Match Preview: Portland Thorns v San Diego Wave

The Thorns remained in California after taking on Angel City to take on San Diego Wave

The Thorns currently sit in 7th place while the Wave are sitting at 12. Any other season I would say this is an easy win for Portland, but considering how they have been doing, it will be a tough one.

The match kicks off at 7 pm PST and can be streamed on ion.

The last time these two teams met was on September 18th where The Thorns fell 2-3 after going up 2-0 in the first half. It has been a trend lately that the first half is solid, and then mistakes in the second lead to Portland losing.

This game will be the first post-Christine Sinclair retirement announcement, so maybe that will give the team a much needed boost.

Morgan Weaver has made her emphatic return to the lineup with a goal in the last match against LA. We are still missing Soph Smith and Hina Sugita due to injury so that will also be a factor in today’s match. Luckily, Weaver has stepped up to fill our goal-scoring needs (though again we shouldn’t rely on one person to score all our goals) and Jess Fleming is coming off a good match against LA.

The last two matches have featured second-half comebacks from the opposition so Portland needs to shore up their second-half defense.

Predicted Lineup:

Arnold

Obaze-Sauerbrunn-Hubly

Müller-Fleming-Coffey-Moultrie-Reyes

Weaver-Spaanstra (Though Sinc very well could start considering the news of her retirement)