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 […]

Thorns FC: First Steps

There’s a story about a frivolous and fashionable lady of the French court of Louis XIV whose chaplain tried to impress on her the importance of diligent seriousness by recounting the story of an early Christian martyr whose faith was so powerful that, after he was decapitated, he made a pilgrimage by walking to Jerusalem […]

Thorns FC: Post-Pre

The next time we see our Portland Thorns on the pitch, the results will matter. That wasn’t the case the three times we saw them the previous week; the “Thorns Invitational” was only an opportunity for us, and the coaching and training staff, to see how well the players and team are shaping as they […]

Thorns FC: Pre-preseason

This Sunday the Thorns kick off their 2019 season with a preseason match against the Chicago Red Stars at Merlo Field in North Portland. Typically I would be here the following week with a match report and plus-minus ratings for the Thorns…but not this time. I had hip replacement surgery Thursday and won’t be mobile […]

Thorns FC: The Midfield (now with 100% more Dagny!)

Per the Thorns Richard Farley it’s now official; Thorns FC has resigned Dagny Brynjarsdottir. While this in itself is good news, given how gutted the Thorns midfield is likely to be at midsummer, with three (and, possibly, four) midfielders – including 2018’s top three scorers – gone for the World Cup, what’s really interesting to […]

THORNS FC: THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE

The Defense So far, we’ve looked at Thorns FC at forward and midfield. In both cases the prospects for 2019 are like that old story about the Chinese symbol for “future” being made from two characters, one meaning “danger” and the other “opportunity”. The opportunity is always there. The danger? The loss of so many […]

Thorns FC: The Midfield

Last week we looked at Thorns FC’s striking corps. This week we look at who we have in the center of the pitch. Thorns FC has a total of six midfielders under contract this January; Tobin Heath, Andressinha, Lindsey Horan, Midge Purce, Celeste Boureille, and Angela Salem. Although still rostered as a forward, Christine Sinclair […]

Thorns FC: what the heck is a pmr?

Although I didn’t get any feedback in the comments section from the last post, I did get some questions about this “PMR” system thing over at the Riveting! Facebook page. Since you’ll be seeing this stuff again when the season starts, I thought I’d take a moment to explain it. The whole magilla was invented […]