Sophia Stays
Sophia Wilson picks up her 2026 player option to stay with the Thorns for one more year
And good holiday tidings to you — in the quiet middle of winter, with absolutely no rumors or rumblings leading up to it — without even a head coach under contract to lead this thing called the Thorns — Portland gets the news that Sophia Wilson has picked up her 2026 player option, ensuring she will stay with the team for one more season.
Any type of tea leaf that was tempting to “read” in the last 12 months pointed to Wilson’s departure this offseason. There was Wilson’s literal physical distance from the team, having established a new home base in Arizona, while her husband Michael plays for the Cardinals. There was the brand-new expansion team just now opening up shop in Wilson’s hometown of Denver. And there were the regular hints that a more thrilling life adventure waited somewhere in Europe, we’ll figure out the specific team, or country, later — although, come to think of it, this last one has actually been all Trinity Rodman, hasn’t it?
Well, whatever. I guess that could teach us the perils of being entirely too online. Wilson’s proactive decision to stay with the team, during a moment when she held the leverage over the entire world of soccer, is a nice reminder that the Thorns, and their fanbase, and their stadium, truly are world-class. The addition of a healthy Wilson to last year’s third-place squad — plus the returns of many other injured players — launches Portland into the True Championship Contenders tier ahead of the 2026 season.
Minutes like gems
Last winter — about five minutes, it felt, before Wilson announced she would be out for 2025 on maternity leave — I dove in, with excruciating detail, on my case that Wilson’s minutes need to be managed and limited more carefully in the future. During both 2023 and 2024, Wilson was overplayed during historically great first halves of the year. And then, in both seasons, injuries and fatigue dramatically limited her availability and production in the business half of the season.
Ultimately, I ended with the proposal that Wilson play 55% of total minutes during the first half of the season, and 70% during the second half. It’s a plan that can only be pulled off with intentional substitute appearances and rest days.
That was my thought for last year, when there were 26 NWSL regular season games. With Denver and Boston joining for the 2026 season, the calendar is now ballooning to 30 games. This is, very simply, too many games, and get ready for NWSL conversations next October and November to center around a wave of playoff-disrupting injured stars.
While the best-laid plan can go up in smoke with just a single tackle, the Thorns need to be unprecedented with how thoughtfully and conservatively they manage Wilson’s minutes. Days where a healthy Wilson is kept on the bench will be worth it if she is fresh for the playoffs.
Can’t commit — cap crest coming
It can be tempting to think, “Hey, why isn’t Wilson committing to a long-term deal with the Thorns?” After all, this is a one-year commitment for the 2026 season — which means everyone is staying on Wilson Contract Watch on basically an annual basis.
I would guess Wilson and her representation are looking at the long-term future of the NWSL salary cap, which has already been set from now until the year 2030. (Or, at least, it was set until the Washington Spirit, Rodman, and the Players’ Association all descended on the cap with saws and sledgehammers the last few weeks.) The combined salaries for players on each NWSL roster cannot go over this cap, or predetermined limit:
Upcoming NWSL Salary Caps
2026: $3.5 million
2027: $4.4m
2028: $4.7m
2029: $4.9m
2030: $5.1m
While there is steady growth each year, by far the biggest jump will be between the 2026 and 2027 seasons. Look for Wilson and her representation to commit to a long-term deal this time next year, when the cap makes that meaningful jump up, and there are entirely new possibilities of what an NWSL contract can be worth.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of the ongoing saga of Rodman’s negotiations. At the moment, it feels to me like the Players’ Union is putting all of its energies into maximizing the earnings of a single player, and not all 350 (!) or so players in the union.* I much prefer this quick, clean, proactive move from Wilson.
In the meantime, I’m personally going to keep it flexible as to whether or not Wilson is A Thorn For Life. This will be Wilson’s fifth-year of on-field play, and that’s getting to a meaningful chunk of time for one of the game’s best-ever players to stay with your team. If it goes somewhere else from here — well, she’ll always have started, and won a championship, as a Thorn.
Finish this roster
After last fall’s flurry of moves, and now the return of Wilson, the Thorns’ roster is truly almost complete. Whatever coach is hired won’t have the opportunity to influence the team and have “their type” of players signed. This thing is pretty much locked in already.
To start with: since the end of the season, the team announced they would not be bringing back a group of four free agents: Olivia Katoa (formerly Wade-Katoa), Nicole Payne, Naomi Powell, and Kaitlyn Torpey. Torpey was the only one of those players to appear in 2025: Katoa was on maternity leave, Payne had a preseason ACL tear, and Powell did not appear in a game after joining mid-season. I got the feeling Torpey was not quite a fan favorite — and, it’s definitely true the Thorns never found a way to utilize her career-long habit of generating Shot-Creating Actions from the defensive line. But, her late-preseason acquisition filled an unbelievably crucial roster hole, and this felt to me like a very positive one-year tenure.
A notable absence from this list is Laila Harbert — who is currently the only 2025 Thorn not under contract with the team. Surprisingly, though, the Thorns just published a well-produced interview with both Harbert and Valerin Loboa, where both players talked about a long-term future with the team. While Loboa is already under contract through 2028, there is currently no agreement for Harbert to return to the Thorns for 2026. I would expect this agreement to come soon — but, I also would have thought this would have been sorted out already, as the team brought Harbert over in August knowing the state of her deal.
If Marie Müller and Morgan Weaver are ready to hit the ground running from last year’s preseason knee injuries, the 2026 Thorns would begin at 22 players.
The team would also know about the rehabilitation progress of Caiya Hanks and Julie Dufour from their mid-season knee injuries. Their potential mid-season returns would lift the roster up to 24 active players — very close to the 26-player limit.
So, depending on a potential deal with Harbert, that really leaves only one or two potential roster spots open on this team. With the significant amount of salary cap devoted to Wilson, and the team’s success with scouting rookies out of the NCAA last year, I would expect this last spot or two to either be kept intentionally empty, or filled with another collegiate player.
*The nitty-gritty: the first contract offered by the Spirit earlier this month had values so large, they could only be paid for by making the assumption that the NWSL would enter new, more valuable broadcasting contracts in 2028. Those new broadcasting contracts would cause a raise in total league revenue — and that would change and raise the salary cap numbers listed above. And, yes: these factors could also help shape Wilson’s next long-term deal as well.