July 14, 2026: The Coffey-Sized Hole in Our Midfield

Seattle 2, Portland 0. We watched the derby, stewed for two days, and then sat down at the bar to talk about it. The short version: the Thorns didn't show up. That's four trips to Lumen Field now without a single goal. Marissa's whole thing this week is that Portland has a Coffey-sized hole in the midfield and nobody to fill it. The transfer window opened the morning we recorded, and Portland still hasn't signed the player we've been asking for since day one. Adults only. Bring a drink.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:14 Cold open: the apology
00:51 The Derby: Seattle 2-0 Portland, and the Lumen goal drought
08:51 The Coffey-Sized Hole: the midfield needs a defensive six
11:52 The Nijstad signing: a project, not the fix
14:48 What we're drinking
15:50 The Table: Portland stuck on 27, San Diego lead on 28
19:26 The Window: the six they still need
21:29 Next week at Denver, and the sign-off

What we were drinking:
- Alan: Space Dust IPA. Elysian, formerly fantastic, now Anheuser-Busch.
- Marissa: well vodka. "Rose City vodka, come on."

Takeaways:
- Seattle won 2-0 at Lumen. Ryanne Brown scored in the 8th, her first league goal, a defender filling in for the injured Madison Curry. Mercado got the second before half. Portland managed nothing.
- 26 shots. 10 on target. Zero goals. Seattle did it with their backup keeper.
- That's four straight visits to Lumen without a Portland goal.
- Marissa's read, and the reason for the title: Portland has no defensive six tying the back line to the attack. The coach basically admitted it after the game.
- A win would have put Portland top of the table alone for the first time all year. They took zero instead and sit tied on 27 with Washington. San Diego lead on 28.
- The only business so far is Dutch midfielder Nina Nijstad. She'll be great in a couple years. She is not the six they need now.

Next up: Portland at Denver on Saturday, on the road. Denver just drew 2-2 at home with Houston.

New episodes weekly. Yell back at us: rosecityredcard@gmail.com

Transcript

Cold open: the apology

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome to Rose City Red Card, your Portland Thorns podcast. I am here. I am Alan, and with me is Marissa, and uh I'm I'm gonna have to make an apology here in a moment.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Hello, I'm Marissa, and I Thorns Groupie. I will be collecting Alan's tears after this podcast. I will be posting his name, birth date, last four of his social. Mother's made a name in the show notes, so if you want to come after him, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Perfect. You threatened to post my address earlier, but you missed it this time.

The Derby: Seattle 2-0 Portland, and the Lumen goal drought

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Oh, and I think you have a apology prepared. Uh everybody listen up.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

I I I have to apologize uh on a Thorns podcast uh that I helped start. Uh I said go Seattle, um and the Thorns have not scored since. Uh it was it was a rough, rough game. We watched it together, or at least we watched half of it together, um, and then it was too painful. Uh got emotional. We got it got emotional. Um Yeah, so the Thorns lost 2-0. Uh what what happened? How I called it 2-1 the other direction. Uh 2-0 is rough.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

So, Alan, um, you asked what happened. Let's talk about what didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

That may be the key of this uh story.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

The thorns didn't show up. They didn't show up. They weren't there. We can blame Alan, which I will continue to do for the rest of the season. Hold that to him. We can blame Alan. We could blame the field. At the end of the day, we did not show up.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Well, blaming the the field is a thing. Um we have won so many games in our own park, but whenever we're out, we just can't seem to get there.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

We have one of the worst roads, we have one of the worst road we do so badly on the road. We have not lost. I think you should pull it back to last season.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

A fact check on that here in a minute.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Um but we don't lose. We've uh conceded, we've tied, but we don't lose at Providence Park. And we go further. Anytime we go out, you know, god dang, we and that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Like, yeah, we are unbeaten at Providence Park this year. All four losses that we've had were away.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

I know we're gonna talk about the table later on.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

It's even worse. Uh at Lumen Field specifically, we've been there four straight visits, not without a win, without a goal. How? Is the the stadium cursed? Um what this is we uh we're talking about it during the game. This was uh the last time that uh people got to play on that that grass, that uh World Cup grass from earlier.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Um And it's cool too because a lot of the other stadiums pulled the grass. So at least Seattle kept it for right this game. They kept it and that was pretty cool. That was cool, but I think that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Are we too used to playing on turf?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

No, I so there is our training facility, they train on grass. But if you look at I don't want to blame outside outliers. I mean, uh, let's all blame Allen for the rest of the season and maybe next year. Don't forget about that. But we train on grass. We have grass fields for training. We don't necessarily just train at Providence Park the whole time. And before you get to a before you go play, like players, when teams come to us, they have to practice on our turf because they have to get used to it. Turf skips, it doesn't, there's no give, you know what I mean? It's a lot different. But I think the Cascadia rivalry is deep. There are then it doesn't make sense. The la when we played them earlier in the season, we won 2-0 down two players. That doesn't make sense. It's funky. We're gonna get funky.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

We beat you uh two down, uh I I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

We beat you by nine, we beat you by nine. Yeah. That was funny until it wasn't. But things get funky. Like, this is a team, like this is I don't want to say it's our Super Bowl because ultimately we want to win the league, but each each fan base will tell you it's like, well shit, we didn't have a good season, we didn't make playoffs, but we beat the fucking Thorns, or we beat fucking Seattle. Like, it's big. You know what I mean? It's a big rivalry, and every team is gonna play their heart out. Like, every time. This game means so much. Like, have you seen the seen all the clips? Like, Seattle was posting the they had their the sounders and the s and the rain posting them they had a bonfire and they were burning roses and all that stuff. Like, it goes it's a big deal. We have a whole chant, you know what I mean? Like, it goes deep, and so I feel like those games is one of the big rivalries. It's true. I mean, they try to make all these other rivalries in the thing, like the California Derby, like blah blah blah. This is the rivalry. Like, it is the biggest rivalry in the oldest rivalry in our league. You know what I mean? And it's passionate and it's funky, and I think what we got was a funky game.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

And we did. And you know, we've seen it both ways now. Uh we beat them uh in a funky way. In a funky way, they beat us in a funky way. And you know, maybe that's the future of uh this rivalry. We'll have to see see what happens uh in the next game.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah, I mean, it's something's gotta change, Alan. Um we came out flat footed.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

We we didn't have it in us, like we had a lot of shots. We had so many shots, even shots on goal.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

26 shots. 26 shots, 10 on target.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Zero goal.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Also, you know, this would be this this would be a different conversation if we if you thought that Claudia Dickey was in goal, who's the shoe-in for the number one goalkeeper for USA, but it wasn't. They had their second string goalie in. And she played like a fucking rock star, honestly.

unknown 6:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

And I don't want to discredit the the reign, even though fuck Seattle, but like I'm just kind of discrediting them. If they were a better team, the score would have been 6-0. Remember those plays that we watched when she were they were like their players were outside the 18 and they cut it wrong or a bad touch? It was it was so close. I've never players have bad games, but as a team, even so, Moultrie, Tordan, Phlemm, Vig, uh, MA Vignola, like Argoli, everybody, Mueller, everybody was lagging.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

It seemed It didn't seem like we were playing cohesively.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

No, no, not at all. We were playing on our heels, and it was so in our faces.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Was not what we were asking for.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

What brought you over here? Alright, so the Brown scored in the eighth minute, and then Mercado scurred scored in the 43rd minute. It was Brown's first goal in the league. Congratulations, Brown, whatever. But eight minutes into the game, eight minutes into a 45-minute half.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

It started the game on the wrong side.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

You know what I mean? And then like, what were we doing for warmups? Like, how did this what happened for every single player to be lax? Were we going into the game thinking like will we just beat this team 2-0, nine players down? Is this gonna be nothing? Did we just walk into it? Because me personally, I'm a fucking Thorns fan. I'm always high. I'm always living my life. I'm always like, fuck you, you were better, you know, and this was kind of humbling, you know, like it was really humbling.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Like it was.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

We didn't show up.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

I mean, like, we've talked about how we have talked about how the Thorns are a second half team. It takes us a little while to get going. It takes us a while to get our our heads uh together and actually be able to cooperate.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

So I'm not taking and but I don't think we ever got there today.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

No or we ever got there this week. No. We kept doing the the same things. We kept playing individual games and not playing as a team.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Exactly. We couldn't connect a pass, and it's almost like usually if everyone's slow,

The Coffey-Sized Hole: the midfield is missing a defensive six

SPEAKER_00 8:51

you'll have our okay, so our attack is great and we know that, but we're missing cohesion from our forwards, our midfield, and our defense. We need cohesion on three levels. And Mackenzie Arnold, baby girl, please don't play with the ball at your foot. Do you she once gave up that goal? She's just some players, some goalies just can't do that, and that's fine. But okay, sorry, let's circle back. I'm getting ahead of myself.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

We'll get there.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

We need cohesion with the forwards, with the midfields, and with the defense. Our midfields and our forwards work together so well. The way Tordan passes with Sof, Moultrie, works out so well. I mean, our attack, we're first in the league in attacking, which is crazy. Even after the weekend we had, we're still ranked number one with our attack in the whole league.

unknown 9:41

And the thing was that we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

But our midfield with our defense, there were times that Seattle had a quick turnaround, they would send a ball over and they would show the screen, and you would only see our four defenders. There would be no midfielders back at all. And so you're just four defenders back, and that's why the name of our the name, the title of the podcast today is we are we are there is a hole that is shaped like Sam Coffey in our midfield, and it is extremely apparent. It is right there on our faces. The goalie, I mean, our I mean, our coach, our players.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Coach called it.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Somebody in Man City knows about it. Sam can see it from there. She knows. What are we gonna do? What do we and we what can we do about that? We need to sign a solid six. I I I know that we need a center back and we need defense, but a solid six is a defensive midfielder. They're somebody that can stick. So we have our we have our four defenders right here at the back. And so a six is right here, and the other three midfielders are up here. Our six is basically defense, but can go this way. But she would be the one molding back. Hey, Moultrie, come back here. Or no, hey, go this way. She's talking, and I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

She's the one who can communicate between the players.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

She's like the clue between the defense and the midfield. And right now we don't have anything like that. And also, like, goddamn, Sam Coffey's one of the best sixes in the fucking world. I would probably say that she's in the top five of defensive midfielders in the world, Alan. And that's incredible. Now she's gone, and that's a huge hole. And yeah, it's getting like Tordan and Flem and Moultrie have time to shine, but our defense is shit. Because like you need communication. There's four defenders, but you midfield gets back, and we're just not doing that. And it's so apparent and it's so in everybody's faces. And what we're doing is like our coach knows it. He literally, that's where we got our title from. Our coach said it in the post-game pressure. And we are not we're not, we have the money. Let's get somebody in. We just we just uh we just got uh

The Nijstad signing: a project, not the fix

SPEAKER_00 11:52

I J S T A D Nina Neidstad. Yeah, Nina Neidstad. Neidstad?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Neidstad, I th I believe.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

I know the J is Zha.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Hey, my last name is uh Dutch and originally had an IJ in it. So I I believe it is Neitstadt. Mr. Worldwide. Uh this is this is like the first time I've ever had a chance to use that knowledge. But uh Neidstadt, I believe. Yeah. Uh if I'm wrong on that, so it's it's my heritage that's at fault.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

She doesn't start regularly for the Dutch team. Which is not a great sign. She it's hard to find, she plays for a Dutch league, which is great. She's gonna be phenomenal in two to three years. We don't need that now. We need a complete player now. We don't need, we have a bunch of players that are great now that are building. We don't need that now. We need somebody that's finished, not finished growing, but we need somebody now. We need somebody now that can be good for us.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

We need somebody to fill that hole in the meantime.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Nothing, nothing, nothing's gonna fill Sam Coffey's hole. Anyways, nothing. Rook is like, you guys belong in jail.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

We'll keep that in.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah. But nothing is gonna fill that hole. Nothing can. She's a one-of-a-kind player. You know what I mean? Sam Coffey's a one-of-a-kind player. But we need to start, and we are not starting with that. We're moving our defense around, we're getting people playing in different positions. Like we said, like being like repetitive now, like our defense. If if we played the same lineup every game, they would know, okay, you get used to this. Like, okay, well, she can't, she doesn't track back as fast, and she likes this ball, she likes this, she likes this. That works out, but we're not. They're starting different defenders all the time. Mueller, we're playing her at wing sometimes. Reyes, we don't have the consistency. Exactly. And Reyes, that's another thing. It's like Reyes is hugely missed. She is a rock for us back there, and not having her, it we kind of fall apart, you know, and not fall apart, but it's it's she's just huge for our defense, and it's lacking. Like you and even men like I'm saying, like, we have great attackers.

unknown 14:07

Yes, I did like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Goose egg. We scored zero. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, there's only so much like what where's the line? We all just played it. It was just not a it was the worst game I've seen us play since last season.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

It was a rough game to win. So it sounds like we have holes. Uh we need to fill them. Um, and we will get into that here uh in a minute when we talk about the trade window, which we've been talking about and getting wrong, but hopefully this time uh we've got our our information correct. Alright,

What we're drinking

SPEAKER_01 14:48

so that brings us to what are you drinking today? Alright. So I am drinking a space dust IPA. I decided to go for the uh formerly Fantastic Elysian, one of my favorite breweries, uh now Anheuser Busch. Uh, but you know what? It's still okay. I'll drink it. And Rosa, what are you drinking?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Alan is classing it up, as he always is. I am messing with our average because I am drinking well vodka. Baby boy, it's Rose City. It's Rose City vodka. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Rose City vodka, fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Are you what are you drinking? Some Seattle beer? Nah, I just okay. I'm already collecting his tears. It's okay, you guys. It's cool.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Wow. Oh, I didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

I'll be dragging you for four or five years. We're good. We're good.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

We're good. We're good. That was the wrong decision for me to make tonight.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

That's showbiz.

The Table: Portland stay tied on 27, San Diego lead on 28

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Alright, Marissa. So that brings us to talking about the table. Um we were really, really hoping that this game was gonna bring Portland into first. Uh we went in third at 27 points, and a win was gonna get us to 30 points and uh bring us into the first, but that's that's not what happened.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Especially, so it was rivalry weekend, all week, all weekend, you know, and uh LA was playing San Diego. Everybody obviously thought LA was gonna lose to San Diego. LA just caught just fired their coach. San Diego's been on a tear, and you know what happened? San Diego got their asses beat by LA. So they did not score any points, we did not score any points. The only people that went up in points were the Washington Spirit. Thankfully they were lower, so now we are tied with 27 points with the Spirit. San Diego remains at the top with 28 points, and there's a holy crazy, there's a three-way tie between Gotham, Utah, and Casey current for third.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

So it's really close to the top of the table. Some really good rivalry, some good uh competition here.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

And we're just this is we're only at the middle of the season, man. We still have a whole nother half season to go. There's gonna be tons of movement. I just I really hope we do well at home, but we can't play all of our games at the Providence Park. We really need to we really need to fill these holes. That's it for the table talk. My bad, baby.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Okay, well, so with that, Seattle is climbing. They're they're in tenth, they're still down there, but uh, are we worried? Are they coming back? Is this the start of something for them?

SPEAKER_00 17:30

So honestly, Seattle Fuck Seattle, but they have not their losses, they're not a bad team. They are not losing in these ter they're not getting humiliated, they're losing by small margins, they don't look terrible. So that's why all these different games, like, that's why our league is so fun, is the parody. Like, we lost to Racing Louisville, the bottom of the table, 3-1 last month, and now we've just beat them 4-0.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Like, it's that's something we've always talked about with this league.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Is how you never know what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Uh each game is a new game, things can change, everything can turn around so fast.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Especially with this rivalry weekend. Like, this is you got San Diego playing LA, like these are big, this is big moments. Like these players, they like they're new to the team, but this history goes back 10, 12 years. Like, this is important. They're gonna play with a lot more heart than they maybe would have, you know?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Absolutely. It's exciting to see what's gonna happen. Um, you know, we're how far into the season uh are we? We we just hit that kind of the halfway point, and Mike wrong about that?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Matches played, we're yeah, we're a little bit longer than uh so we're at 15 matches played.

unknown 18:45

No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

And there's a 30-game regular season.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

So we are right in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

We are right in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So we still have time. Um, you know, we're still up there. We just we need to learn how to play uh outside of our own field.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we need to sign big names. We have the money. We the owners show that they want to spend the money. Like today was day one. Nothing happened. We did sign a Dutch player. I don't see her changing changing our team a lot.

The Window: the six they still need

SPEAKER_01 19:26

That brings us to the window, the transfer window that we have been talking about since our first episode and getting wrong. It's actually open now. Okay, so that brings us to Portland. What do we need to bring in during this window? We have a chance, there's transfers open, we can get somebody, but bringing us back to the title of our episode, who who do we need? What what what hold whose hole do we need to fill?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Just kidding. We need Sam Coffee hole to be filled. No one's gonna fill it. She is a phenomenal player, one of the best sixes in the fucking world. No one's gonna fill that hole. But somebody needs to come close. We don't need a player that can grow in two years and be as good as we need in two years. We need that player now. We need a I don't know, it doesn't need a actually no, we need a marquee player. We need somebody that's the best at what they do now. We have the fucking money, we have the skill, we have the team, we have the history. Come play for Portland. We have a new we have a brand new training facility, come play for Portland. We need that.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

We have it. We just we need the we have so that that that is the important bit there is we need somebody who can communicate across the team. That's a hard position to pull in from outside. Somebody who needs to be cohesive with everyone, be able to communicate with everyone and coordinate what's happening on the field. That's not an easy position to pull in.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Because also Sam was our captain too. So she's the six, but she's also our captain. So she was glue glue. Like, and like I said, nothing's gonna replace that, and that's fine. People leave, that's great. I'm so happy watching her play for City. I have another I have a WSL team that I can follow now. That's great. I love her. They won the league. Fuck yeah, Sam Coffee, love you, girl. But we need somebody to fill those shoes. Somebody's not gonna fill them all the way, but somebody can be a good six for us. And right now we're not doing it. We need the glue. Come to Portland.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

We will see how the window goes and if we can get

Next week at Denver, and the sign-off

SPEAKER_01 21:29

there. So that brings us to the end of our show. Uh, next week we are at Denver on Saturday. I keep wanting to say Sunday. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Christ day.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

They just drew 2-2 at home to Houston after leading twice. Uh, and everybody keeps uh floating them for Sophia Wilson. How is this gonna be for us?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

I think it's gonna be exciting. Um Den we this is our first game against one of the expansion teams. Denver and brought Boston are new to this league this year. It's one of it's the first time we're gonna be playing in one versus one of the expansion teams. We're one of the original teams, we're playing one of the newer teams. It's exciting. Um we are playing a mile high into the air. Um that's gonna be crazy.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

That's a big difference for our players. That's a big difference. That is a big physical difference.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

We low down here at the river. We low in Portland. But um Alan, I don't know. I got humbled last weekend. Um, I think if the thorns show up, it what what kind of version of thorns are we gonna get? I think if we can show up, then we're gonna pull off a win. And absolutely. If we can show up and be the thorns that we all know our ladies are and who we can play like, we're gonna win. But but also they're an expansion team. They're fighting for a lot more, you know?

SPEAKER_01 22:50

They are. And you know what? We will see how it goes, and we will join you next week. Uh as soon as we get a chance after watching the game, uh, we will record our thoughts and send it out to uh all of you.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Also, would you guys like like a live episode? I mean, not like a live thing, but would you guys like to hear clips about that stuff? Or, you know, let us know.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Let us know. Uh rose cityredcard at gmail.com, and we will uh we we will answer any email that you send us no matter what you send us.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Send us emails.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Please do. That brings us to the end of the show.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

I'm Marissa.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

I'm Alan.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

This is Rose City Red Card. Go Thorns. Fuck Seattle. No injuries, all smiles. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Go Thorns.