Thorns FC: Ridet Caesar

Victor Hugo probably invented the phrase because he wanted to make a point about the Battle of Waterloo in Les Miserables, but it still makes a great Latin tag: Ridet Caesar, Pompeius flebit. “Caesar laughs, Pompey weeps.” Last Wednesday night Caesar laughed, Pompey wept, and I laughed, too; laughed both from the pure joy of […]

Thorns FC: Right in the face

Where to start? Perhaps with the final score; 2-2 in Rio Tinto, a road point in Utah, which would typically be cause for, if not celebration, at least a certain satisfaction. Why did the result feel so disappointing, instead? Perhaps because of the score progression, where the Thorns went up in the 9th minute only […]

Thorns FC: Buckwild

That was utterly nuts. The Thorns had scored a grand total of three goals in the 270 minutes preceding the home match against Orlando. Then, in the 94 minutes between the whistles last Sunday, they scored four. Or five, if you count the one Emily Menges scored for Orlando. Either way, Portland rung up something […]

Thorns FC: Ouch

Well, that was…unexpected. Exactly a week after gutsing out a tough road win in Houston, Thorns FC returned to the friendly confines of Providence Park and dropped a clanger against a Reign FC that has been gutted by injuries and absences. I don’t know how much insight I can give into why the Thorns managed […]

Thorns FC: It shall go hard

“Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.” ~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 1. At halftime I was certain we were going to see another scoreless draw. The heat was oppressive, the humidity vile, the hideous fox-thing […]

Thorns FC: Wait. What?

Every time I open the NWSL website it keeps insisting that the Thorns played the Utah Royals to a scoreless draw here last Friday. And every time I dimly remember something like that. But with Dog as my witness, I can’t for the life of me remember what the hell happened. So between Monday and […]

Thorns FC: Silk Purce

And, since you probably know the aphorism, here then is the sow’s ear, per Chris Henderson: Yet the Thorns got the road point in Cary, something they haven’t done since the then-Western-New-York-Flash relocated there from Rochester. How the hell did they do that? Well, first, Midge Purce latched onto a ridiculous lofted Celeste Boureille lob, […]

Thorns FC: Let’s Score Some Goals!

“Everything is great! Let’s score some goals!” ~ Mark Parsons, about 3:15pm, 6/2/19 Did the Portland Thorns dominate the visiting Chicago Red Stars last Sunday afternoon? Leo Baudhuin of Stumptown Footy certainly saw that; Thorns dominate Red Stars in home opener was the headline of the STF match report. At the NWSL website Jacquiline Purdy […]

Stats break: keep away

or: who you gonna believe? me, or your lyin’ eyes? You all probably know that I’m kind of a stats geek. And, yes, I am; I think that we can learn a lot from breaking down individual and team metrics. I like fooling with numbers. Damn, I really AM a sad sort of stats geek. […]

Thorns FC: Zzzzzzzz

The good thing about playing bad teams is that you beat them. The bad thing about playing bad teams is that it’s often difficult to figure out what to make of that. Sure, if you thrash Sky Blue FC 5-nil you’ve pretty much made the statement “We’re waaaaay better than Sky Blue FC”. Mind you, […]