Thorns FC: Draft Card

Well, so far it’s been an underwhelming NWSL off-season everywhere but in Australia. And we’ll talk about Thorns Down Under some time in late January or early February. Whole Lot o’ Nothin’ The hoped-for 2020 NWSL expansion is officially deader’n the passenger pigeon. Sacramento, for reasons that have still not been fully explained, was unable […]

Thorns FC: Final Grades – The Coaches, Trainers, and Management

I thought I’d said enough about last season, until I realized that I hadn’t got to where the buck really stops; the coaching and training staff and the club management. So in this final, final-grades post I want to discuss what in the Army we liked to call the “echelons above reality”; the people who […]

Thorns FC: Final Grades – The Forwards

We’ve finally come to the end of our look at the 2019 Thorns with the players whose job is to put the biscuit in the basket; the forwards. Before we got to this point we’ve looked at the goalkeepers, and concluded that we have two players who appear to be on diverging paths; A.D Franch, […]

Thorns FC: final Grades – The Midfield

The Heart of the Midfield: The Big Three Here’s pretty much where you need to start to discuss the Thorns’ midfield in 2019; with 2018, and the difference in goals scored between the two seasons by three of the Thorns midfielders: Lindsey Horan, Tobin Heath, and Christine Sinclair. Because 2018 was the Year Without Forwards; […]

Thorns FC: Final Grades – The Backline

The Tipping Toddler (A Safety Advisory) Before we go on, let me start with this. I’m not here to slag off on the Thorns as a team, or any individual player. As a fan I love and support the squad, in victory or in defeat. Some readers expressed concern that I was low-rating A.D. Franch […]

Thorns FC: Final Grades – The Keepers

There may be a Moral, though some say not;I think there’s a moral, though I don’t know what.But if one gets better, as the other gets wuss,These Two Little Bears are just like Us. ~ from Twice Times, by A.A. Milne Now that it’s all over perhaps we should look back at the 2019 season, […]

Thorns FC: The Things We Did Last Summer

I think we’re most of us finally into the fifth Kubler-Ross stage of the Portland Thorns 2019 season. Okay, well, no, not me. I’m still stuck in the fucking “anger, bargaining, and drinking heavily” stage. What, that’s not one? Aw, the hell with it. It is for me. But I suspect – and I hope […]

Thorns FC: One and Done

What was so shocking about the end of the Thorns’ 2019 season wasn’t that it came so soon, in only the 8th minute of the semifinal match in Chicago. Or that it began with a couple of individual mistakes, beginning either with Emily Menges’ mishit pass or Tobin Heath’s inexplicable phantom-backheel-to nobody, take your pick: […]

Thorns FC: Cold Open

As the final regular season match of 2019 it was an epic letdown on the scale of the last episode of Game of Thrones. As entrance to the playoffs it was stone-cold . But y’know what? I really don’t want to go in depth over the dreary scoreless draw the Thorns played out against Washington […]

Thorns FC: Swept Away

When I think of “trouble” this season my first thought is usually “The Damned”. But you know who has really been the hammer on the Thorns this season? Tacoma. They’ve utterly stoned us; 0-3-0, outscored 4 goals to nil, swept the season series (and 2-5-0 over the past two seasons; the two wins were, fortunately, […]