Thorns FC: Outworked in a Corgi race

This…

…is not a fucking corgi.

It’s fast, and it “won” the halftime “corgi race”, but goddamn it, it’s not an actual corgi.

So it’s hard to actually give it credit for being the fastest “corgi” when it’s not a fucking corgi. But apparently the actual conformation of the dogs in the race didn’t matter. It was all about which critter could tear-ass down the middle of the park faster than the others…

… and it meant that this critter was first and the others – being actual corgis, meaning they had legs about half the size of a minute – were nowhere.

The visiting Houston Dash were supposed to be the corgis in last Saturday’s NWSL corgi race for playoff spots. Well below the red line, supremely “meh” on both sides of the ball, this was one of the final five matches that was supposed to be a very gettable three points for the home side. The Dash’s job was to scamper about on their puny legs while the Thorns, being the Big Dogs, lapped them for all the points.

Well, ummm, no.

Instead it was Houston that scampered out quickly, nicked the early goal, and damn near hung on to the match in which they were supposed to be the victims. Because, as we’ve been frustrated seeing all season, first the Thorns defense broke down.

Beginning with a turnover to Houston midfielder Maggie Graham. Graham saw 1) two of her teammates lurking on the shoulders of 2) Portland’s backline which was mostly watching the ball ping around midfield.

Graham picked out Kate Fasse in the space between Carolyn Calzada and M.A. Vignola, while noting that another teammate, rookie scoring phenomenon Kat Rader, who was loafing in the empty space between the Portland’s back four and front four usually occupied by Jessie Fleming…but Fleming had been pulled forward trying to cover the ball movement.

Graham hit Fasse, who now drew all the Thorns attention.

Note who isn’t being watched? Yep. Rader.

The moment Rader sees that everyone in pink between her and the goal is either trying to close down Fasse or ballwatching, Rader bolts through the backline.

Calzada and Jayden Perry are sucked together trying to body up on Fasse, leaving a shit-ton of space between Reyes and Calzada for Rader to run through. Once she does, Fasse simply splits the Thorns centerbacks with a through-ball that, as you’d expect, gets to Rader well before anyone in pink can catch up to her.

Now Rader has only Reyes – who has far too slow a start to tackle her before the shot – and the keeper to beat.

Rader does that and finishes well, lifting the ball over a sliding Arnold for the go-ahead goal.

In fairness to Macca, she made the correct play, coming out hard and making herself big in front of the most direct line to the goal from Rader’s right boot. Rader was better, though, lofting the ball just enough to clear Arnold’s sprawl but still stay low enough to find the open goal.

Ten minutes in, one goal down. Not great, sure, but this was the Thorns at home! Surely the home side goals would come back to win the corgi race. Right?

Right?

Well…remember the other issue we discussed about Orlando away? The one before the “defensive breakdown” thing?

“The attack never really coheres into an “attacking system”, a well-connected, mutually-supporting interplay of players who clearly understand each other, who anticipate (and create) accurate passes and move into space and build up through each other to tear into opposing defenses.”

Yeah, that one. Did we see that again here last weekend?

Well, here’s one example, beginning with Pietra Tordin attacking up the left channel in the 26th minute. As you can see, she’s got Sophia Wilson open to her right, with Nina Nijstad behind her if Tordin has to turn away, and Morgan Weaver running behind Wilson, angling for the far corner of the 18.

Tordin has several options here. She could shoot…but her shooting eye hasn’t been really on so far that day. She’s got Wilson for the square pass. Or, if she can hold up the ball, Weaver could run a right-side overlap for a pass out wide. Or she could hold up, but for Wilson to make the inside run.

Instead the two leading Thorns attackers seem uncertain of what the other will do. Wilson holds her run, Tordin dithers a bit, seeming unsure whether to shoot, pass, or dribble, before finally attacking straight into her defender.

Keep in mind here that Houston’s backline has been defending like heroes so far; the Thorns have had a lot of possession, tried numerous attacks, and have gotten absolutely nothing from them. Of all three options, “dribbling past your marker” seems like the lowest percentage opportunity. So, when Tordin does drive at Kiki van Zanten…

…it’s not too surprising that van Zanten takes Tordin down before she can round her defender or shoot. What Tordin does accomplish, though, is bang a shoss off van Zanten that rolls into space towards the far corner of the six.

Wilson is out of the play, but Weaver kicks her rebuilt legs into top gear and races for the loose ball.

But it’s a long run and a pacey ball, so Weaver arrives a bit late, and almost at the same time that Paige Nielsen does. Between Nielsen and the tight angle and the fast-rolling ball it’s unsurprising that Weaver’s rushed shot sails high and wide.

That was kind of “Portland, Portland all day”.

(BTW, does anyone remember that was part of a Riveters song to the tune “Iko Iko”? That seemed like a fun song. Wonder what happened to it?)

Here’s Carlisle-sensei’s “xG map” to rub that in:

The left side of that pitch looks like Amish country after an RFKJr measles outbreak.

Holy shit, I mean, twenty shots, but only five on frame and barely over 1xG? That’s a whole lot o’ shitty shooting and, yes, it was. Seven blocks, eight misses, and most of the shots well below 0.1xG.

Why? Well, largely because of attacks just like the 26th minute. Failure to combine quick movement with precise passing. Failure to combine at all; just individual effort or free-lancing. Even the equalizer, as nice as it was for Marie Muller and the squad, was more-or-less a broken play; Wilson and Tordin had played a nice little 1-2 (with Tordin putting on her usual “pretty footwork and clever movement” show before sliding the square pass back to Wilson), but, as they had all match, Houston’s defenders closed on Wilson, who I think just passed into space. I don’t think she saw, or planned on, Muller steaming up to put a boot through the ball and steal the point.

But as Carlisle points out; why the fuck is this club even having to steal a home point?

Obviously a huge part of that is shipping the early concession. That’s the “goals change games” part. Within twenty minutes of kickoff Houston had sagged back into what first looked like a low mid-block but by second half kickoff was a full-on low block, meaning that Vilahamn and Co. were faced with the same test they’d struggled with and mostly failed against Chicago. And with the same lack of tools. Quick movement, precise one-touch passing, inside targets to knock down crosses? Nope, nope, nope.

The other part was, to give credit where it’s due, Houston’s defending. This…

…is a hell of stick, and Houston’s backline was on point all match. To break them down Portland needed a bit of space and a moment of time, and Houston gave them neither. That’s a good-on-them.

But the third part? That was on us, because here it is in pictures, from late in a 32nd minute Thorns corner kick play. Fleming had played the corner short to Reyes for a 1-2 and then crossed into the box, where the ball dropped out of the far side of the scrum and was rolling towards the byline pursued, rather leisurely, by Weaver as she searched for a teammate, only…

…for van Zanten to nip neatly around Weaver and pick her pocket. That was, sadly, also a big part of Portland’s problem.

Houston was just faster to every ball, awake to every danger, making Portland look even less-connected and more adrift than the Pink actually were. I think it helped confuse and dispirit the Thorns.

It certainly did a hell of a number on the pace of the match. Between Houston sitting back and doing nothing but defending after the first 25 minutes or so, and Portland acting like they had no fucking clue what to do about that, long periods of this game were desolate wastelands of soccer nothing.

Look at the Sofascore “attacking momentum” plot.

Fucking Hell. The twenty-odd minutes after the restart? That’s one of those “this is what people who hate soccer use to show why they hate soccer: “Oh, soccer is soooo boring!!!”

The thing is, it’s not that there was actual nothing taking place! My notes for that period show Portland with effectively all the possession, creating about five to six direct attacks, and nicking a couple of corner kicks.

But the possession? Largely without purpose. The attacks? Produced only about four shots (two straight at Jane Campbell, one blocked, one wide). The corners? Both ended up in Campbell’s gloves without producing any real danger.

You know the soccer saying “There are draws that feel like losses, there are draws that feel like wins”?

This one was kind of a draw that felt like “…what the actual fuck..?”

Well.

To put the “good news” first, the squad kept on kicking and did finally pot one to prevent the humiliation of a home loss to Houston.

That said, though…defensive breakdown? Check. Attacking coordination/understanding problems? Check. Slow movement/poor passing/lack of urgency/drifting out of long stretches of the match? Check, check, check, check.

Dropping points to poor or at best mediocre opponents?

Big check.

Now what? We’ll talk about that in a bit.

Short Passes

Let’s start with the numbers:
Possession; Thorns 55%, Dash 45% (and that’s skewed by the first twenty minutes or so. After that the field was strongly tilted Portland’s way).
Passing; Portland 79% completion of 339 passes, Houston 75% of 284. So, yeah. Kind of the same.

Carlisle-sensei with the passing plots. Portland:

In previous matches, and certainly at times in this one, I kept seeing Tordin withdrawn to what seemed very much like a #10, or a “false #9”, if you will, although I’ll admit that the Vilahamn attack often confuses (or, worse, irks) me with it’s formlessness and lack of (or lack of the forwards’ understanding of their) roles.

In this plot Wilson’s position reflects how often she had to drop damn near to the back of the center circle to gain possession, and Tordin’s how high she had to push to create chances.

The shitty shooting? Oh, yeah. No argument there. That’s just gross.

Houston:

At the same time, it’s an indictment of whatever the fuck lives inside Houston’s “Front Office” that here, in the club’s twelfth season, they have such exceptional young talent – and that extends to players not shown here, such as US junior Linda Ullmark – and have made such a dog’s breakfast of their field management.

Since the Clarkson firing in April 2022 the Dash have burned through seven – seven! – head coaches (including one acting HC (our Sarah Lowdon) and three “interims” including the current gaffer Jaime Frias) in four-and-a-half years.

During that time the Dash, perennial bottom-table struggler though they were before, have sunk to the near-uttermost-depths of incompetence, finishing 10th-14th-10th between 2023 and 2025 and now sitting 12th largely only because the four trainwrecks below them are even more dire.

If I had to pick an organization other than Chicago for a “forced sale and possible relocation” in hopes of saving its sorry ass, it’d be this mess.

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
Denver – Away (L)	33
Gotham – Home (D)	23
Utah – Away (L)	17
Boston – Away (W)	17
Orlando – Home (W)	24
Denver – Home (W)	19
Gotham – Away (D)	21
Washington – Home (L)	23
Chicago – Home (D)	18
Orlando – Away (W)	22
Houston – Home (D)	20

Embarrassing. Houston was sitting deep, and (as we’ll see) barely venturing out of their bunker even to press. The number itself isn’t big, but the circumstances make it loom larger.

The giveaways were spread all over for this one. Reilyn Turner edged the Biggest Loser but with only three. Tordin lost two-and-a-half, and a slew of people (Arnold, Wilson, Vignola, Weaver) coughed up two apiece.

Tordin’s 24th minute pass-directly-to-a-purple-shirt-23-yards-from-her-own-goal was horrifying at the time, but by that point Houston was in the “protect the Precious” phase so they didn’t do anything dangerous with the gift. Thanks, Houston. Betcha wish you’d done more with it now, dontcha? Ha.

Press!

Twenty-fifth 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”.

Houston didn’t press. Period. Once they had their goal? They sat in, and were happy with that.

Portland…should have. Chasing the game, the Thorns needed every scrap of possession they could yank away from Houston. Instead the pressing numbers and intensity, not particularly high to begin with, faded all match. Some of that was obviously that Houston had little possession to take away from. But another part was the “second to every ball/outworked/outhustled” problem we mentioned above.

Match time	Dash presses (wins)(%)	Thorns presses (wins)(%)
0-45+1′	6(4) (66.6)%)	30(16) (53.3%)
45-90+4′	14(7) (50%)	13(7) (53.8%)
Match Total	20(11) (55%)	43(23) (53.4%)

My thoughts:
1) Not a factor for either side, except
2) It’s still puzzling why the Thorns pressing dropped away so sharply. Portland was chasing for seventy-five minutes! You’d expect the opposite; as the clock approached midnight you’d expect more desperation, more intensity, not less. I think the numbers we see reflect the overall lack of intelligent direction, both (presumably) from the technical box as well as the on-field leaders. As we’ve discussed, Portland against Houston looked outhustled, unfocused, poorly organized, and random, and I think the sparse, mediocre pressing reflects that.

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%)
Denver Away (L)	46(24) (52.1%)	53(27) (50.9%)
Gotham Home (D)	60(32) (53.3%)	58(86) (67.4%)
Utah Away (L)	86(61) (70.9%)	70(38) (54.2%)
Boston Away (W)	84(55) (65.4%)	83(44) (53%)
Orlando Home (w)	94(57) (60.6%)	87(55 (63.2%)
Denver Home (W)	87(55) (63.2%)	60(32) (53.3%)
Gotham Away (D)	42(34) (80.9%)	90(49) (54.4%)
Washington Home (L)	43(30) (69.7%)	64(35) (54.6%)
Chicago Home (D)	42(27) (64.2%)	54(33) (61.1%)
Orlando Away (W)	38(29) (76.3%)	39(23) (58.9%)
Houston Home (D)	20(11) (55%)	43(23) (53.4%)

Corner Kicks

Eight. Four in each half. Shockingly, six of eight were short.

Time	Taker	Short/Long?	Result
7′	Fleming	Short	…to Nijstad, whose cross into Tordin was cleared over the byline.
7′	Fleming	Short	…to Vignola, who fired way over.
21′	Fleming	Short	…to Nijstad, who crossed into the mixer again. It pinged around until cleared.
32′	Fleming	Short	…to Reyes for a 1-2. Fleming’s cross was the one van Zanten stole from Weaver. In her defense, Weaver tackled it back away, but then lost it over the byline.
58′	Fleming	Short	…to Nijstad again for the 1-2 again. Fleming’s cross found a Thorn head – couldn’t make out whose – but the header was right at Campbell
68′	Fleming	Short	…to Tordin, who lobbed a cross that Campbell took easily.
71′	Fleming	Long	Pinged off several heads into the air; after the third it was close enough for Campbell to grab.
75′	Fleming	Long	Kind of the same; headed high, then cleared, recycled, but didn’t really go anywhere.

I appreciate that someone (Lowdon? Vilahamn? Fleming?) wanted to experiment with the short corner. But. The thing with short corners? While I’ve been whining about not having “set plays” for direct corner kicks, that’s kind of a wanna/coulda/shoulda. A short corner by its very nature HAS to be some sort of set play.

“Huck it in and hope one of ours gets a head to it” is fine for a direct corner kick. But if you’re gonna play the ball out to a teammate in the near attacking channel, or close to the near corner, there’s gotta be an actual plan for what to do then.

If the idea is to pull the defending clump apart one of your teammates inside has to be prepared to receive, and the player in possession to provide, some sort of service for a flick, or a header, or a turn-and-shot…something. If the idea is to use the chaos to cross in high for a more conventional header? The crosser and prospective header need to have that set up – where can I find you? How will you deliver it to me? – before the corner is taken.

I didn’t see any real evidence of that. The service in was too soon after the corner kick delivery to really peel any defenders coming at the ball, and only one, the 58th minute, looked to have an actual target and found it.

If you’re gonna do this again, Thorns? You gotta spend some time on the training ground working it out before you pull it out of the hat on matchday.

Player Ratings and Comments

Wilson (+10/-5 : +5/-3 : +15/-8) Same pluses (workrate, hustle, mobility, grit), same minuses (finishing, impatience, lack of understanding with teammates as the screenshots above show). Again, I worry that this is a genuine confidence/headspace issue, i.e. “the yips”. In another player that’d be troublesome. In Wilson? Given how this club stands and falls with her? That could be disastrous.

Weaver (59′ – +6/-3 : +2/-0 : +8/-3) We all wanted the Orlando Missile to be the green flare announcing the Return of the Happy Warrior. But…I think we 1) just need to be patient and hope to see her grow more and more into her role, while 2) need to see the coaching staff continue to work at figuring out how to use her and all the other talented attackers in ways that synergize their skillsets. Is it “Tordin at false #9 with Wilson and Hanks beside her and Weaver off the bench”? Is it “Tordin at the #10 with Wilson at CF and Hanks and Weaver on the wing”?

I dunno. That’s not my job; I don’t run practice. But the people who do, yeah, that is their job. Well..?

Turner (31′ – +2/-3) No shooting boots, and that was murder on an evening when the Thorns really needed better shooting. Yet another player who would benefit from a better-defined role.

Tordin (+8/-4 : +6/-2 : +14/-6) She’s such a fun player to watch; fast, smart, tricky, with a touch like steel inside silk. I’d love for her to get some time playing 1-2 with Wilson when the pair are away with the Nats this autumn; I think that a more perceptive coach might help them develop some real creative ideas.

Hanks (+1/-2 : +8/-4 : +9/-6) Kind of the same positives and negatives as Turner; tons of hustle, lots of creativity and pace, couldn’t hit water if she fell out of a fucking boat. For a midfielder, that would be kind of okay. For a forward? That’s poison. I like a lot of what she brings, but right now Caiya Hanks reminds me strongly of early-career Hayley Raso, and Raso needed to find her shot before she became “Hayley Raso”, so…

Nijstad (+6/-0 : +6/-1 : +12/-1) I sure like this player! Good positioning and anticipation cutting off passes and pressing, deft passing, neat footwork. This was a sort of “both Fleming and Nijstad up” match, in which both shared the defending and attacking. Nijstad had the stronger match, but just a skosh.

Fleming (+5/-2 : +4/-2 : +9/-4) Very much part of a matched pair on both attack and defense. While Nijstad was a bit more aggressive Fleming was the stronger tackler; six of her nine pluses are for takeaways.

Reyes (+2/-2 : +8/-1 : +10/-3) Got a big thorn for the concession (but so did everyone in the backline outside Vignola) but grew into the match, and was strong by halftime. Again, not going to wade into the “play Reyes you %$!#!$!!” thing, but second match in a row where RR sure made a case for a return to the XI.

Calzada (+6/-2 : +4/-1 : +10/-3) Probably the most culpable on the concession, and another rook stumble in the 45th minute, but overall a solid match against an admittedly poor opponent (or, rather, one that took one shot, made it, then turtled).

Perry (+4/-1 : +1/-2 : +5/-3) Well, didn’t pick up a yellow, so that’s good. Otherwise pretty much the same as above; decent match, disinterested opponent, so not really a good test.

Vignola (59′ – +1/-3 : +5/-2 : +6/-4) The minuses are a bit deceptive, because they’re for wasted shooting, mostly. Other than the concession, though, Vignola had one of those “high risk” moments in the 22nd minute. Went for a sliding tackle on Fasse when she was effectively the last defender, so when she missed opened up the entire final third. Perry jumped on her bike and made the saving tackle (inside the 18, so a clumsy hack would have meant the PK, two goals down, and the sure loss…)

That’s the sort of thing that gets fans’ backs up about M.A., I think. She gives you 89 solid minutes but then goes big like that and, if she misses, shit, does it look bad. I think the damage is more psychological that functional, though. I’m good with her at this point.

Muller (31′ – +5/-0) That said, the substitution was damn fortunate. Smart, opportunistic attack and goal, and other than that, well, that was really all she needed to do with Houston’s “attack” taking the week off with pay.

Arnold (+0/-0 : +0/-0 : +0/-0) Interestingly, Sofascore dinged the shit out of her – her 5.9 was the lowest of all Thorns ratings for this match – for shipping a good goal and not saving anything while Campbell got high marks for shipping a good goal…and saving a bunch of mostly-right-in-her-gloves shots.

I think the screenshot of the Rader goal says enough; Arnold made the right play on Rader. Rader was simply that good, and made a better play and scored. That’s goalkeeping; it’s a goddamn tough way to make a living.

Coach Vilahamn: All the same things we’ve seen all season.

I don’t hate his work. He’s been a perfectly C to C-minus (which is to say, replacement-NWSL-level) head coach this year. His hiring was a huge FO/GM fuckup, but he’s had enough time to work out some better ideas of how to figure out the attacking/defending/passing/moving/understanding issues we’ve had to thrash out game after game after game.

He hasn’t.

My main point of dissatisfaction is that if he hasn’t really done much to improve the squad after the Gale tenure…which he hasn’t…what point in keeping him another season? And if he doesn’t actually have a cunning plan more cunning than a cunning fox appointed Dean of Cunning at Cunning University for doing that improvement before next season, why not go ahead and get ahead of the power curve?

Hand the squad to Lowdon. Let her give the final four games a chance. If she catches fire? Let her continue in interim next year. If not? You’ve bought yourself two more months to find someone who can.

If Vilahamn is here next April I won’t be horrified. But I’ll make a note; I think the club has an opportunity here. Risky? Sure! The next hire might be worse; so far as a GM Jeff Agoos hasn’t impressed the hell out of me.

But for three seasons now the club has “played it safe”. Replacing Rhian Wilkinson with Mike Norris, then Norris with Rob Gale. Vilahamn sure looks increasingly like Gale2.0.

I’d like the see the FO stretch a bit. Chicago found a way to pull Vlatko Andonovski out from behind a desk, and while I’m not sure Vlatko is the answer here (I’m not sure he’s the answer there, either; the fucking “Stars” need a miracle of the Buddha-or-Christ-like-magnitude, and I’m not convinced that Vlatko is the guy to do that…) but I’d sure like to see the Bhathals get a bit more impatient and a lot more ambitious.

Will they?

I think the stretch rum will make a huge difference there.

Run the table? Particularly if we whale the living shit out of The Damned Courage! I think our Swedish chef is here cooking next season. Especially if we get to the Final (or play well in a losing semfinal).

But bottle it?

Then we get the worst of both worlds. A crap league finish (hello, Gale, 2024!) and a small window (or, realistically, small chance or no chance at all) to find a replacement (hello, Vilahamn, 2026!).

This coming weekend we get the can-y-est of the tomato cans in our final run; Boston. I can’t put my feelings about BOSNation any better than Carlisle-sensei did after their last match:

“I think I’ve gone through all the emotions about Boston and what Filipa Patão is trying to do that I’ve now just landed on anger. Some of this is slight shame from my preseason belief that they would at least be interesting. Turns out they’re just not. They’re not a good team and either Patão isn’t any closer to figuring out the NWSL than she was at the start of the year, or stubbornly insisting that what she’s trying to do will just work one day.”

Three points for the taking.

Take ’em, goddamn it.

Or explain to this woman why the fuck you didn’t.