Can the Portland Thorns shake off their NWSL struggles & regain form for the CONCACAF W Champions Cup? The winner of this tournament will receive a spot in the first ever FIFA Women's Club World Cup.
Wow. End of an era. She's retiring immediately - Sept 8 will be last game???
The big exhale and look upward before she says anything say EVERYTHING.
Tearing up many times as she speaks.
Big news: she's pregnant!
Morgan, an original Thorn, was a great leader for women's soccer and a forceful advocate for improving the sport for players everywhere in recent years. She used her platform for others very well.
I have to say that I wondered if this might be coming, in light of Dahlkemper's departure. Not so suddenly and announcing her pregnancy, but at the end of this year. SD are in flux.
And let's not forget her crucial support for Farrelly and Shim. Her role was behind the scenes, but very important both to them personally and to giving their story the impact to change women's sports.
Yeah, that's part of what I meant re: using her platform for others and improving the sport for better. You need someone with her name recognition to play that role, and she played it expertly. I was never a huge Morgan fan as a player, but I have huge respect for her as an advocate, ally, and supporter.
Alex Morgan has never been reticent about leading—in the clubhouse, in the league as a whole, in the USWNT—and has done as much for US women's soccer as Rapinoe (not that this is a contest). Am sorry as a fan to be losing her, but have nothing but good memories and respect.
Went to a Cal soccer match a few years ago and her banner hangs proudly in the beat-up old stadium. She was elite for a long time, one of the best.
I noted that CA seemed pretty small. Mauleon, who lined up as a 10, is 5'0" and Avilez, who subbed on in the midfield in the 71st, is listed as 5'2" and 101 lbs.
Hit The Equalizer this morning, saw the piece about Glas going to Seattle. Was struck by Glas's leg muscles - she's been doing a lot of strength and conditioning work in KC these past two years - but then noticed that Howell (behind to the right) is now absolutely jacked and ripped.
My take is that Obaze is already good, is going to be really good, and it’s a bummer we haven’t seen her get a chance to play with Sauerbrunn cause Hubly has been a bit of a mess as of late.
Becky wasn’t in the 18 tonight either- Hope there’s not some undisclosed injury.
Now THAT would be a disaster because we only have 2 other CB’s besides her. One being Obaze, who hasn’t played a full 90 I think all season, and she’s generally coming off with injuries more times than not. And the other is Hubly, who isn’t a starter in this league. Next up seems to be…Mallie McKenzie? No.
Was this game hard for anyone else to find, or was it just me? I tried (1) the NWSL channel on Paramount+, (2) searching for "Thorns" on Paramount+, (3) the NWSL+ app,(4) the Thorns website (no viewing info at all, just an offer to sell me tickets), and (5) the NWSL website (no mention of the game at all. Shame on you NWSL!). I found it only after I thought of (6) searching on P+ for "concacaf w" - by which time I had missed most of the game, including all of the goals.
You'd think they were TRYING to stop me from viewing the game.
Had to run down Golazo and ole, there were three or four options with that name, one of which was showing one of the Vancouvers and one of the Santa Fes soccering in front of zero fans in the rain. I left it there and they jumped to Providence, eventually.
As Thornado said, it’s the Whitecap Girls Elite Academy, it’s basically a youth team/training program for potential national team players. The Whitecaps will have a team in the NSL (Canada’s new professional league) but it won’t be this team.
A good majority of the players cannot legally drink in Canada. To give you an idea -some of their players were recently called up to the U15 CONCACAF tournament, two of their star players are with the U20s at the moment. IIRC the average age of their starting lineup against CA was 18.
Yeah, Paramount is absolute hot garbage, I found some of the other matches on it listed simply under “more soccer” rather than the NWSL channel, if it wasn’t for NWSL and Star Trek I’d have ditched it ages ago
Apparently Croix Bethune is now out for the season with a meniscus injury. She sustained it throwing out the first pitch at a Washington Nationals game, where they were honoring Olympic gold medalists. Man that sucks for her, and for the Spirit.
CA have a little more talent than I thought (Luna, Camberos, Luebbert, Palacios, Encisco, Guerrero) and that was not among the best lineups we can put out, but still...not what I would call encouraging. Decided to sit right behind the Thorns bench tonight and Gale was PISSED pretty much the whole second half.
The good:
- Turner's pretty much what exactly what you want out of a backup nine/wing.
- Hina and Fleming seem to have an adorable friendship.
- Cool to see the old Sinc come out against another Mexican side (which also means she's unlikely to start Saturday).
- Really like what I've seen out of Arnold so far. Plays with confidence.
The Bad:
- Incredibly sloppy
- Regardless of who's playing the position, the two 8s don't seem to have any idea what their responsibilities are in any game phase. Far too easy for CA to play line breaking balls into feet.
- If Gale tries any version of that nasty Sam Coffey single pivot against Washington it ain't gonna end well.
Sinc owned Panos, who is (or at least was) a world-class keeper.
Yes, I thought CA are at least as good as several NWSL sides. They're just smaller than Portland, but not less skilled exactly or less confident. They played an enjoyable style and, if not for Sinc's wizardry, might well have walked out of here with 1 if not all 3 points.
Obaze played well, as did Arnold.
Also, what is it about playing Mexican teams that allows Sinc and Kling to turn back the clock?
Because they are (or looked, anyway...) smaller and slower. She can't run anymore, but you give Sinc that much time and space to tee the ball up? She'll score. I thought the CA keeper - Panos? - was pretty poor. Dunked on Sinc's first, set up back post but didn't so much as wave at Turner's header. No chance on the second Sinc goal.
So I have no real idea how good/bad these Central American and LMXF clubs are. CA beat Vancouver 7-nil at home, and lost here 3-1 while Vancouver was beating Santa Fe 1-2 away. Santa Fe had lost to San Diego 0-2 at home, so they're pretty bad, meaning Vancouver is probably not very good either. And San Diego is what they are.
Panos *should* be better than that. 3x UWCL champion with Barca, 54 caps for Spain. But a brutal error in the midfield, bad defending on both of Sinc's goals, and no marking on Turner on the set piece and that's what you get.
A good rule of thumb with keepers is that just cause they play on good teams doesn't mean they're good, especially in Spain where ability in possession is paramount. Panos played on Barca teams that dominated, so she was rarely challenged.
Yeah that wasn't a bad team. I don't think they'd be competitive at all against pretty much any NWSL side's first team (only Luna, Guererro, and Camberos on a really good day would have a shot at starting for even the worst NWSL teams), but they were structured pretty well and had some nice attacking moves. Definitely better than TJ.
Also really interesting to watch a home match that, at least by noise level, was close to 50% CA supporters. Lots of CA kits, flags, and luchador masks. And every time a Thorn went down or Arnold held onto the ball, the CA supporters were whistling loudly. Had CA been able to stay in the match longer, that would have been a really interesting crowd late in the match.
Yeah, my takeaway was "that worked against this lot, but..." Sloppy, like you'd expect from such a mix-n-match squad. But tons of turnovers under very little pressure, the usual midfield chaos...it's still coaching. dammit. The roster has promise. It's how it's being trained and organized...or NOT organized.
Yeah anything resembling that shape and spacing and Rodman and Kouassi are going to eat up those sidelines. Kinda hope it happens tbh. It would be incredibly naive of him to look at this game as any success or encouragement for no changes. And poor Sam, man. I didn’t think we could look worse than Norris had us at the beginning of the season, but at least we were scoring lol. This looks like a whole other realm of disfunction (from a lot of talented players!)
He's got 10+ games before the season ends with a nearly fully healthy and available roster, so we'll see what he's got pretty quickly. There's a world where he figures it out with a little consistency, even if I'm very skeptical.
I will say that I'm steadily becoming more and more radicalized against Hubly. She's just not a starting level CB in this league anymore. Watching how Obaze (who very clearly is a starting level player imo) comports herself compared to Hubly is night and day.
Yeah...I honestly hope we get either all or nothing. If it's bad, I kinda hope that it's real bad so as to force the hand of the Bhathals. If there's a world in where it starts to turn around and click....well alright! I just don't wanna see a win every 3 or 4 games, which is pretty bad for this club, but enough for the dross to continue into next season...
Your instincts about Kelli are right, though. The thing about Kelli...she looked much better surrounded by better players overall/a younger CB partner/a better defensive unit as a whole, in her prime at 26, in NWSL 1.0, against much weaker league attackers overall. The league has just passed her by, for multiple reasons, and she hasn't been starting quality for like 3 years now. This league just requires better defenders in 2024. We have to adapt as well, or we as a club will be left behind. What worked even 2-3 years ago isn't really applicable now.
I read your comment this am and thought it was a random guess/joke, but then saw the actual news haha. Indeed not a joke! And like Thornando said...seemingly not CBS Morning News worthy, but that lady LOVES to be in the spotlight.
Dame was a part of the only other mentioned bid for a Portland WNBA team. He was a part of a bid put together by Monarch, who I believe has some ownership in Angel City. Apparently there were other "celebrities" and Angel City adjacent stars a part of that Portland bid also (myyyy guess? Press and Heath.)
But, looks like the Bhathals bid won out. Still, would love Dame to hopefully join in with the Bhathals, even if his bid didn't go through.
Alex Morgan announces her retirement
https://x.com/itsmeglinehan/status/1831709737299181630?s=46
Wow. End of an era. She's retiring immediately - Sept 8 will be last game???
The big exhale and look upward before she says anything say EVERYTHING.
Tearing up many times as she speaks.
Big news: she's pregnant!
Morgan, an original Thorn, was a great leader for women's soccer and a forceful advocate for improving the sport for players everywhere in recent years. She used her platform for others very well.
I have to say that I wondered if this might be coming, in light of Dahlkemper's departure. Not so suddenly and announcing her pregnancy, but at the end of this year. SD are in flux.
And let's not forget her crucial support for Farrelly and Shim. Her role was behind the scenes, but very important both to them personally and to giving their story the impact to change women's sports.
Yeah, that's part of what I meant re: using her platform for others and improving the sport for better. You need someone with her name recognition to play that role, and she played it expertly. I was never a huge Morgan fan as a player, but I have huge respect for her as an advocate, ally, and supporter.
Just thought that deserved an explicit shoutout, especially for Thorns fans, some of whom might not have been aware.
Alex Morgan has never been reticent about leading—in the clubhouse, in the league as a whole, in the USWNT—and has done as much for US women's soccer as Rapinoe (not that this is a contest). Am sorry as a fan to be losing her, but have nothing but good memories and respect.
Went to a Cal soccer match a few years ago and her banner hangs proudly in the beat-up old stadium. She was elite for a long time, one of the best.
I noted that CA seemed pretty small. Mauleon, who lined up as a 10, is 5'0" and Avilez, who subbed on in the midfield in the 71st, is listed as 5'2" and 101 lbs.
Hit The Equalizer this morning, saw the piece about Glas going to Seattle. Was struck by Glas's leg muscles - she's been doing a lot of strength and conditioning work in KC these past two years - but then noticed that Howell (behind to the right) is now absolutely jacked and ripped.
https://equalizersoccer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/E220FC2A-4A45-4DD1-AB47-B07B506BB405_1_201_a-1-1536x1024.jpg
"Glas break you."
And Howell looks like The Terminator.
You said you wouldn’t name names about who you suspected might be juicing, so I assume you think this is all natural?
These folks were not on my list.
Match Highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkuWrnzf7hw (in Gringo, and shorter)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODhITEbdIYI (en Espanol, and longer)
Sinc's celebration was awesome. She looks like she'd have a decent jumper.
So, what, if anything, do we make of Hubs and Obaze playing together, with Obaze playing in Bruun''s spot these past two matches?
My take is that Obaze is already good, is going to be really good, and it’s a bummer we haven’t seen her get a chance to play with Sauerbrunn cause Hubly has been a bit of a mess as of late.
Becky wasn’t in the 18 tonight either- Hope there’s not some undisclosed injury.
Now THAT would be a disaster because we only have 2 other CB’s besides her. One being Obaze, who hasn’t played a full 90 I think all season, and she’s generally coming off with injuries more times than not. And the other is Hubly, who isn’t a starter in this league. Next up seems to be…Mallie McKenzie? No.
Was this game hard for anyone else to find, or was it just me? I tried (1) the NWSL channel on Paramount+, (2) searching for "Thorns" on Paramount+, (3) the NWSL+ app,(4) the Thorns website (no viewing info at all, just an offer to sell me tickets), and (5) the NWSL website (no mention of the game at all. Shame on you NWSL!). I found it only after I thought of (6) searching on P+ for "concacaf w" - by which time I had missed most of the game, including all of the goals.
You'd think they were TRYING to stop me from viewing the game.
Had to run down Golazo and ole, there were three or four options with that name, one of which was showing one of the Vancouvers and one of the Santa Fes soccering in front of zero fans in the rain. I left it there and they jumped to Providence, eventually.
Thus, I learned Whitecaps have a woman's team.
As Thornado said, it’s the Whitecap Girls Elite Academy, it’s basically a youth team/training program for potential national team players. The Whitecaps will have a team in the NSL (Canada’s new professional league) but it won’t be this team.
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/academy/girlselite/program
Correction: Vancouver Whitecaps Elite Girls. That's the official name of the team in this Cuppy Cup. Makes me wonder how old said Whitecaps are.
A good majority of the players cannot legally drink in Canada. To give you an idea -some of their players were recently called up to the U15 CONCACAF tournament, two of their star players are with the U20s at the moment. IIRC the average age of their starting lineup against CA was 18.
Helps put in perspective this inaugural Champions Cup. Hope we take that into account when we face Whitecaps on October 15.
As far as I could tell it was invisible on Paramount+ until 7:00. Then I found it by clicking the Live TV button.
Yeah, Paramount is absolute hot garbage, I found some of the other matches on it listed simply under “more soccer” rather than the NWSL channel, if it wasn’t for NWSL and Star Trek I’d have ditched it ages ago
If you’re ever outside the USA it will be on CONCACAF’s YouTube for free.
Apparently Croix Bethune is now out for the season with a meniscus injury. She sustained it throwing out the first pitch at a Washington Nationals game, where they were honoring Olympic gold medalists. Man that sucks for her, and for the Spirit.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/41128757/usa-croix-bethune-suffers-season-ending-knee-injury
Yeah. I think ABell4 said that was her 3rd ACL tear. Probably time to do something different for a while, or permanently. I mean she's only 23.
Only a meniscus this time, but she has already torn the ACL three times. I believe it's the same knee tho.
Holy cats. Yeah, time to find a physical activity that doesn't involve much knee strain. Maybe swimming.
No, this time she has a torn meniscus…but she went into the draft having had 3 ACL tears already (in the same knee.)
That's really rough, and sounds very similar to what ended Brandon Roy's career w/ the Blazers.
Yeah, I had one and it ended my forthcoming college career! My left knee still ain't right lol...
CA have a little more talent than I thought (Luna, Camberos, Luebbert, Palacios, Encisco, Guerrero) and that was not among the best lineups we can put out, but still...not what I would call encouraging. Decided to sit right behind the Thorns bench tonight and Gale was PISSED pretty much the whole second half.
The good:
- Turner's pretty much what exactly what you want out of a backup nine/wing.
- Hina and Fleming seem to have an adorable friendship.
- Cool to see the old Sinc come out against another Mexican side (which also means she's unlikely to start Saturday).
- Really like what I've seen out of Arnold so far. Plays with confidence.
The Bad:
- Incredibly sloppy
- Regardless of who's playing the position, the two 8s don't seem to have any idea what their responsibilities are in any game phase. Far too easy for CA to play line breaking balls into feet.
- If Gale tries any version of that nasty Sam Coffey single pivot against Washington it ain't gonna end well.
Sinc owned Panos, who is (or at least was) a world-class keeper.
Yes, I thought CA are at least as good as several NWSL sides. They're just smaller than Portland, but not less skilled exactly or less confident. They played an enjoyable style and, if not for Sinc's wizardry, might well have walked out of here with 1 if not all 3 points.
Obaze played well, as did Arnold.
Also, what is it about playing Mexican teams that allows Sinc and Kling to turn back the clock?
Because they are (or looked, anyway...) smaller and slower. She can't run anymore, but you give Sinc that much time and space to tee the ball up? She'll score. I thought the CA keeper - Panos? - was pretty poor. Dunked on Sinc's first, set up back post but didn't so much as wave at Turner's header. No chance on the second Sinc goal.
So I have no real idea how good/bad these Central American and LMXF clubs are. CA beat Vancouver 7-nil at home, and lost here 3-1 while Vancouver was beating Santa Fe 1-2 away. Santa Fe had lost to San Diego 0-2 at home, so they're pretty bad, meaning Vancouver is probably not very good either. And San Diego is what they are.
So Ken might have found something he can win..!
Also, Ken might have found SOMEWHERE he can win ("South of the border, down Mexico way...")
Panos *should* be better than that. 3x UWCL champion with Barca, 54 caps for Spain. But a brutal error in the midfield, bad defending on both of Sinc's goals, and no marking on Turner on the set piece and that's what you get.
A good rule of thumb with keepers is that just cause they play on good teams doesn't mean they're good, especially in Spain where ability in possession is paramount. Panos played on Barca teams that dominated, so she was rarely challenged.
Yeah that wasn't a bad team. I don't think they'd be competitive at all against pretty much any NWSL side's first team (only Luna, Guererro, and Camberos on a really good day would have a shot at starting for even the worst NWSL teams), but they were structured pretty well and had some nice attacking moves. Definitely better than TJ.
Maybe we could hire their head coach!
Also really interesting to watch a home match that, at least by noise level, was close to 50% CA supporters. Lots of CA kits, flags, and luchador masks. And every time a Thorn went down or Arnold held onto the ball, the CA supporters were whistling loudly. Had CA been able to stay in the match longer, that would have been a really interesting crowd late in the match.
Yeah, my takeaway was "that worked against this lot, but..." Sloppy, like you'd expect from such a mix-n-match squad. But tons of turnovers under very little pressure, the usual midfield chaos...it's still coaching. dammit. The roster has promise. It's how it's being trained and organized...or NOT organized.
Yeah anything resembling that shape and spacing and Rodman and Kouassi are going to eat up those sidelines. Kinda hope it happens tbh. It would be incredibly naive of him to look at this game as any success or encouragement for no changes. And poor Sam, man. I didn’t think we could look worse than Norris had us at the beginning of the season, but at least we were scoring lol. This looks like a whole other realm of disfunction (from a lot of talented players!)
He's got 10+ games before the season ends with a nearly fully healthy and available roster, so we'll see what he's got pretty quickly. There's a world where he figures it out with a little consistency, even if I'm very skeptical.
I will say that I'm steadily becoming more and more radicalized against Hubly. She's just not a starting level CB in this league anymore. Watching how Obaze (who very clearly is a starting level player imo) comports herself compared to Hubly is night and day.
Yeah...I honestly hope we get either all or nothing. If it's bad, I kinda hope that it's real bad so as to force the hand of the Bhathals. If there's a world in where it starts to turn around and click....well alright! I just don't wanna see a win every 3 or 4 games, which is pretty bad for this club, but enough for the dross to continue into next season...
Your instincts about Kelli are right, though. The thing about Kelli...she looked much better surrounded by better players overall/a younger CB partner/a better defensive unit as a whole, in her prime at 26, in NWSL 1.0, against much weaker league attackers overall. The league has just passed her by, for multiple reasons, and she hasn't been starting quality for like 3 years now. This league just requires better defenders in 2024. We have to adapt as well, or we as a club will be left behind. What worked even 2-3 years ago isn't really applicable now.
Wonder what Kang is up to.
https://twitter.com/WashSpirit/status/1831464360071589962
Magic Johnson joined their ownership group
I read your comment this am and thought it was a random guess/joke, but then saw the actual news haha. Indeed not a joke! And like Thornando said...seemingly not CBS Morning News worthy, but that lady LOVES to be in the spotlight.
Not sure if that's worthy of CBS Morning News appearance, but a cool thing all the same.
I still think Dame Lillard should get involved with the Thorns, and now perhaps the WNBA team.
Dame was a part of the only other mentioned bid for a Portland WNBA team. He was a part of a bid put together by Monarch, who I believe has some ownership in Angel City. Apparently there were other "celebrities" and Angel City adjacent stars a part of that Portland bid also (myyyy guess? Press and Heath.)
But, looks like the Bhathals bid won out. Still, would love Dame to hopefully join in with the Bhathals, even if his bid didn't go through.
Majority ownership of NWSL. Or a fully operational battle station.
Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
Perhaps an endorsement that rhymes with Mamala Marris?
More likely, she's announcing that she's funding some new initiative, like on ACL injury prevention.
Or announcing that Bethune won't be allowed to pitch ever again.
Cool having so many CA fans here but man, they’re real salty, lotta jeers and whistles every time a Thorn goes down
LOTS of very male energy from the CA fans tonight
Yes, yes, and yes.
Ken’s got subs up. Coffey and Muller off?
No way I didn’t even realize Irene Guerrero played for CA! Cool signing for them!
Back-to-back ugly keeper-planted-helplessly goals one each way. Brutal!
We need to get out of the NWSL and switch to this league!
Yes, we would dominate the Mexican League. North American Free Transfer Agreement!
I'm 100% in! I would travel away to Mexico for every single match!
Reilyn’s money in the air. You can tell how coordinated she is and that's much more important than being big (which she also is).
How long since we had THAT?
Horan?
Bingo.
Welcome back, aerial game.
Lindsey had a tremendous ability to position herself in the optimal space for service, and I'd guess she was exceptionally strong to boot.
Spaanstra should be able to contribute that way too.
Wonder if we’ll see luebert and camberos second half
Luebbert is fun…always thought it sucked for Chicago that she left