2015 NWSL season preview – Portland Thorns: Trying to make all the pieces fit

Head coach: Paul Riley, second season.

Hey! We still have a German: Nadine Angerer coming to Portland a season ago was a big deal, and not just for the Thorns. For the league as a whole, Germans had long been some magical out-of-reach thing, unattainable to an American league. Enter Angerer, 2013 FIFA World Player of the Year and Germany’s captain and no. 1 keeper. In her first season in NWSL, Angerer made 22 appearances -- all starts -- earning four clean sheets and one red card. She’ll be back for a second season under Riley, as will Angerer’s backup from a year ago, Michelle Betos. Betos made two starts and three appearances in 2014, but will likely see some significant time this season with Angerer away with the German WNT.

Lapses: In 2014, the Thorns were part of some of the most bizarrely lopsided games in league history. There was a 4-1 loss to, somehow, the Boston Breakers, followed immediately by an almost as mystifying 5-0 defeat courtesy of Western NY. Portland also lost 5-0 to Seattle once, because sometimes you have to actually lose big to a non-terrible team, too. The Thorns weren’t always the team on the up-end of the teeter-totter, legs dangling, screaming “let me down” though. Sometimes Portland also played the role of teeterer. Totterer? Whatever. There was a 7-1 win against Kansas City, a 6-1 victory against the Spirit, and a totally bananas, live on national television 6-3 win over Boston -- a game in which the Breakers had the lead three times and somehow managed to still lose.

Which is an incredibly long-winded way of saying: the Thorns sometimes lacked defensive cohesion and offensive consistency in incredibly glaring ways. Of Portland’s defensive corps, the only major loss is Nikki Marshall, who announced her retirement in February. Rachel Van Hollebeke, Steph Catley, Emily Menges and Courtney Niemiec all return. Of course, Van Hollebeke is part of the USWNT and Catley plays for Australia. Portland did add a trio of defenders, picking up Canadian international Rhian Wilkinson, Sky Blue FC’s Kendall Johnson, and trading Amber Brooks to Western NY to reacquire Kat Williamson. Portland traded Williamson to the Flash at the start of the 2014 season.

Middle: Portland’s midfield remains mostly unchanged from a season ago, too, save for the NWSL Retirement Bug biting Angie Kerr and Sarah Huffman, and the trades of Brooks and Rebecca Moros. Vero Boquete is currently playing in Germany, but has expressed interest in returning to the Thorns. Portland did add Canada’s Kaylyn Kyle through allocation and Sarah Robbins, who last played professionally in Finland and also acquired one-time Flash captain McCall Zerboni as part of the Brooks-Williamson trade with Western NY. They’ll join the returning Tobin Heath, Sinead Farrelly, Allie Long and Mana Shim. Long was Portland’s second leading scorer a season ago with seven goals. Kyle and Heath will likely miss time with their respective national teams.

In conclusion: Paul Riley is not a fancy ingredients kind of man. Paul Riley is a wait while all the other contestants run and ravage the pantry and then just casually stroll ‘cause you wouldn’t want to wrinkle those slacks and also it’s too hot to run in this scarf you’re wearing in August and take whatever weird stuff is left and then make the dish that [almost] wins the challenge kind of man. With all those names, it was like Riley didn’t know what to do and ended up just making some kind of weird brown-grey glop that no one wanted to eat a lot of the time. 2015 will present a different kind of challenge, with a good chunk of the fancy stuff unavailable for some of the season -- which might just be the best thing that could happen to the Thorns. Or someone could just go to Cindy Parlow Cone’s house and ask to borrow a hat already.