Two new Thorns
The new front office gets to work and brings in two new players
With the addition of two new Thorns this week, Portland is listed as having 22 players on their 2025 roster. Now, NWSL teams are allowed to have anywhere between 22-26 players on their roster during the season. Here’s hoping the next few weeks bring in the news of four more additional talents to the team. This week, the Thorns went from six to seven international players this week, bringing in Venezuelan Deyna Castellanos. Last month, the team traded for an eighth international player slot in the deal that sent Shelby Hogan to Gotham FC. Signing another international player would mean taking full advantage of that trade, which did send a legitimately talented player in Hogan out of town.
Jayden Perry | D
On Wednesday, the Thorns’ new front office signed its second collegiate player, after Princeton forward Pietra Tordin: Jayden Perry, a defender out of UCLA. Perry was a four-year player for the Bruins, where she overlapped as teammates with current Thorn Reilyn Turner. Both Turner and Perry helped to lift UCLA to a national championship win in 2022. In 2024, UCLA only allowed 10 total goals in the 22 games Perry played. A team stat, yeah, but that’s really locking things down. Perry also scored seven goals in her college career — really high numbers for a defender — and would be called on to take penalty kicks for the team.
With the abolition of the collegiate draft in the new NWSL CBA, I haven’t quite seen much coverage about how to rank the incoming collegiate players. Perry now makes it 27 NCAA players who have been signed into the NWSL. For one: that’s a lot less players than the 56 players who were drafted across the four rounds of the 2024 NWSL Draft. Players drafted in the second half of the draft always faced a big uphill challenge to make a roster, and it looks like teams have decided not to sign that type of player in the first place.
But: which of these 27 players would have been a candidate for the first overall pick? The first round? The second round? Even though the draft itself is gone, it doesn’t change how important it is to have an incoming stream of collegiate talent for NWSL teams. Plus: a playoff-caliber team could really help themselves by jumping the line and signing the consensus-best players, who would normally only be available at the top of the draft. Is that what the Thorns have done with these signings? The arrival of the preseason feels like the only way to start to know.
Deyna Castellanos | M + F
At age 25, the midfielder Castellanos already has played soccer in: the NCAA, Spain, England, and the NWSL, where she arrived last year to join Bay FC. Although exact salary figures are almost never released for individual NWSL players, somehow the totals for Castellanos got out there — and they were big. Last January, ESPN reported that Castellanos’ contract with Bay FC was worth over $1.8 million across four years, making her the highest-paid international player across the entire league.
Castellanos’ year in San Francisco did not go as either side wanted it to, especially at that price point. The final numbers: 45.3% of total minutes played, two goals, and one assist. Bay FC also had a -11 goal differential when Castellanos was on the field, and a +1 differential during the 54.7% of minutes she was off. Those on-off numbers got to where they were because, as Bay FC improved in the second half of the season, Castellanos gradually went on the outside looking in at the rotation.
This led to the news, earlier this week, that Castellanos and Bay FC made a mutual agreement to tear up her contract, making her a free agent. After signing only one NWSL free agent all offseason (Sam Hiatt), the Thorns jumped quickly and opportunistically to sign Castellanos, presumably for a fraction of what she cost Bay FC last year.
I would be more discouraged about Castellanos’ off year, except for one key detail: the Thorns front office that made this move includes Strategic Advisor Lucy Rushton. And, Rushton was the Bay FC General Manager who signed Castellanos to that gigantic contract 12 months ago. It would make all the sense in the world for Rushton to stay out of the Castellanos business, chalk up the uneven 2024 season as a missed opportunity, and move on to new relationships in the big world of soccer. However, for Rushton and the Thorns to move quickly to sign Castellanos makes me feel that Rushton really believes in Castellanos as a talent and professional presence in a team. And, perhaps, that tough 2024 season was due to a mis-alignment with how Castellanos was played by the Bay FC coaching staff.
Prior to 2024, Castellanos created a strong reputation as a premier prospect by scoring a flurry of goals for a variety of teams:
Won the 2018 NCAA Championship with Florida State.
Scored 23 goals in 58 appearances for Spain’s Atlético Madrid (2020-2022).
Scored 22 goals in 38 career appearances for the Venezuelan national team.
Also, one of Castellanos’ two goals last year did come against the Thorns, connecting with Rachael Kundananji on a no-doubt fast-break: