"The campus, which is envisioned to be the global epicenter of women’s sport, will be built over multiple phases at a total cost in excess of $150 million." - Portland Thorns FC
Yeah, watched Norwich-Leeds today, and the City turf looked pretty chewed up, and Carrow Road was an EPL ground when Norwich was up. And I’m pretty sure English winters are milder than ours, too…
for practice fields? you are talikg 10s millions of dollars for premier league levels of drainage. adequate levels maybe in the singleton of millions not to forget about upkeep
Hmmm...does it get bad in the rain at Merlo? No way they have "tens of millions' worth of drainage there, and in normal conditions, that pitch is *chef's kiss* Does it get bad in heavy rain?
It’s wonderful but I sort of think that when it was announced that Portland would have a team in the new NWSL and have Sinclair and Morgan on the side that was a bigger deal.
Sinclair, Morgan, and Heath! Three of my four favorite WoSo players at the time, the fourth being Rapinoe. AND we got Rachel Buehler [van Hollebeke] to top it off.
That (founding of the team) was definitely the biggest announcement. The most important day in Thorns history IMO was Sept 30, 2021, when The Athletic published Linehan's article on Riley. For better and for worse, nothing has been the same since.
I imagine there’s going to be a bit of harumphing about both the location and fact that it’s partially a shared facility, but this is very, very good. As someone who has some professional knowledge about site selection in the Portland Metro area, 12 acre sites don’t grow on trees. And no, neither the Rose Quarter or Lloyd were ever an option for about 40 different reasons.
Whatever you might say about the Bhathals, 12 acres/150 million is a pretty sizable investment. Exciting stuff.
I've seen a lot of this, and I'm just thinking like, NONE of you complaining are gonna have to commute anywhere lol. Good grief. It's 12 miles from PP.
Also feel like I haven't really seen much national chatter about it. But it's been a busy day for me so maybe it just hasn't appeared on my feeds yet. I've seen one NWSL talking head "but but but" with regard to the shared facilities/shared spaces possibly creating tensions between teams. Anyways, can't media folks just say something nice about Portland for like 1 day lol.
It’s Portland. No place is more than 30 minutes away without traffic. I just know recruiting younger employees is a lot easier when your offfices are near things to do. That said, the city isn’t as vibrant as it used to be
Curious what players are living in Beaverton vs Lake Oswego, Tabor, Division, Belmont, Sellwood.
Washington Spirit hasn't had trouble recruiting and they train (and most live) in Leesburg, VA! Angel City is in Thousand Oaks. I just don't think it's that much of an issue for players tbh. I'm guessing they're pumped. I drive from Milwaukie area to downtown for work and it's a 20-ish min drive. It's not that bad. It doesn't hamper my activities outside of work. A lot of players live in that building right by PP, so they still can do what they want when they aren't "at work." I think some players also live in SE off of Hawthorne...but still, not a terrible drive and still in an area with lots to do after work!
They're also going to be going against traffic patterns. They might have a player shuttle from PP. Who knows if their training schedule aligns with rush hour anyhow. It's a total non-issue in every way.
It really is! I feel like I'm going crazy with how much folks care about a 20-30 minute drive for players lol. They have shorter days than we do and prob train 3-4 days a week depending on travel and game days. Rob Gale has previously said he gives players 2 days off after games.
Look at top elite men's clubs and where their training facilities are. They are all in the middle of nowhere!
No one is arguing that the new facility won’t be a selling point. It will be less of a selling point than if it were closer to more appealing areas of the city
Leesburg and Thousand Oaks are more vibrant than that area of Hillsboro. We do have a lot of outdoor types and there are options that are ok to live at.
I would be willing to bet 95% of American professional training facilities are in the suburbs because there is *simply no room in the City anywhere in the country.* The Blazers practice facility is in Tualatin! I guarantee most ACFC players spend twice that drive in traffic and Leesburg ain't close to DC.
Half of my neighborhood in NW Portland works at Intel or Nike. People commute!
For the last few years of my working life I was "commuting" from my bed to my desk (with a detour to the kitchen to make coffee). Sometimes the traffic was bad...because my cat liked to get underfoot. Currently I have a commute to language school: ten minute walk to the subway, ten minute ride, five minute walk to school.
About to trade that for another work-at-home situation when I un-retire to get a little start-up thing going (pretty much just for visa purposes). Old geezer musician living that modern life in Japan. Sounds cooler than it actually is...but can't complain. Much...
But why does anyone have to live in Hillsboro? I just googled the commute from PP to the future site right now and it's a 19 minute drive, at 5pm on a Thursday. Lots of players live near the stadium so it's relevant. Some live even closer in the west hills areas...it's just not that far of a commute for them. For folks in SE, yeah maybe a bit longer...but not that much more if they're in inner SE off Hawthorne. Players can drive! It's not like they're required to live in walking distance to their training facility. Even top elite men's clubs don't have their facilities in the middle of the city. They're usually in the middle of nowhere! It's just a weird expectation imo.
I dunno, I'm from LA so 20 minutes for a commute is amazing lol. I just can't imagine there will be a ton of hand wringing from the players for a 20-30 min drive 3-4 days a week. And they have shorter work days than we do! They get to go back home in the afternoon and have the rest of the day off.
So the Westside is pretty much where I assumed this would go; there’s just not enough open land anywhere else.
The only downside I see is the Sunset/217; as someone who did those commutes they both suck massively. If I was the owners I’d look at setting up some kind of shuttle from Orenco to avoid players driving the Sunset eastbound in the afternoon…
Neither the distance nor time is a problem as long as they have access to personal vehicles. The main problem is how poorly designed the interchange between 405 and 26 is. All of Portland's freeway interchanges are poorly designed to efficiently allow the flow of traffic but this one is the worst. In 1970 when it was completed was already beyond the capacity for what it was designed to deal with. Due to a number of factors almost always the the west alternatives are slower and worse, because hills. A slow down is almost inevitable every day at almost all times people are awake.
I drive it maybe once a month over a weekend at 2pm or 8pm on Saturdays is a slow sad experience. I would move or change jobs if I had to do it twice every work day, so everyone else would want to, and do so if they can.
There isn't going to be another stadium in the city. Thorns own stadium is going to be somewhere off rail and it is going to ruin the whole vibe. If they build out in Hillsboro I won't be able to go every game and the city vibes will disappear. A fear that is silly since we are 2nd year into a 15 year lease at PP and even 5 years from now I might not be in Portland anymore.
But I'd be willing to bet that most if not all players don't live in NW Portland, and probably live a lot closer to this training facility, where they will be going almost every day, than to PP, where they will be going once a week, occasionally twice.
I am a staunch defender of Portland - I live walking distance from PP and will talk good talks about it to anyone who wants to listen. But, the siting of this is probably something they studied, at least in relation to where the players actually live, and commute from, and while it would be nice to have the Thorns/WNBA have a facility in the city, as others have mentioned, a plot of land this size just isn't available in-city without significant, probably dealbreaking hurdles.
Yes, that was all my point! It's silly that people elsewhere seem mad about the location when it's actually relatively convenient. That space wasn't ever gonna be found in metro area Portland.
"can't media folks just say something nice about Portland for like 1 day lol."
You know they risk homelessness if they do.
Re: the commute, the main issue is distance from where the players live, not from PP. I like the fact that a lot of the players live downtown, but my guess is they'd rather have the facility.
I just mean folks are complaining elsewhere about the proximity to PP...(and actually multiple players live right next to PP so it's relevant.)
I think there's housing for younger players even closer to Hillsboro than PP. Just weird thing for people to complain about is all...it's not very far of a drive for the players.
I’ll readily admit I was hoping for the type of development like the under armour facility on Barbur, but this was a pretty seamless option as well. It’s not like Thousand Oaks is a particular destination area in LA.
Yeah. I was wondering about Terminal 2 from the Port of Portland. It wasn’t realistic for a baseball stadium, but plenty of space when you aren’t worried about access for a stadium.
Or maybe the Esco land in NW Portland.
That said the remediation for both sites would have been difficult and the Hillsboro location was a much easier site. I do think development potential for either would be higher. Just take a look at slabtown.
The Seahawks facility in Renton used to be a coal plant.
Neither of those are doable from a zoning/development rights perspective without a pretty substantial and time consuming battle- Not going to go into it here but happy to explain if anyone in interested Portland planning minutiae lol
Always wondered what zoned for industrial use meant after Lithia Motors bought Terminal 1 to be a lot for their cars. Not complaining. Just never knew where training facilities fit in that equation. I know Costco put in a bid for it that was rejected
Know NFL money is different and they probably spent a lot more on getting zoning done, but it’s a training facility on industrial zoned land
There, be madness. Conditional use permit, administrative permit review, several mechanisms for use beyond the default scope of processing and manufacture. Random example regs from the City of Hollister (Earthquake capital of California).
IIRC the problem the Costco proposal foundered on was massive shopping traffic in an area with large truck and heavy machinery activity. Very different form a car dealer's storage lot.
I'm not concerned about the shared facility because it looks like the plan is for the teams to have team specific locker.rooms is d it !looks like there's plenty of space for both tra!s.to be there at the same.time without feeling cramped
Linehan has an article in The Athletic on Hayes's plans for revamping the female side of US Soccer. I hope she can actually get some of this to happen.
Populous designed the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London (my hometown team) and it is fabulous. Excited that they will be working on this project; they are world class.
Recall the US 2019ers stayed at the Spurs' training facilities for the WWC and being bowled over by what seemed like God's own futbol facility. Huge, and green as a green thing can be. The players couldn't stop posting pics and videos of the place.
Yep, the first of the Kang Empire for little sib Washington Spirit.
But also, yeah, what happens with Bernal? Already had to get another int'l spot for her. Now...2? Or she's not coming after all? And they gotta shed numbers anyways because I think they're above 26 players.
I'd take many of their players, but none they'd ever give up! Besides the more obvious players, I'd take a Hal Herschfelt or a Tara McKeown! Sarr or Kouassii! I would take multiple.
Looks like they've solved their issue though....sending two players on loan.
FYI: the Thorns-ACFC match this coming Sunday is going to be carried on local channel 12 (11am, 12 (Comcast 712) FAUX, sorry...) for those who crave a peek at preseason KenBall...
Apologize for the MuskRat link (but AFAIK the guy doesn't post on Bluesky or Mastadon, so...) but if you want a truly whackadoodle Thorns XI prediction...https://x.com/chris_awk/status/1887379237067534475
I've resisted dumping on Henderson because of the sheer volume of his NCAA work, but this is a real headscratcher. Anyone figure out how you'd come up with this having watched ten minutes of KenBall..?
I ended up having something of a discussion with Henderson about it.
He
1) picked Moultrie for the ACM because "Castellanos sucked at her last two clubs", which I noted was largely because they played her as a #8 and she's NOT an eight. She doesn't defend, so, yeah. We kind of agreed that Ken doesn't know what to do with a #10, so...
2) had Coffey and Fleming as dual 6/8s and Moultrie as a sort of 8/10, which is weird but we also agreed is kind of KenBall.
3) We didn't go in to why he has Weaver at RW and Hina at LW. That is really bizarre to me.
4) He insisted that Obaze had been bad in 2024, which feels really off to me. I pointed out how much better the metrics were for Sauerbrunn-Obaze compared to Sauerbrunn-Hubly. Not sure why he seems to think Daiane is the natural starter.
Anyway...yeah, weird XI but...Ken. I'll be curious to see what he runs out this coming weekend.
I was looking at the Populous website earlier (the folks doing this build), but David Wynde mentioned the Tottenham Stadium so I just wanted to link to their list of projects for everyone to check out. They do some beautiful work:
This looks fantastic, based on the artist renditions. It seems well thought out and everything a professional training and sports medicine/rehabilitation/physical therapy facility would offer. Nice to have a staff of chefs who can develop proper meals that are of quality and appropriate for the needs of athletes and I imagine they could be tweaked to particular athlete's healthy diet.
Will be interesting to see if they indeed do that. The photos of the actual property, as it stands right now, is pretty damn drab. It's just 1-story red brick office park space.
Someone who understands these things better than me -- which would be anyone -- has to explain this to me.
I just looked over the All411 stuff for the past month and saw that only ONE story since January 11 has any comments at all. The Mighty Fookster's piece on "Hannah Adler’s Journey to Stardom: 2x Female Beach Soccer Player of the Year" has 3 comments.
The other 34 pieces - as penned by Melina, Lauren, Amanda, Andre, the Mighty Fookster - nary a single damn comment.
If a Stumptown Footy columnist falls in the forest and nobody comments, is anybody reading?
AFAIK the Vox sites live and die by clicks. Their "business model" is 1) get content for next to nothing, 2) monetize the content, 3) profit. So comments are immaterial to Vox provided they get enough clicks, and pushing content to try and get "engagement" (which might COST money...) is a Vox no-no. When I wrote for Stumptown I'd look in on other Vox soccer sites like Sounder at Heart or The Bent Musket (Boston, for Steph Yang...) and if there were single-digit comments it was really unusual.
Smart move not to place it in Portland. Probably hard to recruit players if the environment surrounding their training facility is dirty and unsafe. Looks like it will be a beautiful facility.
Apparently Utah tried to get Gemma Font, a GK from Barcelona but was rejected.:
"As @LaTdG_oficial reports, Gemma Font has rejected an offer from Utah Royals 🇺🇸 and decided to stay with FC Barcelona. It is not yet clear what will happen with her in the summer, as her contract expires."
Curious to see if this is true. Living quick flights away from your SO might not be the worst thing if she wants to live close to her family as well.
To me, the question is whether Denver can put together the facilities and stadium to compete with other options quickly.
You have a choice to play with a proven fan base with facilities that are top notch which is as quick a flight to Phoenix (if not quicker if you consider where the Denver airport is relative to the city) is the primary driver we are going to use in the Sophia Wilson recruitment.
I have no qualms living a quick flight from both sides of my family. Actually view it as a positive. In the same time zone and a quick flight away has its benefits if training and becoming the best is the primary goal. That said, my guess is their family’s are highly engaged in helping them get there
Yes, the plan is for grass soccer pitches at the training facility.
going to be ugly come rain
Folks in the UK have figured it out!
the premier teams yes lower division not so much. those fields are very expensive incredible drainage systems.
Yeah, watched Norwich-Leeds today, and the City turf looked pretty chewed up, and Carrow Road was an EPL ground when Norwich was up. And I’m pretty sure English winters are milder than ours, too…
Guessing that they could afford to do so, but not sure that right alongside Rock Creek is necessarily great for drainage. Maybe it is?
for practice fields? you are talikg 10s millions of dollars for premier league levels of drainage. adequate levels maybe in the singleton of millions not to forget about upkeep
Hmmm...does it get bad in the rain at Merlo? No way they have "tens of millions' worth of drainage there, and in normal conditions, that pitch is *chef's kiss* Does it get bad in heavy rain?
It’s wonderful but I sort of think that when it was announced that Portland would have a team in the new NWSL and have Sinclair and Morgan on the side that was a bigger deal.
Sinclair, Morgan, and Heath! Three of my four favorite WoSo players at the time, the fourth being Rapinoe. AND we got Rachel Buehler [van Hollebeke] to top it off.
That (founding of the team) was definitely the biggest announcement. The most important day in Thorns history IMO was Sept 30, 2021, when The Athletic published Linehan's article on Riley. For better and for worse, nothing has been the same since.
I imagine there’s going to be a bit of harumphing about both the location and fact that it’s partially a shared facility, but this is very, very good. As someone who has some professional knowledge about site selection in the Portland Metro area, 12 acre sites don’t grow on trees. And no, neither the Rose Quarter or Lloyd were ever an option for about 40 different reasons.
Whatever you might say about the Bhathals, 12 acres/150 million is a pretty sizable investment. Exciting stuff.
I've seen a lot of this, and I'm just thinking like, NONE of you complaining are gonna have to commute anywhere lol. Good grief. It's 12 miles from PP.
Also feel like I haven't really seen much national chatter about it. But it's been a busy day for me so maybe it just hasn't appeared on my feeds yet. I've seen one NWSL talking head "but but but" with regard to the shared facilities/shared spaces possibly creating tensions between teams. Anyways, can't media folks just say something nice about Portland for like 1 day lol.
It’s Portland. No place is more than 30 minutes away without traffic. I just know recruiting younger employees is a lot easier when your offfices are near things to do. That said, the city isn’t as vibrant as it used to be
Curious what players are living in Beaverton vs Lake Oswego, Tabor, Division, Belmont, Sellwood.
Washington Spirit hasn't had trouble recruiting and they train (and most live) in Leesburg, VA! Angel City is in Thousand Oaks. I just don't think it's that much of an issue for players tbh. I'm guessing they're pumped. I drive from Milwaukie area to downtown for work and it's a 20-ish min drive. It's not that bad. It doesn't hamper my activities outside of work. A lot of players live in that building right by PP, so they still can do what they want when they aren't "at work." I think some players also live in SE off of Hawthorne...but still, not a terrible drive and still in an area with lots to do after work!
They're also going to be going against traffic patterns. They might have a player shuttle from PP. Who knows if their training schedule aligns with rush hour anyhow. It's a total non-issue in every way.
It really is! I feel like I'm going crazy with how much folks care about a 20-30 minute drive for players lol. They have shorter days than we do and prob train 3-4 days a week depending on travel and game days. Rob Gale has previously said he gives players 2 days off after games.
Look at top elite men's clubs and where their training facilities are. They are all in the middle of nowhere!
can confirm, i've seen Thorns players in the small New Seasons, and Hannah Betfort and I were once in the same bar in SE
Now THERE'S a story waiting to be told...
No one is arguing that the new facility won’t be a selling point. It will be less of a selling point than if it were closer to more appealing areas of the city
Leesburg and Thousand Oaks are more vibrant than that area of Hillsboro. We do have a lot of outdoor types and there are options that are ok to live at.
I would be willing to bet 95% of American professional training facilities are in the suburbs because there is *simply no room in the City anywhere in the country.* The Blazers practice facility is in Tualatin! I guarantee most ACFC players spend twice that drive in traffic and Leesburg ain't close to DC.
Half of my neighborhood in NW Portland works at Intel or Nike. People commute!
For the last few years of my working life I was "commuting" from my bed to my desk (with a detour to the kitchen to make coffee). Sometimes the traffic was bad...because my cat liked to get underfoot. Currently I have a commute to language school: ten minute walk to the subway, ten minute ride, five minute walk to school.
About to trade that for another work-at-home situation when I un-retire to get a little start-up thing going (pretty much just for visa purposes). Old geezer musician living that modern life in Japan. Sounds cooler than it actually is...but can't complain. Much...
it turns out young professionals don't really care about spending 20-30 minutes in the car when they can live in a cool city.
i mean shit, i spend 45 minutes a day commuting to Gresham from SE Portland because I'd rather live in Portland!
Google where PSG, Arsenal, Man City, Tottenham train lol.
And yes I promise AC spends more than 20-30 mins in traffic. I used to drive from Ventura to LA weekly (right through TO.) Nightmares.
That’s fair. Seattle trains in Renton. El Segundo for the Chargers is probably an exception and that’s NFL money
But why does anyone have to live in Hillsboro? I just googled the commute from PP to the future site right now and it's a 19 minute drive, at 5pm on a Thursday. Lots of players live near the stadium so it's relevant. Some live even closer in the west hills areas...it's just not that far of a commute for them. For folks in SE, yeah maybe a bit longer...but not that much more if they're in inner SE off Hawthorne. Players can drive! It's not like they're required to live in walking distance to their training facility. Even top elite men's clubs don't have their facilities in the middle of the city. They're usually in the middle of nowhere! It's just a weird expectation imo.
I dunno, I'm from LA so 20 minutes for a commute is amazing lol. I just can't imagine there will be a ton of hand wringing from the players for a 20-30 min drive 3-4 days a week. And they have shorter work days than we do! They get to go back home in the afternoon and have the rest of the day off.
(Also, as a resident, I don't want a massive private training facility taking up real estate in the middle of my city!)
So the Westside is pretty much where I assumed this would go; there’s just not enough open land anywhere else.
The only downside I see is the Sunset/217; as someone who did those commutes they both suck massively. If I was the owners I’d look at setting up some kind of shuttle from Orenco to avoid players driving the Sunset eastbound in the afternoon…
Neither the distance nor time is a problem as long as they have access to personal vehicles. The main problem is how poorly designed the interchange between 405 and 26 is. All of Portland's freeway interchanges are poorly designed to efficiently allow the flow of traffic but this one is the worst. In 1970 when it was completed was already beyond the capacity for what it was designed to deal with. Due to a number of factors almost always the the west alternatives are slower and worse, because hills. A slow down is almost inevitable every day at almost all times people are awake.
I drive it maybe once a month over a weekend at 2pm or 8pm on Saturdays is a slow sad experience. I would move or change jobs if I had to do it twice every work day, so everyone else would want to, and do so if they can.
There isn't going to be another stadium in the city. Thorns own stadium is going to be somewhere off rail and it is going to ruin the whole vibe. If they build out in Hillsboro I won't be able to go every game and the city vibes will disappear. A fear that is silly since we are 2nd year into a 15 year lease at PP and even 5 years from now I might not be in Portland anymore.
"It's 12 miles from PP"
But I'd be willing to bet that most if not all players don't live in NW Portland, and probably live a lot closer to this training facility, where they will be going almost every day, than to PP, where they will be going once a week, occasionally twice.
I am a staunch defender of Portland - I live walking distance from PP and will talk good talks about it to anyone who wants to listen. But, the siting of this is probably something they studied, at least in relation to where the players actually live, and commute from, and while it would be nice to have the Thorns/WNBA have a facility in the city, as others have mentioned, a plot of land this size just isn't available in-city without significant, probably dealbreaking hurdles.
Yes, that was all my point! It's silly that people elsewhere seem mad about the location when it's actually relatively convenient. That space wasn't ever gonna be found in metro area Portland.
"can't media folks just say something nice about Portland for like 1 day lol."
You know they risk homelessness if they do.
Re: the commute, the main issue is distance from where the players live, not from PP. I like the fact that a lot of the players live downtown, but my guess is they'd rather have the facility.
I just mean folks are complaining elsewhere about the proximity to PP...(and actually multiple players live right next to PP so it's relevant.)
I think there's housing for younger players even closer to Hillsboro than PP. Just weird thing for people to complain about is all...it's not very far of a drive for the players.
I’ll readily admit I was hoping for the type of development like the under armour facility on Barbur, but this was a pretty seamless option as well. It’s not like Thousand Oaks is a particular destination area in LA.
Happy that Blathals got this done
Under Armour is a good example of how significant the size constraints are in Portland. That facility is on a 1.7 acre property.
Yeah. I was wondering about Terminal 2 from the Port of Portland. It wasn’t realistic for a baseball stadium, but plenty of space when you aren’t worried about access for a stadium.
Or maybe the Esco land in NW Portland.
That said the remediation for both sites would have been difficult and the Hillsboro location was a much easier site. I do think development potential for either would be higher. Just take a look at slabtown.
The Seahawks facility in Renton used to be a coal plant.
Neither of those are doable from a zoning/development rights perspective without a pretty substantial and time consuming battle- Not going to go into it here but happy to explain if anyone in interested Portland planning minutiae lol
Always wondered what zoned for industrial use meant after Lithia Motors bought Terminal 1 to be a lot for their cars. Not complaining. Just never knew where training facilities fit in that equation. I know Costco put in a bid for it that was rejected
Know NFL money is different and they probably spent a lot more on getting zoning done, but it’s a training facility on industrial zoned land
https://www.seahawks.com/team/facilities/vmac/
There, be madness. Conditional use permit, administrative permit review, several mechanisms for use beyond the default scope of processing and manufacture. Random example regs from the City of Hollister (Earthquake capital of California).
https://library.municode.com/ca/hollister/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT17ZO_CH17.10INMAZO#:~:text=The%20Light%20Industrial%20(M1)%20Zoning,products%20from%20previously%20prepared%20materials.
In sum, much easier to repurpose light industrial for more benign purposes than the reverse (manufacturing in a multifamily housing zone).
IIRC the problem the Costco proposal foundered on was massive shopping traffic in an area with large truck and heavy machinery activity. Very different form a car dealer's storage lot.
Thankyou for not going there. I'm glad they are re-purposing an existing facility at least.
I'm not concerned about the shared facility because it looks like the plan is for the teams to have team specific locker.rooms is d it !looks like there's plenty of space for both tra!s.to be there at the same.time without feeling cramped
Linehan has an article in The Athletic on Hayes's plans for revamping the female side of US Soccer. I hope she can actually get some of this to happen.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6120078/2025/02/07/emma-hayes-uswnt-way-soccer/
Haha for a sec I thought you meant Peyton Linnehan, and I thought, “wow, that’s surprising and good for her I guess”
Populous designed the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London (my hometown team) and it is fabulous. Excited that they will be working on this project; they are world class.
Recall the US 2019ers stayed at the Spurs' training facilities for the WWC and being bowled over by what seemed like God's own futbol facility. Huge, and green as a green thing can be. The players couldn't stop posting pics and videos of the place.
I now dislike KC Current so much that I'm thrilled Mahomes (aka Current co-owner) got whupped today.
https://bsky.app/profile/jasondcsoccer.bsky.social/post/3lhjpgjjzbc2l
Oh good, we're doing this out in the open now!
Only slightly less fishy than the OL Reign era. Still, glad THEY got saddled with Bouhaddi and not us.
Just curious if Raj Sports could offer a contract that could circumvent the cap by offering marketing contracts.
What’s to prevent them from offering three times a month use of their private plane in exchange for a few appearances for a Sophia Wilson.
Don’t know if that would be flagged as an issue
Yep, the first of the Kang Empire for little sib Washington Spirit.
But also, yeah, what happens with Bernal? Already had to get another int'l spot for her. Now...2? Or she's not coming after all? And they gotta shed numbers anyways because I think they're above 26 players.
I guess either MacIver or Bolt is going out on loan, Abiodun or Narumi is getting a green card, or they trade for another international spot!
But they'd still have a numbers problem, so I think a loan or two is my best guess.
Anybody we could try to trade for that you’d be interested in?
I'd take many of their players, but none they'd ever give up! Besides the more obvious players, I'd take a Hal Herschfelt or a Tara McKeown! Sarr or Kouassii! I would take multiple.
Looks like they've solved their issue though....sending two players on loan.
I was thinking more of their international players, but yeah … it looks like they resolved it
FYI: the Thorns-ACFC match this coming Sunday is going to be carried on local channel 12 (11am, 12 (Comcast 712) FAUX, sorry...) for those who crave a peek at preseason KenBall...
Time to clear out the spaces between those couch cushions.
Unbeknownst to probably everyone, USL SL has already begun their sophomore season. Time to rack up those frequent flyer miles.
For the curious, they're housed over at Peacock.
Apologize for the MuskRat link (but AFAIK the guy doesn't post on Bluesky or Mastadon, so...) but if you want a truly whackadoodle Thorns XI prediction...https://x.com/chris_awk/status/1887379237067534475
I've resisted dumping on Henderson because of the sheer volume of his NCAA work, but this is a real headscratcher. Anyone figure out how you'd come up with this having watched ten minutes of KenBall..?
My noggin, it is scratched.
Possible upside, zero opposing coaches will have schemed for it.
I ended up having something of a discussion with Henderson about it.
He
1) picked Moultrie for the ACM because "Castellanos sucked at her last two clubs", which I noted was largely because they played her as a #8 and she's NOT an eight. She doesn't defend, so, yeah. We kind of agreed that Ken doesn't know what to do with a #10, so...
2) had Coffey and Fleming as dual 6/8s and Moultrie as a sort of 8/10, which is weird but we also agreed is kind of KenBall.
3) We didn't go in to why he has Weaver at RW and Hina at LW. That is really bizarre to me.
4) He insisted that Obaze had been bad in 2024, which feels really off to me. I pointed out how much better the metrics were for Sauerbrunn-Obaze compared to Sauerbrunn-Hubly. Not sure why he seems to think Daiane is the natural starter.
Anyway...yeah, weird XI but...Ken. I'll be curious to see what he runs out this coming weekend.
Here are some player comments
https://x.com/thornsfc/status/1887894842920886641?s=46
I was looking at the Populous website earlier (the folks doing this build), but David Wynde mentioned the Tottenham Stadium so I just wanted to link to their list of projects for everyone to check out. They do some beautiful work:
https://populous.com/portfolio
They’ve done some awesome work. The Sphere. Something like this endeavor would be Nebraska’s football training facility
This looks fantastic, based on the artist renditions. It seems well thought out and everything a professional training and sports medicine/rehabilitation/physical therapy facility would offer. Nice to have a staff of chefs who can develop proper meals that are of quality and appropriate for the needs of athletes and I imagine they could be tweaked to particular athlete's healthy diet.
Ultimately, this looks like a great selling point for the Thorns. Now if the two owners could find a way to get grass at Providence Park
Will be interesting to see if they indeed do that. The photos of the actual property, as it stands right now, is pretty damn drab. It's just 1-story red brick office park space.
Someone who understands these things better than me -- which would be anyone -- has to explain this to me.
I just looked over the All411 stuff for the past month and saw that only ONE story since January 11 has any comments at all. The Mighty Fookster's piece on "Hannah Adler’s Journey to Stardom: 2x Female Beach Soccer Player of the Year" has 3 comments.
The other 34 pieces - as penned by Melina, Lauren, Amanda, Andre, the Mighty Fookster - nary a single damn comment.
If a Stumptown Footy columnist falls in the forest and nobody comments, is anybody reading?
Comments beget more comments. If no one starts commenting, it just doesn't happen.
AFAIK the Vox sites live and die by clicks. Their "business model" is 1) get content for next to nothing, 2) monetize the content, 3) profit. So comments are immaterial to Vox provided they get enough clicks, and pushing content to try and get "engagement" (which might COST money...) is a Vox no-no. When I wrote for Stumptown I'd look in on other Vox soccer sites like Sounder at Heart or The Bent Musket (Boston, for Steph Yang...) and if there were single-digit comments it was really unusual.
Stumptown was always a huge outlier. Still is...
Smart move not to place it in Portland. Probably hard to recruit players if the environment surrounding their training facility is dirty and unsafe. Looks like it will be a beautiful facility.
Apparently Utah tried to get Gemma Font, a GK from Barcelona but was rejected.:
"As @LaTdG_oficial reports, Gemma Font has rejected an offer from Utah Royals 🇺🇸 and decided to stay with FC Barcelona. It is not yet clear what will happen with her in the summer, as her contract expires."
Font Doesn't Fit Royals Kit
Kerning kills keeper commitment
Immediately after Equalizer put out the Thorns training facility news, they published this one lol: https://equalizersoccer.com/2025/02/06/colorado-players-denver-nwsl-soccer-sophia-smith-lindsey-horan-mallory-swanson-janine-beckie/
Horan would be the perfect anchor for them.
Well let’s hope she fancies a return so they can focus on her lol
Horan's husband (Tyler Heaps) is in San Diego so if she returns Stateside, she'd probably go to the Wave.
Curious to see if this is true. Living quick flights away from your SO might not be the worst thing if she wants to live close to her family as well.
To me, the question is whether Denver can put together the facilities and stadium to compete with other options quickly.
You have a choice to play with a proven fan base with facilities that are top notch which is as quick a flight to Phoenix (if not quicker if you consider where the Denver airport is relative to the city) is the primary driver we are going to use in the Sophia Wilson recruitment.
I have no qualms living a quick flight from both sides of my family. Actually view it as a positive. In the same time zone and a quick flight away has its benefits if training and becoming the best is the primary goal. That said, my guess is their family’s are highly engaged in helping them get there