Hopefully this isn’t news to anyone, but the Portland Thorns recently sold team captain and key central midfielder, Sam Coffey, to Manchester City. This follows the late-season trade/transfer of Hina Sugita to Angel City FC. In return, the Thorns have only announced the signing of Shae Harvey from Stanford University. Harvey comes into the side as a highly prized central midfielder, but on sheer numbers, the Thorns are still quite threadbare in midfield. This sits on top of a defensive unit that could use some reinforcing as well, but has, so far, only added players out of college.

In lieu of new signings and a head coach, I want to look back on the 2025 season and explore some options the Thorns might explore for 2026 with their current roster. As a quick refresher, here is the current roster as of the recent signing of Carolyn Calzada:

Goalkeepers (3): 
Mackenzie Arnold
Bella Bixby
Morgan Messner

Defenders (8): 
Carolyn Calzada - Central Defender
Sam Hiatt - Central Defender
Isabella Obaze - Central Defender
Jayden Perry - Central Defender
Mallie McKenzie - Right Back
M.A. Vignola - Left Back
Marie Müller - Right or Left Back
Reyna Reyes - Right or Left Back

Midfielders (4): 
Deyna Castellanos - Attacking Mid (can also play forward)
Jessie Fleming - Central Mid
Shae Harvey - Central Mid/Defensive Mid
Olivia Moultrie - Attacking Mid (can also play forward)

Forwards (9): 
Mimi Alidou - Central Forward / Wide Forward
Valerin Loboa - Central Forward
Caiya Hanks - Winger / Wide Forward
Alexa Spaanstra - Winger / Wide Forward
Pietra Tordin - Central Forward
Reilyn Turner - Central Forward / Wide Forward
Morgan Weaver - Central Forward / Wide Forward
Sophia Wilson - Central Forward / Wide Forward
Maddie Padelski - Forward? / Winger?

I’ve left off Daiane (out on loan) and Julie Dufour (still months away from returning from injury). Others may not play for some time, but I believe those two are the furthest out from playing. Also, I can’t say I’m familiar with Maddie Padelski’s game, so I can’t really place her potential position.

The two most common formations used in the 2025 season were the 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 formations. They roughly look as follows:

In the 4-3-3 formation, the defensive midfield role was fulfilled by Sam Coffey, with the two central midfielder roles covered by a combination of Jessie Fleming, Hina Sugita, and Olivia Moutrie.

In the 4-2-3-1 formation, Sam Coffey and Jessie Fleming would typically handle the two central midfield roles (with Hina Sugita occasionally playing there as well). The more attacking midfielder role was typically handled by Olivia Moultrie and Deyna Castellanos.

As anyone who’s familiar with modern soccer tactics will tell you, formations don’t matter because players are far more fluid in the areas they’ll cover on the field. If we’re being honest, just looking at the two formations visualized, it’s clear that they are interchangeable. Still, they do help give a sense of how the team will attempt to progress the ball up the field, attack, and defend.

I linked to videos that do a decent job of how these formations are used. In both formations, the outside backs tend to provide width by pushing up high while the central three midfielders stay central to maintain numbers in the midfield, but they can shift out wide when necessary to create overloads, or situations where the offensive players will outnumber the defensive players in a given part of the field.

4-3-3

The most common formation the Thorns used in 2025 was the 4-3-3 formation listed above. As shown above, it is hard to think the Thorns will take this same approach without additional signings or Shae Harvey proving to be the next Sam Coffey.

In this kind of a set up, the Thorns would be asking Harvey to serve as the primary defensive midfielder shielding the back line and breaking up play before it really threatens the defense. To get a feel for what that looked like with Coffey, let’s look at Coffey’s heatmap and defensive actions in 2025:

The heatmap is from after Hina Sugita was traded. The defensive actions are from the entire season. As you can see, Coffey is primarily protecting that space ahead of the backline, and you can see that she has a solid 0.17 Interrupting g+ from interceptions and whopping 1.24 Interrupting g+ from her recoveries. What this says is that she’s solid at intercepting passes and absolutely elite at cleaning up loose balls, and for a team that wants to counter, cleaning up loose balls is hugely important.

I’ll be honest, I can’t claim to be familiar with Shae Harvey’s play. In her interview with Stumptown Footy, Sara Ach praised Harvey’s ability to play as a 6, an 8, and a 10. Still the Thorns will be leaning into her defensive midfield skills, and right now I think I can safely assume she’s not yet equal to Sam Coffey in this category. Certainly, it will work in some matches. I’m pretty sure the Thorns beat the Spirit 2-0 without Sam Coffey last season. But without seeing Harvey in action against NWSL opposition, it’s reasonable to doubt this is the lineup of choice.

4-2-3-1

A natural alternative is to simply play that middle 3 as a double pivot and line up in what is more likely to be akin to the 4-2-3-1:

In such a scenario, the Thorns would be spreading Coffey’s defensive responsibilities across both Fleming and Harvey. A natural question is whether or not Fleming is suited for such a role, but looking at the charts we did for Coffey, we should be heartened:

Again, the heatmap is after the Sugita trade while the defensive actions are for the entire season. Fleming’s heatmap shows that she played closer to a double pivot with Sugita’s departure. She covers more of the field, but you’d expect that since she was still playing an 8 and not a proper double-pivot 6. Her recoveries are an acceptable Int. g+ of 0.53. Her interceptions at a Int. g+ of 0.07 could improve, but if she’s staying more defensive with Harvey, that could create less space in the middle of the field and increase Fleming’s ability to intercept passes.

One potential knock on this approach is that Fleming was the team’s leader in assists last season. The Thorns didn’t exactly pass their way through teams last year, so putting their top assist maker into a more defensive role may prove untenable. I suspect the counter argument to this is that the Thorns are, fundamentally, best when they’re running at defenses on the counter, so if Fleming is providing fewer assists but springing more counters, you’d accept that tradeoff.

Importantly, I think this approach asks Moultrie to take on more of a playmaker role. In 2025, the Thorns survived in the second half of the season on goals from Moultrie. Among the forward line, only Turner provide decent numbers, though Tordin had encouraging numbers for a rookie. Don’t get me wrong, the Thorns would love for Moultrie to continue scoring, but with Wilson and Weaver returning (and Tordin with a year of experience under her belt), you would expect her attention to turn more toward providing assists like the she did to Turner in the recent USWNT friendly against Paraguay.

Okay okay. Let’s get real for a moment. The above scenario may work. Heck, it may even work well. But the only position with any depth in the midfield three is the attacking position. Along with Moultrie, the Thorns could play Deyna Castellanos in that position. There were also a couple 2025 matches where Mimi Alidou played in that position, and she wasn’t out of her depth, especially when she could get running at the defense.

But what about the double pivot spots? As of now, I suppose Moultrie could play there? Maybe Hiatt or Perry could play there in a pinch? If you’re having to consider playing your central defenders in the midfield to have a depth chart, you’re anemic in midfield. Now, the Thorns have two Non-Roster Invitees, Riley Gleason and Renee Lyles, with them in preseason camp, so they may have some reinforcements in the midfield to start the season, but it would still be a shockingly thin midfield built predominantly around rookies.

In the attacking third, the Thorns look exciting. They’ve got a dynamic forward core that should be able to score goals in a variety of ways. The question is how will the Thorns get into the attack? In 2025, building up from the back was a weakness for the Thorns. Pending the play of the rookies, it looks like building out of the back will continue to be a weakness.

So, longballs? I don’t think that’s entirely out of the question. Wilson’s speed could cause defenses to hold a slightly deeper line, meaning balls played to Turner and Weaver could be laid off to an advancing Moultrie to run at defenses and play make. Vignola and Reyes can add width from the outside back positions. I’d expect this team to still be good on the counter press in the attacking third, but the “how do you replace Sam Coffey” question looms large in the middle block.

This kind of leaves us with soaking up pressure in the low block and longball counters. Once in the attacking third, counter press aggressively then retreat to a low block. Can this work? Sure. The KC Current did something like this, but I’m not sold on the Thorns having as strong defense, and I’m currently having to look to rookies to alleviate those concerns. Oh, and there’s still no head coach.

In fairness, I do actually think the Thorns are pretty solid at talent recognition. Tordin, Perry, and Hanks were all solid additions last year. There is good reason to think some of these rookies can have immediate impacts, and if we can avoid destroying everyone’s knees, they can have an impact all season long. But we’re looking at a midfield built on potential and the promise of the right head coaching hire. The first match is 7 weeks away, and the Thorns have spent the off season adding roster questions without obviously answering any of them.

Am I worried? No, not yet, but I do expect some answers soon.