A Closer Look at Payton Linnehan's Impressive Debut

We take an in-depth look at Payton Linnehan's NWSL debut for the Portland Thorns.

Credit; Portland Thorns FC

After battling an injury throughout preseason and early portions of the NWSL season, the Portland Thorns’ prized first round pick finally made her professional soccer debut.

In the 70th minute, Payton Linnehan subbed on for Morgan Weaver with the game still at 2-1 in their favor. Rob Gale trusted the rookie to play big minutes down the stretch of a game that needed to win.

That decision would be brilliantly rewarded.

Football IQ & Playmaking

The rookie made an immediate impact in her 30 minute debut.

Although she was touted as a strong right winger out of Penn State, she played the majority of her first professional minutes on the left side of the frontline. Her connection with Reyna Reyes was very solid even though it was just their first game together.

In this sequence, Payton Linnehan checks back onside and reads the play extremely well. She sees Reyna Reyes making a run behind the backline and weighs a nice pass to the fullback who finds Janine Beckie’s head almost for a goal.

In this clip, Reyes uses her strength and dribble to get past Yuki Nagasato. She lays it off to Linnehan who gets her defender on the back foot and uses her dribble to find Hina. The pass was off the mark, but will improve with more reps with her teammates. It was again, the right read.