delivery went all the way through the pack to an onrushing McKenzie at the back post. Had McK been able to get there half a second sooner she’d have bagged the equalizer – the back post was wide open! – but she didn’t. Goal kick.
17′	Moultrie	Long	Same as 4′; on Perry’s head, from there to Miller’s hands.
52′	Moultrie	Long	To the back post, cleared out to Immethun; her weak shot dribbled to Miller.
67′	Moultrie	Long	To Bogere lurking at the back post. Bogere’s tap was partially across the goal line when Fishel cleared it away.
85′	Moultrie	Long	Into the pack, cleared out to Fleming; her lofted cross was too long and Miller claimed.
87′	Moultrie	Long	Into the pack, Miller boxed clear; repeatedly recycled until finally Fleming put in a strong header but Miller saved well.

Like the rest of this game, when Portland was good Seattle – Miller, especially – was better, and when Seattle was sloppy or careless or caught napping the Thorns weren’t good enough. Still…a goal line clearance, a missed-damn-near-sitter, three strong (but poorly placed) headers? In any other match, you’d think…sigh. Oh, well, shit.

Player Ratings and Comments

Wilson (+7/-1 : +2/-6 : +9/-7) Seattle away may very well be the worst Wilson game I’ve seen so far this season. Not just her own play (only two of eight shots on frame?) but as part of the squad, taking poor shots instead of looking for teammates with better options, and just generally looking gassed, frustrated, and out of ideas.

Even when Wilson is on (see: Louisville away) this squad can struggle if other factors are running against them. But when Wilson is stone cold..?

Tordin (86′ – +4/-0 : +8/-5 : +12/-5) Created several nice opportunities, hit the post but, like her maestra, wasted some opportunities with poor shooting and struggled, as her whole squad did, to impact the match. Tough day against a better-organized, better-managed opponent.

Castellanos (4′ – no rating) I could go on, but why? We know what the problem here is. The club has dealt with it by releasing her. Unfortunately her value has now dropped to the point where she’s a dead loss; she’ll leave after this season with nothing in return but regrets.

Moultrie (+5/-0 : +5/-5 : +10/-5) Well, had a better afternoon than Wilson did, while still suffering from many of the same problems; unable to break down Seattle’s better organized defense, harassed by the press and forced into marginal attempts and half-chances. That’s more on her boss than Moultrie herself, but she paid the price along with the rest of the squad.

McKenzie (55′ – +5/-4 : +0/-0 : +5/-4) One of the things that points to the flaws in this season’s roster construction issues is the sight of Mallie McKenzie, who’s not really a forward, at the winger/AM position in place of Reilyn Turner. That McKenzie’s turn at Lumin wasn’t discreditable – the 14th minute corner kick attack came within a boot’s length of bagging a goal! – is a tribute to the skills she has. That she was even there is a wag of the finger at the FO’s roster-building.

But here, again, is the whole “they’re all center-forwards” thing again. McKenzie isn’t a plug-and-play winger, and her coach still hasn’t really figured out ways to work the current roster into some kind of integrated attacking scheme, and the GM/FO hasn’t really done much to help. We’ll see if the new international signing will change that.

Lyles (35′ – +3/-2) Did half an hour’s worth of soccer things, probably, but nothing that made enough of an impression that I remember even after watching them repeatedly. Which kind of speaks for itself.

Fleming (+5/-3 : +8/-4 : +13/-7) Not her best work, and the problem was that Meza was running buckwild in midfield and Portland, and Fleming in particular, had no answer to her. Repeatedly tackled for loss, too, which is very un-Flemingesque on a normal day.

Immethun (55′ – +1/-2 : +0/-2 : +1/-4) I’m not sure why Vilahamn started Immethun over Bogere. I sure didn’t see any technical advantage in her play, and my guess is that the lack of familiarity between Immethun and her teammates helped contribute to the muddle that was Portland’s midfield and backline.

Bogere (35′ – +3/-3) On the other hand, swapping Immethun for Bogere when down two goals and needing attacking punch wasn’t really the answer, either.

Vignola (+3/-5 : +4/-0 : +7/-5) So until this point we’ve been more focused on what didn’t happen for Portland – scoring goals – rather than what did, but since the Thorns weren’t converting the defense had to be sturdy enough to bag a road point and, instead, broke down and shipped two before halftime. Many of the breakdowns included fullbacks getting caught out of position, or failing to recover, as opponents got behind them. Vignola was spotlighted by her getting torched on the Roberts goal, but she wasn’t the only one at fault.

Vilahamn pushed the backline pretty damn high, so that space was there for Seattle to get into, and the current roster of defenders doesn’t have the pure speed or the backline as a group the organization to deal with that. Harvey’s people saw it, used it, and bagged all three points with it. Vignola having a poor match individually didn’t help, but it wasn’t her individual issues that were the biggest problem.

Perry (+2/-0 : +1/-2 : +3/-2) Same problems here. Rough outing for Perry, between turnovers and positioning, but more a matter of unit tactical naivety than individual goofs. The only real “WTF?” moment came late in the second half, when Mia Fishel blew right past Perry (and Bogere..!) six yards from goal only to blast wide and miss a ridiculously good chance to bag the third (that’s the second-highest xG chance listed on the xG plot above).

Hiatt (+1/-3 : +2/-1 : +3/-4) Another Portland defender victimized by Seattle’s press; 31st minute tackle for loss in the Portland defensive third created a dangerous Menti shot, another turnover, this from a heavy touch under pressure that led to another half-chance seven minutes later…again, I don’t want to pick on individual Thorns defenders simply because the problems were systemic rather than just one or two individual bad days.

In one sense that’s okay; tactics can be diagnosed, analyzed, and fixed while fluctuations in individual form often cannot. In another, though…it’s a lot simpler to replace one broken part that redesign the whole machine.

Muller (+4/-5 : +5/-2 : +9/-7) Much the same as Vignola; soft as butter under pressure, caught upfield by Seattle direct play, lack of understanding with her squadmates. Bad day amongst a host of bad days for people in basic black.

Arnold (+0/-3 : +0/-0 : +0/-3) And speaking of bad days…oof.

We’ll talk about this in detail when I get the next “Jamie from H.R.” post up, but the tl:dr version is that in Seattle Arnold had her third poor match in a row. The Brown goal was an absolute rocket, so no shame there, but the Mercado header caught Arnold like a deer (or whatever the Australian version of “deer” is…) in the headlights, and her distribution – never an Arnold strength – was exceptionally poor, as in “genuinely dangerous” poor, several clearances going directly to white shirts in her own half. The absolute worst, an appallingly awful short-pass-to-no-one in her own penalty area, forced Arnold to slide into a charging Menti to prevent a “round the sprawling keeper for an easy tap-in” humiliation.

Honestly, if this was ice hockey I’d expect her coach to sit Arnold for Messner. That’s what happens when goalies have cold spells. Let ’em shake it off, see if the other goalie has a hot hand, if not, well, try the regular starter again. Soccer, unfortunately, doesn’t work like that, and benching Arnold at this point might well destroy her confidence and lose her for the season at worst. Still…if I was her coach, I’d be 1) keeping a real eye on her, while 2) trying to figure out what’s going on. The club missed the warning signs during Bella Bixby’s Hell-season of 2023 and let her dangle in the wind for months. Let’s not do that again.

Coach Vilahamn: Or, as the broadcast crew kept calling him, “Vil-a-ham-na”…

(…and the female announcer somehow managed to make a bigger mess than the “Moo-lar” way she pronounced “Müller” in the Louisville match; I’m not sure I can even reproduce it, but it was something like “Moo-ew-lar”. Someone really needs to help this poor woman with German pronunciation.)

The charitable interpretation of Seattle away was “bad day at the office”. The less-kindly version is “I’m being out-managed by Laura Fucking Harvey and clueless as to how to change that.” The Reign looked better disciplined, faster, better organized, and more motivated than Vilahamn’s Thorns.

Given the Two Up/Two Down Debacle here the motivation should have been expected. But the organization and discipline? Going into Seattle not expecting that is like going into a Pancake House not expecting there to be pancakes. That’s Sufferball 101, and that’s what the Harvey Girls do. Not being prepared with your own discipline and tactical organization is being Utterly Clueless in Seattle.

I think the real giveaway was the Castellanos-for-Tordin sub at 86′. Why? What earthly good was that ever going to do? I used to kick Parsons for the incoherence of some of his substitutions, but Vilahamn’s work off the bench last weekend was appalling. None of his subs helped his squad. Two – Lyles for McKenzie, Bogere for Immethun – were just kind of “meh”, like-for-like. But Castellanos with four minutes and change? That’s the soccer equivalent of running up the white flag. That’s “I’ve-given-up-but-here’s-something” pointlessness. Why even bother?

Okay, so that was just one game.

Now the Thorns have an interesting stretch. Over the next eight matches they get the two expansion teams – Denver twice, home and away, and Boston away. And Orlando, that’s mid-table meh.

But we also get Utah in Utah, yike!, and Gotham twice, home and away, plus Washington that is definitely not the tomato can of Matchday 1. This squad is gonna have to bring their A+ game to those bunfights. None of this goalless in Seattle shit. Time to do some business.