Portland Thorns FC show hustle and great defense in NWSL championship victory over North Carolina.
With under 10 minutes left in the 2017 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) championship game in Orlando City Stadium on Saturday, the Portland Thorns FC were up 1-0 against the aggressively pressing North Carolina Courage.
The NC Courage, winners of the 2017 NWSL Shield, saw a chance in the 82nd minute to get in behind Portland’s backline. North Carolina’s Jaelene Hinkle played a dangerous long-ball over the back four to find Jessica McDonald running on. But Portland defender Emily Menges might as well have shouted “not so fast” because quite literally the center back came out of nowhere and got herself in a position to block McDonald’s shot on net.
This play, this hustle, this willingness to track back and do anything to stay in the game is why the Thorns are the 2017 NWSL champions.
“Menges’s last tackle just kind of showed who this team is,” Portland midfielder Lindsey Horan told NWSL Media after the game. “We were not going to let another goal in, and the game was not pretty whatsoever, but we came out and we kept battling, and our defending was incredible.”
https://twitter.com/NWSL/status/919333648612102149
Portland has been consistently good defensively all season. It could be because Emily Sonnett and Menges know how one another work — the two have been playing side-by-side for the Thorns for the past two years. But, really, it is a combination of several factors that make them so good as a defensive unit. If you look specifically at the back four, or five rather, Thorns FC head coach Mark Parsons has relied on Katherine Reynolds as a third center back for a lot of this past season. Alongside the three center backs are Meghan Klingenberg and Ashleigh Sykes to compliment the flanks. Klingenberg and Sykes are offensive threats with their ability to serve the ball into the box, and defensive saviors in both their ability to track back and recover centrally.
Klingenberg and Menges were each named to NWSL’s Second Best XI earlier this week. On Saturday, Parsons had his team go out in a 4-3-3 with Klingenberg, Sonnett, Menges and Reynolds as the starters. The flat back worked in Portland’s favor, and goalkeeper Adrianna Franch held her own in net earning five saves on the day.
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The Courage dominated the Thorns with 16 shots to just four making the game really a matter of team defense and Adrianna Franch, being well, Franch and coming up big when she needed to. Franch earned 11 shutouts in the 2017 season, setting a new NWSL record for single-season shutouts. Her save percentage of 80.0 also was the top of the league and helped her team allow the fewest goals against (20).
.@sammymewy off the cross bar 😱#NWSLChampionship | #NCvPOR | 0-0 pic.twitter.com/4uZcQVFCfP
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) October 14, 2017
“AD gave us all dryer sheets today,” Menges told NWSL Media. “Clean sheets. It’s something we pride ourselves on. That’s the goal of a back line in every game we go into, is a clean sheet. … We did our job.”
While defense by definition really isn’t determined by a position, it goes without saying that Portland’s excellence runs from the top down. Credit to Horan for getting her team on the board, but the U.S. Women’s National team midfielder and her counterparts also deserve credit for their efforts to create havoc in the midfield and weed out North Carolina’s chances.
The game was a scrappy one, with the first half, in particular, resulting in two injuries on the Courage side and two yellow cards given to Thorns players (Tobin Heath 41′ and Hayley Raso 45+1′.) While the second half only saw one yellow issued, this time to Portland’s Dagny Brynjarsdottir, the last 45 was equally chaotic. Perhaps a better way of putting it was the full 90, plus added time, was a complete and utter battle.
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The Thorns committed 13 fouls and the Courage finished the game with 11. The post-game press conference did not shy away from discussing the first-half debacle and North Carolina head coach Paul Riley said afterward:
"I’m surprised the way Portland played in the first half to be honest with you. It’s not that type of team. They have some great players and I’d rather see the players play than kick people, but they chose the latter in the first half."
From leading the league in their defensive efforts to shutting down a North Carolina team dazzling with offensive threats, the Thorns can proudly hoist up that trophy for the first time since 2013.