Riveting in France: Opening match

The opening match of the 2019 Women’s World Cup was tonight in Paris. France faced South Korea in what turned out to be an entirely one-sided affair. For example, France had 10 corners, 16 shots and 3 goals in the first half – Korean got one corner and nothing else. Former Thorn Amandine Henry assisted […]

Home at Last!

The Thorns finally had a home game, and it was quite the day. The 3-0 win kicked off the introduction of the “Nat-free Thorns” to the home faithful in high style. But the fun started before the first whistle. Hammered Rivets The stadium update is pretty impressive. Aside from the obvious new stand, there were […]

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, […]

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 roster moves – World Cup, Part 1

The Thorns’ Big News Wednesday was a slug of player personnel moves, including three replacement-player – sorry; “supplemental” player signings, two players waived, the activation of Andressinha, and the return to Portland of Hayley Raso – only now with 100% more green cards! But what does it all mean? I hear you ask… Fortunately for […]

When Sorry Won’t Do in Canada

(This is the blog post Richard mentioned in Episode 24. It is very worth a read. –Patrick) Read it and weep. This long blog post from February details allegations, with supporting detail, about misconduct by coaches in the Vancouver Whitecaps girl’s academy back in 2008. It’s such a now-familiar story that it’s hard reading: girls […]

EpIsode 24: Mixed Metaphors

It’s finally happened– World Cup call ups have happened. What will that mean for the Thorns facing Orlando? And what happened in New Jersey? Why does John use so many mixed metaphors? Join Patrick, Richard, John and (drumroll please) Shannan for the newest episode of Riveting!