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 […]
Read More Thorns FC: Draft CardI 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 […]
Read More Thorns FC: Final Grades – The Coaches, Trainers, and ManagementWe’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, […]
Read More Thorns FC: Final Grades – The ForwardsThe 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; […]
Read More Thorns FC: final Grades – The MidfieldThe 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 […]
Read More Thorns FC: Final Grades – The BacklineThere 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, […]
Read More Thorns FC: Final Grades – The KeepersI 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 […]
Read More Thorns FC: The Things We Did Last SummerIt’s the last episode of the season and we ran long because there was so much to talk about. For instance (SPOILER ALERT) we didn’t have such a great run at the end of the season. What went wrong? What changes need to be made in the off season? Who stays and who goes? All […]
Read More Episode 31: Having Procured One Bear…What do the Thorns mean to you? How do you feel about the 2019 season? I’ve set up a Google Voice phone number at (971) 258-1933. Please call and leave a voicemail with your response and we’ll try and use it on our final Riveting! episode of the year. Please make sure and give us […]
Read More We Want to Hear From You!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: […]
Read More Thorns FC: One and Done