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 […]

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, […]

Thorns FC: Protect the precious

The funnest part of the Thorns’ 3-1 loss to the Washington Spirit came at roughly 56:24 in the Yahoo! Sports stream. It wasn’t actually part of the matchplay, but, rather, during a weather delay when the Yahoo! crew dove for cover but left the microphone open. At that time we learned that we weren’t playing […]

Thorns FC: Winning Ugly

It was one ugly ass road win. It was an ugly opponent; Orlando, this season’s Sky Blue. And boy, howdy, were they ugly. Defensively porous ugly. Offensively impotent ugly. Hacky, cheap-shot-foul-y ugly. It was an ugly game. Sloppy; 63% passing, Thorns? 59% passing, Orlando? Ugly. Dirty; twenty-six fouls and only twenty-seven shots? Yep. That’s ugly. […]

Thorns FC: Sacrifice

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. “ ~ Steve Prefontaine At about the 20th minute of this match I was already thinking about this column, and the image I had in mind for the header was a flaming dumpster. Because that’s how furious I was the the Thorns had […]

Thorns FC: Taking the CTA to Crazytown

Whatever else you could say, you sure as hell could say “it wasn’t boring”. On Matchday 2 the Chicago Red Stars and Portland Thorns combined for eight goals – including a penalty conversion each. Exciting? It was surely that. It had everything that makes soccer a great sport. Great team and individual skill. Multiple lead […]