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. […]

Fairytale Come True

(in which the Thorns win the NWSL Championship and Portland pees itself a little) The NWSL Final was played in the land of sanitized fairytales. The original stories included dark themes of villainy, maimings, and worse. But then a hero emerged and everything wrapped up with a happy ending. How appropriate for this match. The […]

Bye Orlando! Oh, Hi Orlando!

(in which the Thorns dispatch the Pride at home and now are going to the Final in Orlando) The Thorns beat the Orlando Pride 4-1 at Providence Park to earn a berth in the NWSL Final. One more win, this time versus the North Carolina Courage, and the Thorns will be the league’s second team […]

Nothing to Get Too Excited About

(in which the Thorns handily win a friendly and get an unlikely next opponent) The Thorns hosted the Chicago Red Stars on Saturday for the season finale. The game was decidedly tilted in Portland’s favor even more than the 3-1 score indicated. But since Chicago wasn’t really trying, the win has a somewhat hollow feel. […]

Meets Minimum Standards

(In which the Thorns are held in check, but return the favor. Postseason looms) The Thorns made the long trip to Florida and came home with a point and a record-breaking clean sheet. With the home semi-final locked up, the objectives for this match were different than normal. Primary objectives: get the defense back in […]

Entering the Home Stretch

(in which we have a brief recap of the Thorns’ glorious successes to start September) Since my match report is late, I decided to try a different format this time. Borrowing from others, here are my highlights by the numbers in no particular order. 2 – Crucial wins against the soft part of the remaining […]

Emerald City Gem

(In which the Thorns beat the Reign 2-1 and break the Curse of Memorial Stadium) Take a base element, in nature or the lab, and apply constant increasing heat and pressure for a long time. The result can be a perfect gem. On Saturday, the Thorns produced a beautiful red ruby in only 90 minutes […]