Midfielder Allie Long pulls the Thorns even with the Washington Spirit during the 2015 season.
For three years, the Portland Thorns have collected a group of extraordinarily talented players that struggled to find cohesion. Even in that first championship season, “we just need to gel” was repeated so often by players, coaches and fans that the phrase grew meaningless. For three years, “we just need to gel” became a go-to phrase that signified the organization’s lack of answers about the team’s underachievement. For three years, “we just need to gel” turned from a hopeful preseason mantra to a mid-season excuse to a latter-season puzzler. By all rights, to a Thorns fan, the words “We just need to gel” should come with a trigger warning.
So when, after the March 27 preseason loss to the Seattle Reign, new defender Megan Klingenberg and new head coach Mark Parsons hinted at a similar train of thought, and when Klingenberg even uttered the word “gel,” a few members of the press flinched. That head coach Mark Parsons hinted at it too—“They’ve been together for three years,” he said, referencing Seattle’s team. “We’ve been together for three minutes.”—might have conjured up some troubling memories.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that neither he nor Klingenberg were wrong to point out the matter. Once again in their four-year history, the Thorns face a slew of questions going into their season, with the dreaded G-word vying for top of the list. That on-pitch cohesion has come up four years in a row doesn’t make it any less valid an issue. The preseason is too short. The constant shuttling of players in and out of camp is a challenge. A new coach, a new system, a roster overhaul—all legit reasons why it could take a while for the glue to set. Also, admittedly, legit enough reasons for the collective grumblings that rumbled out of the North End like a fracking earthquake the minute the final whistle blew.
But! Not to get all Shakespeare on you, but past is not necessarily prelude. Just because the Thorns need to gel doesn’t mean, as in years past, they won’t. And not to get all Eckhart Tolle on you, but we would all be well-served to accept a certain level of uncertainty. Will the Thorns gel this year? Who the eff knows! It’s an impossible thing to try to predict. But, based on the team’s performance during the preseason tournament, we can add needing to gel to the list of potential concerns going into the Thorns’ 2014 season.
As for the rest of that list, well, that word “preseason” indicates a limited data set from which to draw conclusions. Watching a preseason game is akin to watching someone study for a test —as the boring game against Oregon State showed. We are watching someone prepare, rather than actually seeing if they are prepared, and as such it’s folly to try to extract certain particulars—tactics, formations, lineups, strategy—from a set of games that amount to public tinkering.
So, conclusions? No. But questions and conjecture? Fine, let’s ponder what we’ve seen, ask some questions and take a few guesses.
Do They Seem Ready? They’re Ready, Right? They Seem Ready.
I remember the very first notes I wrote about the Thorns as a franchise. It was March 30, 2013, their first public preseason game, against an out-of-season Portland Pilots team on, when I scrawled on a legal pad: They don’t look ready. It wasn’t just that they seemed disorganized, that the national teamers weren’t there, that the game plan proved elusive. It was also that nebulous thing where they just didn’t look ready to launch. Like at all. Subsequent pre-season and season openers under Paul Riley were better, but not by much.
Flash to March 27, 2016. Navigating between the Scylla of assessing the team and the Charybdis of wanting to beat Seattle, Parsons sent out a squad that at least appeared to have some sense of cohesion and purpose. The starters came out of the gates charging. It lasted all of 20 minutes, and the organization was as shaky as you’d expect from a preseason game, but the energy, the hard-to-define readiness factor, appeared intact. At least for 20 minutes.
Kat Williams taking on the Reign in the preseason. Photo by Jeff Wong.
Is It Time to Accept No One Can Beat Seattle?
The Reign breezed through the preseason tournament like that saucy internet cat walking on its hind legs, more evidence that Laura Harvey’s witchy brew (can we all agree that Jess Fishlock is the eye of newt?) has simmered into peak potency. They have gelled, and have been gelling, as Parsons pointed out, for three years. “They have one brand new player,” he said after the preseason match. “We have 11.”
The Thorns play Seattle four times.
Crap.
Did the Thorns Go Backwards on Forwards?
The Great Alex Morgan Trade of the Century Dot Com Backslash Look at All We Got may have allowed for a roster upgrade on a Herschel Walker-ian scale, but it still left the team without Alex Morgan. Combine the odd and unexpected 180 by Mallory Pugh with the odd and unexpected departure of Jodie Taylor and that leaves a once potentially deadly arsenal somewhat bereft of bullets.
But! It still leaves a front line anchored by Christine Sinclair and Nadia Nadim. This still is a pair that should give opposing teams a case of the uh-ohs. But does it instill the type of butt-clenching worry that a lineup involving Pugh and Taylor would?
It’s tempting for reasons of fidelity to say yes, but frankly it’s not a lock, for two reasons.
First, Sinclair’s production has declined. Eight goals in the first season. Six in 2014. Two in 2015. There are many reasons for this. The Thorns often struggled to get Sinclair the ball. She had hampering injuries. She was gone during much of the World Cup. But whatever the reason, it needs to get fixed. If it doesn’t, things don’t look good.
Second, Nadia Nadim has proven a potent scorer in the past—witness her 2014 form, in which she scored 14 goals in
24 matches for Sky Blue—but her form dropped considerably in 2015, when she only produced six goals in 18 appearances. As a second option behind Pugh and Taylor, Nadim would have been quite the asset as far as depth goes (can you imagine her and Taylor as the primary targets during the large swaths of time the allocated players will gone from the league?), but frankly her 2014 performance + her 2015 performance + her preseason performance = how can you predict what her 2016 will look like?
Meantime, the additions of Mallory Weber and Hayley Raso have potential upside, but Weber is a rookie, and Raso didn’t make any particular splash in her nine appearances with the Washington Spirit. In short, the Thorns are going with Plan B. And while Plan B looks fairly good, it’s going to need a few things to fall into place to be effective.
OK, But Doesn’t It Kinda Seem Like Nadim Is One of Those Things That Will Fall Into Place?
Judging from certain bits of the preseason, it’s hopeful. Her hat trick against Oregon State wasn’t exceptional in that she scored three times against a college team, it was exceptional in the way she did it. A pair of decisive, confident finishes that resulted from hustle and purpose, and a very nice strike off a smart pass from Sinclair—all three goals that indicated Nadim may be in 2014 mode. Also, she and Mana Shim seem to have developed a bit of chemistry, as evidenced by Shim’s aerial nutmeg pass that Nadim almost put away just before the end of the first half of the OSU game.
Will the Thorns Struggle When Their Players Get Called Up to the Olympics?
Maybe. Probably. But the good news is the potential Shim/Nadim connection, Allie Long’s increased speed (assuming she doesn’t get called up), the unexpected bonus of midfielder Celeste Boureille’s play, the eventual return of Kendall Johnson, and Emily Menges’ palpable and continued improvement.
Also encouraging: After the Seattle loss, Parsons said “we wanted to make sure we physically competed…’am I going to physically work hard, am I going to put the effort in, am I going to be focused on the tactical stuff.’ I thought we physically competed superbly. I thought we were aggressive in a good way.” And it’s true: During the past couple years, other teams sometimes manhandled the Thorns and knocked them off their game. For this one game, at least, they battled through it.
Perhaps the most encouraging was the context surrounding Klingenberg’s gelling reference post-Seattle game. “What’s really cool about this Portland team,” she said, “is that this year more than most, they have assembled a team of like-minded players that have like-minded styles. And so the way that Lindsey [Horan] thinks about the game is a lot like the way that Allie [Long] thinks about the game and so they gel well together. And the way that Sinc thinks about the game is the way that Tobin thinks about the game, so it’s pretty cool when you put a group of like-minded players with like-minded styles on the pitch together…you can see the potential for this season.”
What’s that? An inference that the Thorns might be on the same page before the season even begins? It’s nothing to hang a season on, of course, and it may amount to nothing. But it’s another piece of evidence to mull over until the real deal starts at 7 p.m. on Sunday. Until then, let’s all gear up and get ready. It’s a long journey, and the oars haven’t even touched the water yet.
Portland Thorns
