Portland Thorns’ keeper Adrianna Franch sends it back into the fray.
Preseason games are a hot bed of what-ifs and hypotheticals. Whilst everybody trains in one way or another during the off season, excluding those too injured to do so, the team itself is not together. No matter how together a team was last season, there will always be new additions, retirements and trades. Dependent on the coaches’ off season work, an entirely new formation or role may be expected of the players. These changes can happen in part during the season, but rarely do they happen all at once as they do at the beginning of the season.
During Wednesday’s match the Thorns were without Horan, whose strengths help perfect the midfield trio with Henry, Long, and Heath, who is arguably the creative heart of the club. They started two trialists: Ashley Herndon, who most recently played for James Madison University and Washington Spirit Reserves and Kelli Hubly, who played at De Paul. In fact, of the unsigned players, only Portland native Ellie Boon did not make an appearance.
The U23 were without any of their NWSL players, who made up 16 of their 23 woman roster for the recent La Manga tournament. In fact, there were only four players who transferred from that roster to this one. The coach also differed, as Laura Harvey returned to her NWSL side, the Seattle Reign.
There was excitement early for the U23 who were able to rush Franch and win a corner. They were able to profit this way several more times during the game, not in goals, but in corners.
The first goal came from an unmarked Weber who headed a clean cross from Ashley Herndon home in the 8th minute for the Thorns. Less than a minute later, Hubly managed to curve one straight into the hands of US keeper Casey Murphy. The ball danced in front of the net and seemingly off every Thorn before it was eventually cleared. A luckier U23, or perhaps one with their NWSL team members on the roster, might have scored that chance. A wasted chance, pushed the wrong way, saw the Thorns miss their best shot for a second goal in the 35th minute.
Adriana Franch snatched one from the feet of the opposition in the 52nd. Then, off of an interesting call on a play that started inside the box, a penalty was called for the U23. While the kick itself was saved, the rebound rang true, evening things up in the 66th minute.
Henry rang off the post in the 83rd for the Thorns, but there was nobody there to follow it up and it went to waste. That might have well been the last chance of the game, had the U23 not struck at dying light off the combination of a miscommunication between the defense and Franch and deflected in what would be the winning goal of the game.
Whilst the game was far from her best in the uniform, Franch’s growth is clear in the past year with the Thorns. Her decision making and distributions, which are still her biggest points of question, have also been her greatest points of growth. The mistake that resulted in the second u23 goal will likely be what’s remembered, but her original save on the penalty kick and several other similar saves showed that her shot stopping, at least, is as keen as ever.
The Thorns, for the most part, sat with their fullbacks pushed high and had their center-backs out wide when pushed forward. Long occasionally pushing so far back she appeared to be sitting in her recent national team position. Speed was the real problem of the night for the Thorns. Whilst they were more technically gifted than their younger counterparts, they seemed almost sluggish at times. If there is one thing that you cannot afford to be against a young side, it is slow.
The game looked fairly even, all told, which is good news for American soccer as a whole, if only a small piece of it. While, doubtless, there will be more reactionary responses to this loss, the point of the preseason is to work these sort of jitters and mistakes out before it counts. It gives a sounding board for the hypotheticals. It gives the rookies and trialists a chance to show their worth to a team in a real way, without the drawbacks or lash back regular season can bring. It also gave the U23 a real chance to test out their chops.
Thorns play again this Saturday at 7:30 against the Houston Dash.
Game Stats
PORTLAND: GK Franch, D Boureille, D Sonnett, D Menges (Cox, 76), D Klingenberg (Johnson, 60) , M Henry, M Long, M Herndon (Shim, 60), F Hubly, F Sinclair © (Nadim, 72), F Weber (Flynn, 60)
TOTAL SHOTS: 15; SHOTS ON GOAL: 6; FOULS: 10; OFFSIDES: 5; CORNER KICKS: 2; SAVES: 3
U23s: GK Murphy, D Cook, D McGrady, D Riehl, D Jean, M Howell (Davidson, 62), M Pinto (Yu, 85), M Eubanks (Sanchez, 66), F Smith, F McCaskill © (DiBiasi, 74), F King (Xiao, 62)
TOTAL SHOTS: 9; SHOTS ON GOAL: 5; FOULS: 5; OFFSIDES: 1; CORNER KICKS: 7 SAVES: 5
Portland Thorns
