Portland Thorns vs Sky Blue FC (Photo by Diego Diaz/Icon Sportswire).
After their first win of the season just slipped out of their grasp, the drought continues in the normal fashion for Sky Blue FC. Off of Saturday’s narrow tie, the mid-week game shows no improvement for the 9th place team. Sky Blue continued their winless streak with a 2-1 loss against the Portland Thorns.
Without Mandy Freeman, Sky Blue seems to just fall apart. Although they held their own without her on Saturday, Wednesday’s game demonstrated what was expected from the phenomenal center-back. Madison Tiernan couldn’t hold off the speedy Hayley Raso. Either the forward would slip past Tiernan or the midfielder-turned-defender would foul her. It was clear Tiernan was having a rough day, and Denise Reddy’s line-up didn’t help. Putting Tiernan and Savannah McCaskill on the same side doesn’t help when faced with a team with speed. Albeit, Reddy changed things up in the 63rd minute by putting Imani Dorsey on that side to help Tiernan, but that ended up being too little too late.
Throughout this game, Sky Blue lacked width, making it almost impossible to create opportunities in the run of play. So much of play is generated by taking the ball out wide and creating space, but Sky Blue didn’t seem to want to use this strategy. Instead, they kept their game narrow and tried to slot balls into channels when they opened up, which didn’t happen often.
One of Sky Blue FC’s biggest faults this season has been the number of goals scored within the first 15 minutes of the game. Today, they allowed the 11th goal of that statistic of the season. In the 12th minute, Thorns’ midfielder Lindsey Horan was faced with Sky Blue defender Erica Skroski in the 18-yard box. Horan took a touch around Skroski, only to run into her, drawing the foul and subsequent penalty. A minute later Christine Sinclair put the ball away into the corner, Kailen Sheridan didn’t even move.
Portland secured their second goal in the 54th minute, after a foul by Tiernan on Raso. Tiernan swiped Raso’s legs out from under her, conceding not just a foul but a yellow card for herself. Tobin Heath stood over the ball, looking to put the ball on the head of Horan. Instead, the ball slipped through traffic and ended up in the back of the net.
Sky Blue started their comeback in the 85th minute, off of a ball played into the box by Domi Richardson. It was headed down by Dorsey to the feet of Carli Lloyd, who played it out to Sarah Killion. On her first touch, Killion sent a curling ball around Thorns’ goalkeeper Adrianna Franch to the far post.
This game, though, was a good test for Sky Blue. They lost on Saturday, arguably because of a weather delay, and this game was full of breaks. Due to poor air quality condition from wildfires, there was a break every 15 minutes.
Because of these breaks, it was hard for Sky Blue to create momentum for themselves. Throughout the game, they had one or two good chances and didn’t finish on either of them. This game probably shouldn’t have been played if it was going to be cut up into 6 segments, that’s not how soccer is played. It could have been pushed back a day, that way the league could maintain the health of its players and have a normal 90-minute game.
Sky Blue FC
