That One Route to Thorns Success

The previous two seasons, the Thorns opened on the road to Kansas City, and they were largely outplayed in both matches that ended in losses. This past weekend, although at home, the Thorns had another early-season match against the Kansas City Current, and this one went quite a bit differently, with the Thorns notching a 2-0 victory in fairly comfortable circumstances.

The Thorns season has been an interesting one. From a results perspective, it has been great: 9 points from 4 matches. The one loss was a mid-week game on short rest after playing a sizeable chunk of the previous match down two players due to red cards. But the other two wins had their own quirks. One was a bit of a stolen win in the opener against the Spirit (a draw was probably the “fair” result), and the other was a multi-goal win in the afore mentioned 9 v 11 match.

The win against the Current was the first time we got to see the Thorns victorious while playing a match they were in control of, or at least, where it felt like they were playing “their game”. So, what can we glean from the KC match that can inform us about how the Thorns want to play? Read on.

On Bluesky, the Expected Own Goals gents posted a chart showing where teams landed relating (1) their average defensive action height (i.e., how far up the field does the team typically perform defensive actions) and (2) their average direct possession speed (i.e., how quickly the team moves the ball forward when they take possession).

On the horizontal axis, teams on the left defend closer to their goal and teams on the right defend closer to the midfield line or into their opponent’s territory.

On the vertical axis, teams near the bottom take a longer time moving forward into attack. They are playing shorter passes that maintain possession but don’t necessarily move them up the field. Teams on the top play much more directly, deploying quick passing and running or long passing to move more rapidly up the field and attack.

The Thorns find themselves in the ‘Hoof It’ quadrant. This has them defending closer to their own goal, and, when they win possession, they quickly play it up field, likely through long passes. However, this is actually inaccurate for the Thorns season. The match against the Seattle Reign, in which the majority of the second half was played 9 v 11, the Thorns bunkered so much that it massively skews their average defensive action height. If you remove that match from the average, they move up to around the 42.5 mark.

Of course, the match against the Reign also involved a lot of long balls forward, which would skew their possession speed. So the question on the table is, are the Thorns utilizing more direct passing, as a norm, or is their current higher possession speed a reflection of circumstance?

I’m focusing in on the match against the KC Current because, as noted above, it is the match where we can most see the team playing “their game”. Obviously, it is still early in the season, and this may all prove silly next week, but I think it’s the best we’ve got at this point. Additionally, I am going to focus on the part of the match when the score was 0-0 or, briefly, 1-0 to focus on a match state when the Thorns will be looking to attack. Once the match became 2-0, it is reasonable that the Thorns would be less aggressive to get forward because they have a solid lead to protect. I want to look at the point in the match when they’re trying to get and build that lead.

In re-watching the opening 55 minutes or so, I think you can clearly see the Thorns utilizing longer passes to get possession higher up the field, and they start this pretty early in the match.

In the second minute, after the Thorns recycle possession back to the defender, Jayden Perry plays a long ball into space that Alidou or Vignola could attack.

Perry massively overhits the pass, but it’s a reflection of what the Thorns will employ at various stages in the match.

In the 8th minute, Hiatt attempts a similarly long pass. However, her pass is on the ground.

The play starts with the Thorns possessing among the back line, then they create vertical space, Hiatt takes a touch forward, and plays a long on the ground the bypasses many of the Current’s front-line defenders. Fleming touches the ball along, but I actually think Hiatt’s pass is meant for Wilson, who is dropping from her forward position to receive the pass. I’m guessing Fleming is uncertain the pass will make it and attempts to help it along. This is why Wilson has to adjust to try to control the ball after Fleming’s touch.

About a minute later, as the clock ticks into the 10th minute, Hiatt finds herself in a similar situation but plays a different ball forward.

Here, Hiatt again finds herself with a little bit of space, but instead of playing to the dropping Sophia Wilson (who comes into view in the top-left corner) she sees that Moultrie has some space on the opposite side of the field and attempts to release her into that space with a long, diagonal pass. She under-hits it a little, but Moultrie is still able to get possession, and the Thorns have forced the Current defenders to shift and spread out.

In the first 10 minutes of the match, we can see three different plays where the Thorns use long passes to stretch the field and get past the Current’s initial line of defense. I think we can safely say this is an element of the Thorns tactical approach, but it wasn’t contained to these opening minutes.

Shortly before the half-time whistle, Perry plays another long ball over the top to the forward line.

Similar to Hiatt’s pass in the 8th minute, Perry plays a long, diagonal ball to Mimi Alidou on the forward line. It’s a tricky one for Alidou to control, but the pass cuts out a lot of the Current defenders, and Alidou has both Moultrie and Wilson as support. Frankly, this isn’t Alidou’s strength, but if Turner or Tordin had been playing there at the time, it might have resulted in a more dangerous moment.

Hopefully, I’ve illustrated that the higher possession speed of the Thorns isn’t just a matter of desperation from matches where the focus was on defense. At least in the match against the KC Current, it was a deliberate tactical choice to move the ball upfield into attacking situations. Is it fair to say the Thorns are “hoofing it”? Well, no. But are they integrating longer, more direct passes into their buildup repertoire, definitely, and it’s about time.

You might be asking “So what?” Sure, the Thorns defenders are playing more long balls. What does that matter. Are we hoping that every goal keeper with make a mistake and allow Turner to score on a header from a long ball?

Well, no. But the threat of the long ball does some important things for a more traditional, on the ground buildup.

Let’s go back to the chart that prompted this whole thing. (Which, quick aside, also deserves the praise and recognition of Cata Bush.) Let’s look at the teams that have been successful in the NWSL in recent seasons. Where are they on this chart?

The team’s that have been successful over the past few seasons, including success to start this season, defend higher up the field. Why would you want to defend further up the field? (1) It means your defending further away from your goal. (2) If you win possession back, you’re much closer to your opponent’s goal. You have less of the field to travel to attempt a shot.

As you can see, I’ve lumped the ‘successful’ teams into two groups. The first group falls into the Counterpressers quadrant. These teams will defend higher up the field in the hopes of winning the ball. When they do, they want to quickly attack on goal, hoping to catch their opponent disorganized, making their attack easier to facilitate.

The second group has a similar interest in winning the ball high up the field. While they will take the opportunity to quickly attack, they’re more concerned about having sustained possession. When they win the ball, they may not immediately go on aggressive attack forward, but they benefit from having the ball so far upfield that they are still in an attacking position on the field, even if they slow down their possession.

When facing a team like this, you can (1) stay bunkered like the teams in the ‘Pinned Back’ quadrant. In effect, these teams just sacrifice attacking opportunities to maintain defensive shape and posture. (2) You can attempt to play through them with intricate passing and movement. Or (3), you can just kick the ball over them.

In the modern game, most teams want to utilize (2), but not all teams are good at that. It requires a combination of crisp passing, coordinated movement, and the occasional bit of flair to, say, dribble out of a tight spot. And all players on the field need to be able to pass well, including the defenders and defensive-minded midfielders, because they are they ones that start the passing buildup. In fact, the entire reason teams try to defend higher up the field is because defenders are often not the best passers and dribblers, and such teams look to exploit that by defending high.

Accordingly, teams try to avoid (3) because it often leaves their attackers isolated and leads to being bunkered in, even if your not trying to be bunkered in.

If you’re not necessarily good enough to go all in on playing through the high pressure but can do it well enough to avoid going all in on hoofing it, you can integrate a combination of the two for the purposes of creating dynamism in your attack, making your attack less predicable. This forces your opponent to hedge a bit on how they will defend against you. This is what the Thorns are doing.

For example, consider that diagonal ball from Hiatt to Moultrie. Look at where the Current are setting up their line of contention. It is roughly at the top of the center circle.

If you scroll back up, you can see a similar line of contention in the gif where Hiatt makes the long pass along the ground. The Current are beginning to apply pressure around the top of the center circle.

Then, look at the line of contention in the long ball from Perry just before half time. Perry and Hiatt are pretty far back, but the Current are now setting their line of contention closer to the mid line.

The reason this has happened is because the Current have backed up their line of contention to reduce the space between their front-line defenders and their back-line defenders. The threat of playing the ball long has forced the Current to adapt their defensive posture to reduce that threat. And this kinda worked for the Current. If you re-watch that first half, you’ll see the Current get control of the match more in the final 20 minutes of the half because they begin to suss out what the Thorns are doing. But that also means the Thorns were setting the tone of the match, forcing the Current to adapt their game instead of adapting to the what the Current wanted to do.

Frankly, I’ve been waiting on the Thorns to integrate more direct play like this into their attack. The Thorns have just been very poor when they have to build out of the back. Some of that is because the Thorns coaching staff hasn’t done a great job of establishing the movement patterns necessary to build from the back. But the other factor is that none of the defenders (central or wide) are great at intricate passes, especially when under pressure. I do think they’ve improved this offseason, but they’re not elite at passing.

So often over the last two seasons, the Thorns would get into these patterns where they defenders would just pass amongst themselves because they couldn’t advance forward by passing through the defense. And if they got pressured deep, they were regularly at risk of errant passes and turnovers in dangerous spots. The were just blessed with one of the world’s best defensive midfielders to help clean up problems.

Clearly through the interim coaching of Sarah Lowdon continued with the take over of Robert Vilahamn, the Thorns have integrated this more dynamic approach to their attack, and it is paying dividends. Or, at least, it did against the Current.

After the preseason friendly against Angel City, I wrote a post that highlighted my excitement that the Thorns seemed to be using a longer goal kick routine on occasion. Let’s go back to a moment earlier in the match.

You see the Thorns defenders playing between themselves and Arnold in goal. Angel City sets a high line that makes it difficult for the Thorns to play through that initial line of defense. Then, Jonsdottir calls for someone to cover Fleming, and she steps forward, isolating Hiatt from Perry and Arnold. This forces Alidou to retreat to become a target. Angel City isolate the Thorns and Alidou has to settle for a less organized longball that is deflected out for a Thorns throw in. That’s textbook defending from Angel City and horrible buildup play from the Thorns. The Thorns midfielders are stagnant. They aren’t trying to find passing lanes or even making runs that might move the defenders around a bit. It is shit, but it is all too familiar of the Thorns for the past couple seasons.

Along with establishing patterns of play, one option that could have helped above was a long-ball target. In the match against the Current, you can see improvement in both areas.

Similar to the Angel City moment, Debinha pushes forward to isolate Hiatt from Perry and Arnold to box in the Thorns and trap them against the side and end lines. However, this time, the Thorns seem to have a plan to deal with such a scenario. First, Arnold is able to remain a target for Hiatt because the team is playing quicker passes. Second, Fleming is able to become a target to avoid the pressure from Debinha. The Thorns are able to find some quick, simple triangle passes to keep the ball moving without getting completely isolated. A sign that the Thorns are actually planning and practicing their movements. Finally, when it’s clear the Thorns aren’t likely to play through that pressure, they have a target in the form of Moultrie, who is positioned just beyond the defensive pressure with her hands up. Hiatt spots her and, because the passing affords her a moment in the defensive pressure, plays over the top to Moultrie.

This moment in the KC Current match is just light years better than the similar moment in the Angel City match, and I can assure you this is not simply a matter of overcoming preseason rust. This is all about being purposeful in your planning for such moments. Credit to Lowdon and Vilahamn for finally taking that seriously.

Aside from escaping pressure at the back, integrating the long ball makes it easier to create moments for building through the middle, especially as the opponent catches on that there’s a threat of a long ball and is in the process of adapting. The defenders are more likely to chase runs, creating more space for your players to exploit. The result are buildup exchanges like this one around minute 15.

The Thorns players have more time on the ball when in possession. The runners have more space to run into and pass through. With planned patterns, you can suddenly play through the middle and get yourself running toward goal.

The other thing about integrating long balls is that the Thorns have attacking players that are good (Heck, great. Fuck it, elite) at receiving a long ball over the top and turning that into a dangerous attack. I mean, the Thorns have Sophia Wilson for fuck’s sake.

Consider this moment early in the second half. The Current win the ball and immediately go on the counter.

Some good defensive work gets the ball back, but the Current are largely up the field to support the counter and, despite the turnover, can set a high defensive line. By integrating the long ball, you see Vignola immediately look up field, find Wilson, and play a great ball over the top to her. Wilson receives the ball, turns her defender, and gets the Thorns into a good 3v4 counter. This is exactly what the Thorns should be doing, but you have to plan it ahead of time to make it work effectively.

And Sophia Wilson isn’t the only player the Thorns can use here. We know Tordin and Turner can be decent targets, but last year they signed this Colombian teenager from Deportivo Cali named Valerin Loboa. You know why she’s making the national team of Colombia and getting the attention of NWSL clubs as a teenager? Because she’s got the potential to be an elite target forward. Get a combination of Wilson and Turner and Tordin and Castellanos and Hanks and Weaver running off Loboa as a target forward, and the Thorns could have oodles of attacking combinations to throw at teams.

One of the criticisms of Rob Gale was that he wasn’t really integrating a thoughtful tactical approach, and, to my mind, that seemed most apparent when the Thorns had to start from a deep position and try to work the ball forward. When I watch this match against the KC Current, it genuinely does feel like the Thorns have been looking at those tactical/preparatory gaps and plugging them. That surely started with Sarah Lowdon and is continuing with Vilahamn. This is one match against a Current team that is probably underperforming. We’ll see how this carries through for the Thorns in upcoming matches, and how they’ll adapt when teams are more apt to bunker against them.

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that the Thorns have it all figured out, but they do genuinely seem to be addressing some tactical weaknesses without necessarily solving the problem with new players. They’re getting more out of the same players by finding ways help them play their best.

That’s exciting.