This Week in PTFC: The Thorns are back in town
Thorns preseason camp opens, and the Timbers preseason rolls on (and *gasp* with Evander??)
Happy Monday, Rose City! Soccer season is just about a month away, and now both PTFCs are officially in preseason mode.
Here’s the headlines for the week and what to watch for as January comes to a close.
Thorns open camp, welcome new faces
The Portland Thorns are officially opening preseason camp this week, and welcomed players back to Portland over the weekend (with friendship bracelets!) before jetting off to Tucson, Arizona for preseason.
The opening of camp marks the beginning of a new era for the Thorns, as they have said farewell to legends Becky Sauerbrunn and Christine Sinclair, and also have parted ways with long-time veterans Meghan Klingenberg and Kelli Hubly.
The task now facing head coach Rob Gale and his staff is rebooting the Thorns and hopefully building them back into championship contenders.
They will do so with a number of new faces. Sam Hiatt and Daiane are new faces to the defense expected to help solidify the position, and rookies Pietra Tordin and Jayden Perry are potentially being tabbed as the next generation.
In addition, new Thorns attacker Deyna Castellanos (whom we will talk about in a bit) is being looked to as the key help Soph Smith and the rest of the Thorns attack get their mojo back.
The Thorns also are welcoming a number of non-rostered invites, most of them rookies, to camp, with the hopes that some of them may just earn a first team deal.
The Thorns are in Arizona before returning to Portland on February 2, and then will head to California for the Coachella Valley Invitational later that month.
Here is the Thorns preseason roster, with non-roster invitees (NRI) and international players (INTL) noted:
Goalkeepers (4): Mackenzie Arnold (INTL), Bella Bixby, Haley Craig (NRI), Morgan Messner (NRI)
Defenders (10): Daiane (INTL), Avani Brandt (NRI), Sam Hiatt, Mallie McKenzie, Marie Müller (INTL), Nicole Payne, Jayden Perry, Isabella Obaze (INTL), Kelsey Oyler (NRI), Reyna Reyes
Midfielders (6): Sam Coffey, Jessie Fleming (INTL), Sophie Hirst, Olivia Moultrie, Hina Sugita (INTL), Olivia Wade-Katoa
Forwards (9): Deyna Castellanos (INTL), Margie Detrizio (NRI), Maddie Kemp (NRI), Payton Linnehan, Sophia Smith, Alexa Spaanstra, Pietra Tordin, Reilyn Turner, Morgan Weaver
Timbers to play another closed door scrimmage
An age old question: if the Portland Timbers play a game and nobody was watching, did it even happen?
The answer to that is obviously yes, but it still doesn’t change the fact the Timbers played their first official 90 minutes of the preseason campaign over the weekend, where they tallied a 2-1 win over USL Championship side Orange County SC in a closed door scrimmage.
Kevin Kelsy scored in humorous fashion, and apparently Jonathan Rodriguez did too (although there is no video proof). Maxime Crepeau made a penalty kick miss just by thinking. Joao Ortiz and rookie Ian Smith got their first minutes in Timbers colors. Sounds like it was a good time.
They will have one more closed-door scrimmage this week, when they face Los Angeles FC on Wednesday. Look for a mini-recap of that game, along with notes from the Orange County game, to come later this week.
Oh yeah, it also sounds like Antony’s visa process has been completed and he is due to join up with the team soon. No word yet on the other Brazilian going through the via process — but we have some juicy speculation about him to talk about in a bit.
A new fullback for the Timbers?
In more tangible and substantial news, reports emerged last Friday that the Timbers have actually signed fullback. Tom “does he actually ever sleep?” Bogert reported that Portland have finalizing a move for 22-year-old Colombian left back Jimer Fory from Independiente Medellin.
Alex broke down the news, its impact or Portland’s squad, and what Fory could be bringing to the field over the weekend, which you can check out right below this bullet point.
Be on the lookout for that transfer to go final, and for Fory’s face to pop up in photos and video of the Timbers’ preseason, potentially as soon as this week.
Deyna Castellanos — forward or midfielder?
On Portland’s preseason roster, Deyna Castellanos is listed as a forward. During her time with Bay FC, Castellanos played primarily as a central midfielder. I don’t think that’s an insignificant distinction now that she is a Thorn.
It was painfully obvious last season that Thorns leading scorer Soph Smith was badly in need of a consistent running mate in the forward line, and Castellanos’ listing on the roster might hint at her intended position being as a wide forward who has the capacity to cut inside and facilitate playmaking (think of like what we saw Tobin Heath do back in the day).
If that is the case, the next question is how Rob Gale lines up the Thorns around the forward line. Disorganization and players jammed into unfamiliar positions were hallmarks of Gale’s 2024 squad, and it’s a problem that needs to be solved.
The start of this preseason camp will be Gale and Thorns’ first opportunity to start to address the problem, and while none of us will be able to see what progress is being made, you can bet that Gale will be trying to do something to fix things. We’ll see the fruits — or the lack of them — of his labor soon.
Is EvanderWatch… coming to an end??
Yes, Evander might be with the Timbers in camp now. No, this is not just clickbait.
On Instagram on the weekend, Evander’s agent posted a photo to his story of him and Evander sitting in an airport terminal. No captions were included, no destination was identified, but Evander himself re-posted it on his own IG story.
So it looks like Evander has gone somewhere. But we don’t know where exactly.
A few possibilities, organized from least to most plausible:
He’s doubled-down on his self-imposed exile, and is traveling to Europe just for funsies
He’s traveling to Dallas or Orlando or Cincinnati to complete a trade — all three teams have been reported in the past weeks as potentially interested in trading for Evander, sending cold hard cash Portland’s way
Brazil is a big country, so maybe he’s just traveling from one part of it to another
He’s actually traveling to Orange County to link up with the Timbers squad
Now, if he is joining up with the Timbers that doesn’t necessarily mean all is well and he is jazzed to be a Timber again. We have heard nothing to suggest that his stance towards the club has changed, or that his grievances have been sufficiently addressed.
Timbers GM Ned Grabavoy, along with everyone else in the Timbers organization, has maintained that Evander is expected to be with the squad when his visa issues have been resolved. So signs point to this being Evander taking a page from the “I’m just here so I don’t get fined” playbook.
But who knows? Intsa speculation is the pathway to many paranoid and anxious thoughts, and I have zero intel or personal information around this one. So to be clear: I have no idea where Evander is.
Will we find out where, and what mysterious airport this was? Will we maybe, hopefully, possibly, have some sense of where this whole situation is actually headed soon? For the sake of everyone, I hope so.
Polite request to use Bluesky or direct links to news sources when available instead of sending traffic to Twitter. Thank you.
Thanks for the round up and perspective. Looking forward to more detailed content soon.
Hina got guns this year, dang