Bench Brigade
A heavily rotated Thorns lineup cruises to a 3-0 victory over América to conclude CONCACAF competition
On Saturday, the Thorns played against a Mexican league team — ironically, called América — as part of a continental competition. You can read about the competition here, and you can read about how the Thorns fell to this consolation third-place game here.
The Thorns started the first 15 minutes of this game undeniably on the front foot. It was mostly one-way traffic in Portland’s direction, highlighted by Payton Linnehan firing off a fantastic chance that glanced off of the crossbar.
Then: a malaise set in. It was somewhere around 90 degrees. The team had spent the whole week in Mexico, including the previous several days sat around waiting for this third-place game, one of the lowest-stakes contests of the year. As expected, the lineup was younger than ever, with three players making their professional debuts: midfielder Carissa Boeckmann, defender Moira Kelley, and goalkeeper Morgan Messner. All the new faces made for a lot of miscommunications, and missed passes all over the field. It’s important to make the most of any professional minute played, yes. But: could the team overcome all those circumstances of the day, the drowsy gravity that was asking everyone to jog around with just slightly not-that-much purpose?
Finally, at the very end of the first half, the lightning moment struck. It came from reserve midfielder Sophie Hirst, who saw a visionary, line-breaking pass half the field away up to Boeckmann on the right wing. (This pass is unfortunately cut out from the highlight video above.) Then, it’s met with another cerebral moment of brilliance from Boeckmann, who sends a precisely loopy one-touch crossing assist to Pietra Tordin in the middle. An unmarked Tordin put the ball away with ease — making it a goal for her in each of her two career starts. Hirst, Boeckmann, and Tordin have played a combined 199 minutes in this NWSL regular season, and suddenly the Thorns’ bench felt deeper than deep.
On the first goal — and, I remember feeling like this was the case when Portland played América in this competition last September as well — the Mexican team’s defense got pulled out of shape in a way we don’t normally see in NWSL competition. Thorns forwards suddenly have wide, foreign-feeling amounts of acreage to run into. With momentum established, Portland kept their foot on the gas and scored their next two goals taking advantage of all that space:
A few minutes into the start of the second half, and Linnehan goes on a staggering solo run from nearly half-field for a monster individual goal. With two goals in her last three appearances, Linnehan has now officially shaken off an early-season slump.
There’s only so many people on a roster: with so many of Portland’s deep bench players starting this game, the only available substitutes were…the Thorns’ regular starting players. Shortly after each player came on, Caiya Hanks goes for a signature tear down the left side, and hits Olivia Moultrie with a precise cross in the middle. The possession was crucially won by Tordin, who aggressively grinds out a midfield takeaway to ignite the Portland fastbreak. (This moment was also cut out of the highlight video.)
How to sum up the team’s journey down to Mexico? Like everything with this tournament, we’re dealing with a mixed bag here. It would have felt best to see the team work uphill to overcome an awkward start against Tigres in the previous game. That would have put Portland in the final against Gotham FC, a team the Thorns beat by a 4-1 score last month. After that loss, though: performances by young prospects in this second game gave the exciting idea that there is maybe another wave of promising players in Portland, who have so far been blocked by the team’s own depth from getting minutes in the NWSL season.
Global Game Catch-Up
CONCACAF W Champions Cup
In the winner-take-all final of this tournament, Gotham FC came out on top over Tigres, 1-0. This was a bloop-tastic game that will not exactly go down in the history books. Gotham scored their goal off of a late penalty kick that was earned during a WWE-esque moment of corner kick shenanigans. Gotham’s Esther González actually missed the penalty kick — which was Gotham’s second missed penalty kick of the game — but was able to collect the rebound and score on the latter one. Gotham will represent North America against other continental champions in the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup next January.
UEFA Champions League
Over in Europe, as the Champions League final progressed, it looked inevitable that heavy favorites Barcelona would collect the victory over Arsenal. Into the second half, Barcelona controlled almost all of the possession and scoring chances, while Arsenal got pushed into a defensive-only stance. Still: you don’t get points for having possession, and suddenly it was getting late with the scoreboard locked at 0-0. On a rare offensive move for Arsenal, the English team earned a corner kick and, after recycling possession, substitute Swedish forward Stina Blackstenius got the decisive goal in the 74th minute. Arsenal went back into iron-fortress mode on defense, and triumphed as the underdog, 1-0. (Blackstenius also started and played the majority of the game for Sweden during “that game” against America in the 2023 World Cup. Giant slayer!) This was the first time an English team won the European Champions League since Arsenal themselves did it — all the way back in 2007.
NWSL Week 10
For the last several weeks, both Portland and Gotham had played one game more than the rest of NWSL competition, because of this week’s CONCACAF duties. The scales are now back to being fully balanced: every other NWSL squad played this weekend, and now all 14 NWSL teams are at exactly 10 games played. The Thorns drop one place in the standings, from 4th down to 5th. The reason? It was the league-leading favorites all taking care of business. The four teams ahead of Portland in the standings all got wins: Washington Spirit, Orlando Pride, San Diego Wave, and Kansas City Current. Out of the nine teams below Portland in the standings, only one squad collected a win (Racing Louisville).
Up next: International “break”
Next weekend, we hit the pause button on NWSL competition for an international break. These are the moments when schedules and itineraries can get busier than ever for the team: Thorns social media has reported on nine players going out and about around the globe. Virtually all of these call-ups are for friendlies, as this will be a final tune-up window before continental tournaments get started (pretty much everywhere but North America) this summer. Some notable travelers for the Thorns include:
Reyna Reyes is conveniently staying in Mexico, as the country hosts two friendlies against Uruguay.
It always surprises me that Hina Sugita is not called into the Japanese camp 100% of the time. Wisely, the team calls up Sugita now, and she will actually continue to travel further south. Japan’s pair of friendlies against Brazil will both be in São Paulo.
Deyna Castellanos will, fortunately, be able to join with her Venezuelan national team. Castellanos did not join Venezuela during the last international break, sadly, out of caution due to uncertain political changes here in America. The Venezuelan team will play a pair of friendlies against New Zealand — interestingly, at a neutral site in Spain.
On the other side of the break, Portland’s world-spanning road trip still continues. The Thorns get back into the NWSL regular season on Saturday, June 7th, at 11th-place Bay FC.
Good work, Thanks! Boeckman looks like she might be another solid Agoos addition.
Add to Thorns travelers, Caiya Hanks off to Germany with the UWNT 23s.