Riveter Tifo for last home match of the regular 2016 season.
They say you never forget your firsts.
I was 19 years old, and I was a Eurosnob. A MLS trashing, “it’s called football”, playoffs aren’t for proper leagues – Eurosnob. I was a Eurosnob and it was my birthday. A blissfully sport ignorant friend and I were taking the max out of Portland and we happened to be passing by Providence Park shortly after a match. Not directly after, but close enough so that there were plenty of scarves and regalia to make it abnormal.
I, being who I was, decided to try and look for a fight out of it. I turned to my friend and started to talk, as loudly as I naturally could without being too obvious, about the many failings of the Timbers and American soccer in general. Somebody eventually interjected but instead of giving me the argument I was looking for, she shut me down by pointing out that they were actually supporters of the Thorns. This was news to me. An implant child of the suburbs as I was, I wasn’t entirely sure who the Thorns were. I’d heard the name once or twice but only in a vague sense; generally attached to a picture of the conventionally appealing face of women’s soccer. She suggested I check them out. It would be easy enough, even if I didn’t fancy coming down for a match, they were streamed live on Youtube. I didn’t like not knowing things. If I was going to speak disparagingly about something, I might as well have looked into it once or twice. So I said that I would. After all, it wasn’t as if I had anything better to watch; BPL season was over, and the world cup was still over a week out. So, true to my word, I watched that night’s match the next time I had a chance.
It was a blood bath. The match was a 5-0 to WNY Flash; the club’s worst ever loss. It started out happy enough. It was Vero Bouqete’s first match with the club and the Thorns had met and bested the Flash twice already that season alone. The atmosphere seemed good. The fans, if enough to fill stand to stand, seemed engaged and loud.
However, an early goal in the eleventh minute from McCall Zerboni set the tone. The game could have likely been saved at this point; a truly beautiful piece of play acting by Samantha Kerr and a red card made sure that was not to be. The Flash now had a penalty to sure up the score line, somebody who’d not really played with her defense before in the goal, and an extra woman on their side for the better part of the match. I wasn’t quite sure about the Thorns, but I knew for a fact that I didn’t like cheap play being that well rewarded. The booing from the crowd was loud and I was more than inclined to agree. Even louder was the chant that followed; a now familiar PT-FC, that seemed to fill the stadium they were in. By the time Samantha Kerr had slotted it home for a third, I was livid and I was loud. By the time halftime came and the Thorns conceded yet another, I’d decided that I was a fan.
The Thorns conceded once more early on in the second half. Then, slowly, something phenomenal happened. The defense and Betos began to click. The crowd kept up their roar. And, for over 40 minutes, the Thorns avoided conceding once more.
Now I had losses from clubs that had made me sad, and losses from clubs that had made me angry, but rarely had I felt so much at once. More than that, I’d never watched a beating and come away so proud. Proud of a club, proud of a city, and proud of a crowd. The loss hurt, sure – with a margin that wide, you’d have to be inhuman if it didn’t sting. But I was convinced enough to tune in the next game.
The Thorns are widely described as the largest women’s club in the world; the best resources in the country with some world’s best players and the best fan base. This definition is accurate but it’s never been what the Thorns were about for me. It is also the unfair red cards and heartbreaking losses, the Emily Menges and Michelle Betos, that define this club to me. Define this club, and in part, this game.
In the grand scheme of things, this game is about the amateurs who may never get anything for it, pushing themselves to the limit for an unreasonable win and clean sheet. People who put their body and time at risk and deserve more than they get. It is about the state of women’s soccer, even in a country who prides itself on being the “best” in the world for it. It is about a federation who, like the rest of the world, expects women to be financially viable when the men must just exist, simply because convention says nobody cares unless they do. It’s about people who are willing to put life and heart and time on the line so that somebody else in the future won’t have to. It’s a story about soccer, women’s soccer.
And if you think about it, culturally speaking, the term soccer does make a lot more sense.
Portland Thorns
