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“Wheeling” and Dealing in Portland, KC Picks up the Win

Published

6 months ago

on

Thad Bell

By the time the match pitting the 5th place Portland Thorns and the 1st place Kansas City Current kicked off in the Pacific Northwest, two of the other top teams had already finished their weekend games. On the heels of the devastating news that the injury suffered by Barbra Banda in KC last weekend would keep her out for the rest of the season, the Orlando Pride then lost their match against Angel City. Contrasting to that, the Washington Spirit put up three goals in front of 40,000 fans in the San Francisco area and then held on to top Bay FC 3-2. These results meant that the Current’s lead in the race for the NWSL Shield and the #1 seed in the playoffs had shrunk to nine points over the Spirit with the San Diego Wave still to play. A win this weekend for the Wave coupled with a loss by KC would have San Diego just eight points back with nine matches to go. In other words, it was up to the Current to get a positive result in Portland to keep the competition at arm’s length.

Besides KC (on a nine-match unbeaten streak, and 8-0-1 over that time), Portland entered the weekend’s fixture as perhaps the hottest team in the league, especially at home. The Thorns had only lost once in their previous five matches and were unbeaten in 10 straight regular season home games. They carried a four-match home win streak into this after dark (well, at least in the Midwest) showdown. Portland had also been the proverbial “thorn” in the sides of KC through the first several years of the Current’s existence, winning six of the first eight meetings, including in the 2022 NWSL Championship Match. However, the Teal had won the last four clashes in this series. No team has ever defeated the Thorns five times in a row. Would that record fall on Saturday night?

The Current’s roster experienced two shakeups since their 0-0 draw with Orlando last Saturday. First, the team sent Angolan attacker Flora Marta Lacho on loan to their “sister” club HB Køge in Denmark. Lacho had made a handful of appearances including a pair of starts this season for KC, but was likely squeezed out when the team added Ally Sentnor. Just after that announcement came the news that center defender Gabby Robinson was being activated off the Season Ending Injury list and was eligible to play for the first time since her knee injury in the middle of the 2024 season. Though not starting, Robinson could be called upon during this first game back as one of only two healthy center backs on the roster (with Alana Cook out for the season and Elizabeth Ball still dealing with a hip issue).

A lot has been made of Kansas City’s high-scoring ways, especially in the first halves of games. The team leads the league with 32 goals scored heading into this match, and 20 of those have come in the first halves of games. However, that really hasn’t been the case recently. Over the past four league matches, dating back to the middle of June, the Current have only scored four total goals, and none of those have come before the 65th minute. With as much attacking power as this team has, that would seem to be a concerning trend. Of course, in those same four matches, Kansas City’s opposition has scored a total of zero goals, so the slight number of tallies for KC have generally been enough.

Perhaps, though, this would be the exact matchup Kansas City needed to burst out of their relative scoring slump as, over the past three meetings between these two sides, there have been a total of 18 goals scored, including 12 by Kansas City. Which trend would continue into this matchup?

The starting lineups looked like this:

Coach Andonovski continued his squad rotation by sitting two regular starters, Debinha and Michelle Cooper, and replacing them in the first eleven with Sentnor (earning her first start for the Current) and Nichelle Prince. Like last week, Hailie Mace slotted in alongside Kayla Sharples in the middle of the defensive line.

The Thorns countered with this lineup:

meet us on the pitch tonight 😤📺 ION

— Portland Thorns FC (@thornsfc.com) 2025-08-24T01:15:04.690Z

Despite not having their talisman, Sophia Wilson, this season as she is expecting her first child, Portland still boasts a scary offense, one that has scored 25 times through the first 16 games of the season. Seven players have scored a least a pair of goals for the Thorns, including stars like Sam Coffey, Reilyn Turner, and Olivia Moultrie.

All this discussion of Kansas City forgetting how to score early? Yeah…never mind. Less than a single minute into the game, one fullback (Rodriguez) found the other fullback (Wheeler) with a perfect cross into the box. Ellie made no mistake in nodding the ball just inside the far post. At just 55 seconds in, the goal was the second fasted in team history, trailing only a Cooper goal scored within 22 seconds. Wheeler seems to enjoy squaring off against the Oregonians as both of her NWSL tallies have come against the Thorns.

After grabbing the early lead, Kansas City seemed content to sit back, allow Portland to dominate the possession, and look to counter. While this did allow for a few shots from the Thorns (Lorena had some nice moments, especially her ability to snatch crosses out of the air), it worked almost to perfection on several moments throughout the rest of the first half. Several KC athletes got shots off (Prince, LaBonta, Sentnor, etc.) and the three other best chances were all from distributions from Bia. First she found Izzy racing into the box just needing to one touch it into goal only to see her shot drift wide.

Later in the half, Bia twice set up Chawinga for what most would have assumed were guaranteed goals. With the first, Bia’s pass got Temwa behind Portland’s defense with only the keeper to beat. Unfortunately for KC, Chawinga’s shot went straight to Arnold. Just a few minutes later, Bia again laid the ball off perfectly for an on-rushing Malawian. This time Chawinga’s blast rattled the woodwork but then bounced harmlessly out.

The halftime whistle came with Wheeler’s early goal still the only thing separating the two teams. Would KC rue their missed opportunities to create some cushion once the second half got underway?

The first few minutes of the second frame were controlled by KC, but that started to shift as the half wore on. The only “knock” on Lorena coming in to this match was that since the defense in front of her has been so consistent this season, she’s often not called on too many times in big spots. And yet, she has the most shutouts in the league for a reason. Within a two-minute span, Lorena made two huge stops to keep the Current in front–the most impressive of which required a split-second reaction while being shielded from the play in order to palm the ball out.

Debinha (who had come on for Sentnor) almost pushed KC further ahead after Cooper (who had come on for Prince) found her behind the defense. The Brazilian wasn’t quite able to get the shot off before the defense collapsed back on her. The reprieve for Portland was short lived though as just moments later Wheeler found Chawinga streaking forward and this time Temwa made no mistake as she poked the ball through Arnold’s legs.

With the two-goal lead, KC fully parked the bus, including bringing Gabby Robinson in for her first appearance in about 14 months. Unfortunately, her next appearance won’t be for at least a couple games as just moments after she came on, VAR encouraged a review on a Robinson foul and after taking another look, the lead official reached for her back pocket and showed Gabby a red card. The Kansas City faithful will likely think the call a little harsh though Robinson did come from behind the Portland player and stepped on the back of her ankle. The announcers suggested the call was similar to a red that was shown recently in another game, but regardless, it was certainly not the way Robinson was hoping her first moments back would go.

The review pushed the game past the 100-minute mark, but despite playing with just 10 for the rest of stoppage time, KC held strong and completed their fifth shutout in a row. They snapped Portland’s undefeated home record and pushed their lead in the standings back to 12 points (pending San Diego’s match on Sunday).

Player of the match honors go to Ellie Wheeler with a goal and an assist. Chawinga’s tally nudged her back into the Golden Boot lead. The Current will return home next weekend to take on the North Carolina Courage Saturday night.

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