Fleming Finds Friends

A dominant full-squad effort is capped off by two brilliant assists from Jessie Fleming

Game #12: Portland Thorns 2 - Washington Spirit 0

5 wins - 4 draws - 3 losses

19 points | 5th place

According to statistics from the Bluesky account NWSL Analytics, both the Thorns and Spirit were just about even in this game when it came to interceptions and blocked passes. (And, speaking of which, what is the difference between an interception and a blocked pass? ) Portland had the slight advantage in blocked passes, 11-9, and actually trailed when it came to interceptions, 5-6.

The numbers can’t lie — but it definitely feels like they are, here. From the opening minutes of this game, the Thorns completely dominated play, acting dangerously aggressive in the passing lanes, and putting in the effort to win seemingly every 50-50 ball. Except for a few late second-half minutes, the Spirit — who still have five more goals on the season than the Thorns — never felt truly in an offensive groove. Washington’s recent wave of international signings, forwards Rosemond Kouassi and Gift Monday, have been producing massive goals on a per-minute basis in 2025, but were largely kept silent in this game. Still, as halftime loomed, the score sat at 0-0, and you don’t get awarded wins just for intercepting passes.

The breakthrough came when Washington gave Portland a gift that the Thorns hd been giving to opponents earlier this year: the short goal kick. This has to be one of the most self-destructive strategies in soccer, and I can’t figure out why it’s all over the NWSL. Basically, as a Thorns fan, your eyes get real big when you see this:

Incredibly, the Spirit are already one pass into this sequence, since their left-center back has kicked the goal kick backwards, to keeper Aubrey Kingsbury. That backwards kick gives Jessie Fleming the permission to enter the penalty box and proactively attack the play, angling everything to the Thorns’ right-hand side.

From there, Portland patiently trapped the ball into the corner, with Olivia Moultrie making the critical takeaway. Moultrie passes the ball off to Fleming, who creatively slides the ball across the goalmouth to Reilyn Turner — an assist that turned an okay shot into a no-doubter goal.

Hopefully this play also eliminates the short goal kick from the Thorns’ playbook for the rest of the season/the rest of history. Portland seized on the advantage so masterfully — and the only advantage was that Washington wanted to do a short goal kick in the first place.

Second-half flurry

Midway through the second half, coach Rob Gale made my personal favorite substitution move of the year. In the 67th minute, he brought on nearly a completely different front line, with Mimi Alidou, Deyna Castellanos, and Pietra Tordin all entering at once. I like the move because, with the Thorns leading 1-0 and the end of the game coming in-sight, the decision was to refresh the offense, instead of bolstering the defense and try to wind the clock down. The change absolutely paid off, although only after an absolute flurry of action:

73’

An absolute rocket of a shot from Washington’s Makenna Morris clangs off of the crossbar, narrowly keeping Portland’s 1-0 lead intact.

81’

Another dangerous shot by Morris requires an all-out diving save from Bella Bixby, who needs the entirety of a full extension to poke the shot just wide of the post. It’s an instant candidate for the Thorns’ save of the year.

82’

I had noticed that, throughout the game, Spirit goalkeeper Kingsbury had been coming well outside of her penalty box — even getting across the half-field line on some Spirit corner kicks. Fleming had apparently been tracking it as well. When the ball falls to Fleming two-thirds of the field away, Kingsbury is floating out in space, and Fleming has the presence of mind to poke a one-touch, looping pass about thirty yards upfield, to a fast-breaking Tordin.

Tordin still has a lot of work to do to finish off the goal, and needs every bit of her speed and power to get the job done. Kingsbury is frantically backpedaling the whole way, though — caught off-guard thanks to Fleming’s visionary pass. Fleming received well-deserved NWSL Player of the Week honors for creating both of Portland’s dynamic goals.

Hanks goes down

It was perfect weather, a season-best crowd, the Thorns convincingly beat a championship contender…and there was still one significant cloud that hung over the day: the injury to rookie forward Caiya Hanks.

Last week against Bay FC, Hanks got her hand stomped on while on the receiving end of a yellow-card-worthy foul. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she avoided major injury, and was in the starting lineup of this game. However, in first-half stoppage time, Hanks once again goes on a fast break, is defended incredibly physically, and goes down with an injury that pulled her out of the game immediately.

This week, it’s Spirit forward Kouassi who backtracks, and uses her arm to push Hanks off of the ball. Although there is no lower-body contract between the two players, Hanks immediately goes to the ground clutching her left leg, and had to be assisted off of the field, moving very, very slowly. There has, frustratingly, been no public update on Hanks’ health yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a season-ending injury — but, who knows, maybe it’s a short absence, after Hanks bounced back from the knock last week. (This may be misreading the tea leaves, but I’m actually wondering if this lack of news so far means Hanks has avoided a major injury?)

Either way: after years of watching Sophia Wilson go on similar fast breaks, it does feel like the NWSL, frustratingly, officiates in the defender’s favor in these moments. There was no foul called on this play.

Li’l Notes

• Earlier this month, Thorn Town looked at the complicated game of musical chairs the Washington Spirit have had going at head coach. Days before this game, the musical chairs got even more complicated. Jonatan Giráldez — who is scheduled to leave the Spirit for OL Lyonnes in France this July — did not travel with the team to Portland, as his wife gave birth to their second child. While the soccer definitely comes secondary to an important real-life event like this one, it also did ratchet up the week-to-week uncertainty for Washington players about who would be leading the team. Since this was a predictable personal absence, it also makes the Spirit’s timeline with this coaching change all the more puzzling. Of all NWSL teams, this is definitely most relevant to the Thorns: Portland travels to the East Coast to play the Spirit again in their first game back from the summer break, on August 3rd. That game will be the first game where Adrián González is Washington’s permanent, full-time coach — after he acted as the interim head coach in this game. Yeah: after unraveling this, you can see why almost every team in sports history goes with the one-head-coach-at-a-time strategy.

• The Portland front office makes a transaction, signing backup goalkeeper Morgan Messner to a contract extension for the 2026 season. Messner gave a strong performance in her only appearance of the year, Portland’s 3-0 victory over Mexican squad América in the consolation game of May’s CONCACAF tournament. Since Messner still does not have any appearances in NWSL competition, we’ll take this as a sign that things are going really well behind the scenes. This is also the second consecutive year the Thorns have turned a non-guaranteed training camp invitation into a guaranteed multi-year contract, after defender Mallie McKenzie in 2024.

• Thorns social media reports on a fun milestone: Olivia Moultrie has become the youngest player in league history to start 50 regular season games.

• An update from Taylor Vincent of Spotrac.com: there is now visible construction work being done at the team’s future shared practice facility out in Hillsboro.

Up next: Last day of school

Game #13: Chicago Stars at Portland Thorns

Saturday, June 21st | 7:00 pm

Broadcast: ION

For the second time in three seasons, the Stars are absolutely languishing near the bottom of the standings. After 12 games played, Chicago has had more head coaches (2) than victories (1), and they are both league-worst on offense (10 scores scored) and defense (26 goals allowed). Crazy enough, a recent rough streak from the Utah Royals, combined with two straight ties by Chicago, means the Stars have actually moved up into 13th place in the standings. The difference between 13th and 14th is purely academic: the Thorns need and should expect all three points from this game, to stay strong in the playoff mix.

This game will be a reunion with 2022 champion Thorn Natalia Kuikka, who is in her second season with Chicago. An injury kept Kuikka out for the first 11 games of the season, and she has only played in the two most recent games.

It’s still important to focus on the business at hand with Chicago, instead of looking ahead: after this game, the NWSL will take a six-week break, as four of the globe’s continents hold their every-four-years continental tournament.