September 27, 2026: Houston, We Have a Müller

Portland 1-1 Houston. Twenty shots, eight corners, one point.

Our first show at Dingo's Sports Pub on SE Stark, where the Matildas kit hangs a couple of jerseys down from the Thorns. Alan ordered a Portland IPA to undo last week's Seattle beer curse. Marissa ordered Tito's.

It was Hispanic Heritage Night at Providence Park, with 18,247 there and every announcement in English and Spanish. Houston's Kat Rader scored in the 10th minute, and Portland chased the game until Marie Müller finished first time in the 85th after Sophia Wilson drew three defenders. Marissa's verdict: this was not on the defense. Reyes and Vignola were excellent. The finishing and the set pieces weren't: eight corners and no plan. Credit to Houston's interim coach, with a win and a draw in two weeks, and to Rader, a rookie with 10 goals.

Then the milestones. Jessie Fleming made her 50th straight league start and wore the armband. Wilson's assist was her 18th goal contribution of the season, tying the club record she set in 2024. Portland's 100th regular-season clean sheet, which no NWSL club has reached, is still out there for Boston on October 3.

Plus Marissa's Match Week 23 Roundup, the table as it stood after Saturday, and congratulations to Val Loboa, whose Colombia beat Italy for bronze at the U-20 Women's World Cup, the country's first U-20 podium.

Recorded Sunday afternoon, September 27, before Utah played North Carolina later that day, so the table talk is as of Saturday night.

Adults only. Bring a drink.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Our first show at Dingo's
03:56 Portland 1–1 Houston
11:13 Eight corners, no plan, and credit to Houston
13:59 Fleming's 50th, Wilson ties her record, and the 100th clean sheet
18:50 Marissa's Match Week 23 Roundup
25:44 The table after Saturday
28:09 Val Loboa and Colombia's U-20 World Cup bronze
29:44 Thanks to Dingo's, and Boston next

Transcript

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Welcome to Rose City Red Card for September 27th, 2026. This is our first episode we're recording at a new location. Yeah. Yeah. We are here at Dingo's. It's an Australian bar. Sports pub. Dingo's Sports Pub. Yeah, over on Stark in Portland. Our first time here, they invited us in. And we are so happy to be here. It's a fantastic time. And to jump right into, what are you drinking? I am drinking a Portland IPA. Yeah, there we go. There we go, Alan. Cheers. Cheers. Again, I'm happy to be here at a place that actually respects good beer. Yeah, so I'm drinking a Breakside IPA. I really enjoying myself. And yeah, Marissa, since I haven't introduced you yet. Yeah. Jeez, I'm waiting over here. Here's my co-host, Marissa, as always. Hello, hello, everybody. Hello out there. And what are you drinking tonight? I am drinking not well vodka. I'm drinking Tito's vodka. So I've decided to step it up. All right. You know, I'm pulling my big girl pants up. And like I, to pull off what Alan was saying, he was saying they respect Portland beer here, but they also respect football and, or soccer, you know, and it is evident. It is everywhere here. We got a thornful. jersey on the wall, which is so cool. It's just really cool to be in, you know, I mean, we love Pappy's. We love recording on Pappy's, but it feels cool to be in a sports bar for us. Yeah, it's really about this sport and other sports as well. But like, you can tell that they love soccer here and they love the thorns. You were talking about our keeper is a Matilda. Yeah, yeah, she's a Tilly. and so up on the wall, we even got one of their jersey. Yes, yes, we do. We got an Australian kit up there on the, up there. And it's like two jerseys away from the Thorns kit. And it's actually like a few jerseys away from the WNBA Portland Fire team, too. So it's really cool. I feel like this is, you guys, we have arrived out there. We have arrived. We have, you know, we haven't been doing this that long, but I feel like we're really, you know, getting out there. We really are. We're catching our stride. Yeah. We're catching our stride. It's been a lot of fun. But that then brings us, there was a game this weekend. Oh, yeah. I forgot about the game. It's so chatty Cathy. You know, that's supposedly what we're here for. What we're here for, yeah. You know, it's really about the drinks. Yeah, just the drinks and hanging out with my buddy. Hanging out and chatting. And, you know, that was actually why we originally did this. Okay, that was. That was pretty cool. I just spilled my beer and I spilled it directly into the empty previous beer glass. So it caught it amazingly. Yeah. Look at us. Look at us. We're just, yeah, we got this going. But anyway, I was not able to make it. We had originally been going to try to make it to the game. Some stuff came up. I had some family in town, and so I actually ended up in going out to a October fest with them. Had a great time with that. Did not realize that I would have no cell service out there. So I was planning to watch the game on my phone. I had just enough cell service that it told me that the score at halftime, we were down zero to one. and then I had just enough service for it to tell me that I might have new messages, which I assumed were from you telling me the score or what was happening. I was mostly, yeah. Yeah. So, Marissa, let's get into it. Tell me about the game. Okay. All right. So we did draw with Houston one to one. And like the Chicago tie at home, this kind of feels like we dropped two points at Providence Park. It was a shame. We'll get into that. But some. Cool. Let me just say some cool stuff and maybe some team news before we get into the actual game to the meat and potatoes of the game. It was Hispanic Heritage Night at Providence Park. And while I was, while we weren't there, 18,000, 18,000, 247 people showed up. And it was really cool. We found out that every announcement was in English and Spanish at the game. That's so cool. That's fucking cool. I mean, you know, Portland's wide, Oregon's white, but Portland, they do care about a lot of cultures. like, especially around the thorns. And so it was, that's, I think that's really cool. It's inclusive. That's, that's awesome. Yeah, you know, we're not just one community. Yeah, exactly. We've all come from different places, and it's great to see, uh, the diversity being celebrated. Yeah, they had like a bunch of dancing outside the game. It was, before the game. It was, it was, it was, like I wasn't there, but I saw the clips and it looked like a really cool time. So that's great. Yeah. Um, okay, well, shall we get into the game? Okay. Tell me. Tell me what happened. So, so it was a tie one to one. It was not a fun game to watch. We were down one zero from the 10 minute mark to the 84th or 85th minute? 85th minute. And it was anxiety. We also had 20 shots on goal. Not shots on goal, shots towards goal. We had 20 shots, five on goal. Yes. So only a quarter of our shots were on goal. But we had, you know, at least we were getting a lot of shots in. Yeah. It was, yeah. This was not on our defense. I mean, and you can't, it's a team sport. You can't blame one thing on, on one set of people. It's everybody together. But our defense played really well. Um, holy shit. Reyes and Vignola had phenomenal games. Vignola was making so many great runs. She's so fast. She can, she tracks back. Reyes was doing super well. I'm so glad that Reyes is out of whatever Vilahamn jail that she was put in at the time because she has been phenomenal. I mean, she's just so strong and she's not scared. I don't know. I feel like just Reyes and M.A. definitely need to be back there for us all the time. M.A. also is just dealing with like a hip injury, like not dealing with, you know. I think she didn't play the whole game. She came out in the second half. Yeah, so you were saying she was playing well. Yeah, she was playing well. She came off before we were able to score. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true. True. I feel like, yeah, I feel like those subs made a difference. Yeah, like I said, so Weaver and Turner are fully back. Weaver did start over Turner, which I thought was a little bit strange because Weaver did so well coming off the bench when we were playing Orlando last. But it's, Weaver and Turner are phenomenal players, great players, but they are just aren't back to 100%. They're playing out a little bit set. I would say like 75, Marissa the sports analyst here at the bar, about 75%. But they're just like a little bit of heavy touch, you know, a little bit of like, I don't know, just off passes. But like I said, also Weaver's been gone for so long. Turner's just now coming back. Like, it's going to take a little bit, you know. Weaver got about two-thirds of the game. And then Turner came on for her. And, you know, that's great that we've got two people coming back. And they can kind of split that time and both get some experience. gets minutes in on the field at a game. And yeah, it's great to see. Yeah, because we still do have a lot of, not a lot, but we still got four games left in the season. So we got, we got time. We got a little bit of time, you know. So maybe let's move to offense. What offense? I'm just kidding. We did get a goal and we did get 20 shots. We had 20 shots, but only five were on target. Holy shit. Like, and I don't know. We should have like an extremely dangerous like attack. And we do, but we just. could not put anything away. I don't know who's fucking cursed us. I don't know if it's somebody in fucking Seattle. I don't know if it's one of you Reign fans cursing us. But please, lay off. Okay? Lay off. Was it the Portland beer I drink last week? It might have been. I don't know, Alan. The Seattle beer I'm getting Portland beer this week. Yeah, yeah. I'm fixing it. But yeah, but I mean, something's got to change. And, you know, goals will fall in. I think it's weird. I don't know if it's lack of urgency or, lack of patience. I feel like there's sometimes they just speed it up when they should just take a little bit. And there's sometimes that don't take so many, shoot the fucking ball. Shoot the fucking ball. And that's, I feel like what we got with Marie Müller's goal. She, one touch, didn't think about it. Pop. So yeah, tell me about it. At the 85th minute. Yeah. We managed to tie it up. Yeah. We managed to tie it up. And the thing is, it was, it was, you guys, we've all seen those games. We've all been in those games. Whether your team is up or your team is down, you're just like, fuck, fuck, fuck. Like, they're just shooting. They're shooting. A goal's going to happen. A goal's going to happen. And it was so much anxiety. But yeah. So there was some buildup. Soph was building through the middle. And she just is scary. So she attracted like three players to her. Müller made a really nice bending run out to the right. I don't know if Soph passed it or if it was like a pass that got kicked. But the ball made it to Marie. And she just knocked it in top. It was amazing. The crowd erupted. It was awesome. Holy shit. At least we didn't fucking lose three, lose at Providence Park again. Like, we, you know, we talked about it before. It's a tie, but it kind of still feels like a loss in some ways. But again, you know, at least it wasn't a loss. You know, we're in fourth place for now. We'll talk about that a little bit later. But, you know, we're not in a bad spot. No, we're not. We're not in a bad spot. We're not playing the best we've ever played. But we're definitely holding our own. And, you know, like you said, we've got some players coming back, recovering. And we've got some, you know, newer players on the team. Like, as the season goes on, we've got four more games here. And, like, let's see. Every game is a new, new chance. And every week gives us more chances to practice. And let's see this happen. And we do have some good games at home. Like, I feel like it's, yeah, I don't know. Maybe we're reading too negative because we are still in fourth. And we are for the fucking goddamn mother. fucking Portland motherfucking thorns. But, yeah. Well, what do you think? Can we beat Houston the second time we play them? We still are going to play them again. I would hope so. I would hope that we're going to do, you know, some little tweaks. And also that's, well, that's the last game of the season, or regular season, you know. So, and we do play in Houston. So we will see it. Like, there's a lot that can happen between now and then, you know. So, yeah, just, yeah, let's just, let's fucking go, man. I don't know. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Well, one other thing I wanted to get back to was we did have eight corners in the game. And, you know, we were talking about just not making great shots or not really pushing. And so eight corners is a whole lot. There's no game plan. These are set pieces. You have to, no one's saying score on every single corner, but or set piece. But these are set pieces. You guys, we have to have to have a plan. Like the plan can't just be, I mean, we, we don't. No, we don't have Moultrie. Moultrie can fucking put that ball on a dime. But we're just not, I don't, I don't know. There's just no plan. There's no, it doesn't look like there's a plan. Flem is, I don't know why she's the one taking these kicks. She's really scrappy. I would like to have her in the middle. Like, if maybe, I don't know, since, I don't know, but there needs to be a plan because there's just no plan. It looks like me and you are out there like, let's kick it. Let's go, Alan. I'm just joking. We're not professional women's players. But, yeah. Well, one other, I know I said that before, but another thing I want to talk about is the coach for Houston. Their coach has been there for two weeks and has a win and a draw. Like, that's, that's impressive. Yeah. And, you know, coming in, we've talked about new coaches, you know, Vilahamn is fairly new for us. And, but this is, you know, brand new coach. came in and they tied us at Providence Park. Like, yeah. And also, yeah, like, I mean, also like, shout out to Houston. Like, they played a great defense. We, we couldn't break their low block. They, they did, they did well. I mean, they kept us to one goal. Yeah, we had all these shots, but that doesn't matter if you don't finish. So, yeah, hats off to Houston. You guys, yeah, they did well. And fucking, they have Kat Rader who's probably made, probably going to get rookie of the year. She has 10 fucking goals this season. She's playing amazing. Yeah, I mean, I mean, every team that we play against, like, win or lose, like, even if it's, like, not one of the best teams on the table, they, we can always pick really great things that they're doing, you know, some silver linings there, so. That's awesome. I mean, fuck Houston, but, like, good job. Fair. Yeah. There we have another chance against them. So we can still, we can still bring this back. Yeah, we will. We'll get our licks back. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So enough about the game. Let's talk about a couple of these interesting milestones that we've been hitting and that we're about to hit. Yeah. Let's fucking go. So we have some really cool milestones that we've hit just as a team. And, uh, as a team and, uh, as some individual players. So first up, we got Jessie Fleming. Um, she was playing as our captain. This was- Oh, Canada. Oh, Canada. Yes, she was playing. She was our captain. So, yeah, that is fantastic. And that was her 50th consecutive league start. That's just incredible. 50 games consecutively starting. That is just, that's so much soccer. We didn't bring her up, sorry I didn't rematch through their flow, but we didn't bring her up in, like, the kind of roundup of the game, but she was a fucking workhorse for us this game. She was everywhere. She did not stop moving. She didn't stand out, but she didn't stick out as like something that was like low. She was, she was fought. She was great. She was so solid for her. She was literally working her ass off that game. So, Jessie's so great to see. She's so great to see. She's not one we've been talking about a whole lot. Because I feel like she's just. She's just solidly there. She's just consistently there. She's just consistently there. We never talked shit about her. And, you know, she's not the one out in the front scoring all the goals. She's not the one at the very back, you know, doing all the saves. But she's in the middle there just doing solid work, keeping the ball going, keeping the momentum, helping the entire team. And it's so cool. Especially with Moultrie kind of, you know, getting injured and being out for the season. I feel like the midfield kind of has to be like, okay, what are we going to do now? Let's work. Let's do this. Let's figure something out. Yeah. So then that brings us to Sophia Wilson. So she had the assist for the Müller goal. And this is her 18th goal contribution of the season, which ties the club record, which she herself set two years ago. So one more either assist or goal from Wilson means she broke her own. record from two years ago. And, you know, just continuing to just be out there and scoring for us over and over. We've talked about just how scary she is. Mm-hmm. And it's great. Yeah. Girl. And she is also just came back from maternity leave this season. And it's already back back, you know, back breaking these. Yeah, like third in the golden boot race. Like, she's been an. incredible asset for this team this year. And just an incredible player. And it's been so much fun watching her play out there. So yeah, let's watch her break that record. She's met it. And there's no way she doesn't break it over the rest of the season. We had a little knock-up. Yeah. And then what I think is pretty cool. And it's still live for our next game against Boston is, is our next clean sheet would be the 100th regular season clean sheet, and it would be the first club to get there. And no other NWSL team has managed that. And so that, you know, that is an incredible one. That's incredible. That's incredible. We've been so close to this record for a while. And we've been like, I think we've mentioned it just a little bit before, but we're so close. We're so close. Yeah. We got it. We got this. We got this. We did. do. There's also a couple other things. Wilson can tie her club record of 14 goals. Tordin, we've talked about tying the NWSL assist record of 10. We're also close to being the first club to 50 penalty goals. You know, there's some cool stats. We've talked about how this team is one of the teams that helped establish the NWSL. One of the OGs. of the league. We wanted to, oh, geez. And, you know, we're still out there, you know, breaking records and playing well. And it's been so much fun. Yeah. I've loved getting into this league this year. And thank you, Marissa, for getting me into this. It's your energy that brought me into this sport. And I am so happy to be here watching this. It's so much fun. It is so fun. Like, we were talking about earlier off mic, but like, just to peek your head into this world. that is so dense and it just has everything like and you're just oh shit this has been here the whole time you know it's just it's incredible all these details that you learn about and it's so cool yeah all right well that is going to then bring us to what people have been saying is their favorite segment over on Reddit which I am so happy to hear if you were too lazy to watch the games and I don't know what happened it is time for Marissa match week round up week 23 not 22 or 24 my bad last time things happen so we count to five uh do we need Brooke's help to count five i've only this is only two i'm only two in and these are i'm only two in okay so give us a break over here okay jesus fucking Christ, Tony i've been re-watching the Sopranos it's been the soprano dream dune dreams that i've been having you were telling me it sounds like quite the matchup i don't even stop eating so many edibles at night okay so let's move on to Marissa's Match Week 23 roundup sponsored by marissa so let's get into it so friday our first game of the weekend we had Racing versus San Diego San Diego San Diego wins two zero Racing was out there fucking hustling in the first half i might even say that they were playing really well i was surprised you were surprised we were all surprised but San Diego is scary and San Diego's going to San Diego so San Diego looks scary and they took down Racing two to zero uh the next game on Friday was Gotham versus Chicago. Shaw got two goals fucking Shaw she's she's been amazing from going from North Carolina she had a really tough time there went to Gotham she's been on fucking fire for them this whole season anyway so yeah Shaw got two goals and then Kerr got a goal assisted by Guro Reiten i am a Man City fan and i thought this Kerr-Guro link-up best friend matchup on the field would stop over there but it has crossed the pond and has continuing to haunt me with a different team and they still uh they do the same pose god they're fucking best friends cute babies cute wives congratulations stop haunting me stop you guys followed me over here but also it's their fuck it's so fun to watch them but i hate it i hate you guys um also let's finish out with that uh game i really hope Chicago turns things around next season um with the appointment of Vlatko, Vlatko Andonovski um you know running things over there i really hope the team or the owners put some money into it and i hope they can pull it out because like we say all rising tides ships rise of course that's exactly how i've always heard it that's exactly how i've always heard it okay so the third friday game is Seattle versus Boston boo Seattle wins two zero fucking Jess Fishlock is a beast and a legend she got both goals fucking Jess Fishlock she got injured at the middle or beginning of the season and it was a really shame because this is her last season i it's always fuck Seattle but like god damn she's a legend and um it's good to see her back and scoring goals i guess so moving on to saturday day uh Kansas City versus Denver Summit KC wins four to one in a dominant fashion Summit is a really fun team to watch but Kansas City had a great second half Hopkins got herself a hat trick which is always so fucking fun that's awesome yeah i mean three goals in the game it's like by two it's like should we it's like should we mark this girl you know so Temwa got a goal uh yeah KC also continues to beat continues their unbeaten streak at home Kansas City that's cool moving on to the next game uh Saturday on Saturday the Spirit versus Angel City Angel City win with a goal in the 88 8th minute uh yes 88 88 8th minute um I managed to catch the end of this game yeah it was I don't even know if the goalie was standing in that corner and had like and had a future premonition of where the ball was going if she could even block that that shot was perfectly in the corner it was amazing and the game was pretty even keels yeah it it it came down to those those last minutes yeah and that's what it is like that was such a beautiful girl yeah it was and they fucking and angel cities up the table now they've been playing great and like yeah my fucking notes i say Angel City ladies and gentlemen this is not the Angel City that started the season they are firing on all cylinders Gordon Yon Stotter Sentnor is hitting her stride and we are very pro Ally Sentnor on this podcast wherever she fucking goes in place for she's playing great they are we should all be scared it's they're looking really good and yeah they're yeah they're just looking really really great um next set gate the last game on Saturday is Portland versus Houston all I have in my notes is we fucking tied so we did that's how we're going to leave it we've already discussed it already and if you don't know rewind a little bit and you'll pull you'll get there exactly yeah but we did tie one to one so yeah and then moving on to Sunday we unfortunately are currently recording so it is 3 p.m. on Sunday as we we record not to give away too much of our personal details but bay versus Orlando is happening right now I have not looked at the score I did because I'm a freak and it was one to one okay yeah and so you know what happens in this game could affect us or no no no no this game does not but what happens in the next game later this afternoon will affect us yeah so what who else is playing this afternoon it's Utah North Carolina all right yeah so yeah so Utah versus North Carolina we really want North Carolina to win if Utah wins or draws then we are bumped out of fourth and down to fifth fifth isn't the end of the world but we we need to be high we want to be higher yeah and you know we're still we're still we're still so close um and yeah fourth or fifth uh you know we're still we're getting towards the end of the season here um which actually then takes us into uh where we're standing where everybody else is uh and what uh this means for us We have Gotham at 54 points. We have San Diego at 48 points. Washington Spirit at 46 points. Portland Thorns at fourth with 43 points. Angel City at 42 points. Sixth is Utah with 42 points. Kansas City 41 Seattle 40 points. And so as long as North Carolina wins this, we're sticking in fourth. And normally I would just end at number eight, but since North Carolina is playing tonight and if they win because they're at 39 points. So they're just right out of playoff contention right now. But if they went tonight, they get pushed into 40, into 42 points. So that's going to mess with Angel City and Utah. So hopefully they can win and pull it off. I mean, Ashley Sanchez, get them goals, baby, get them goals. Yeah. And so we've talked about that there's only four games left. You know, we're we're basically in on the playoffs. Boston is eliminated and we are playing them next week. So hopefully, you know, one of us will be able to make it to that game. No promises, as always. But, you know, we'll see what happens. Yeah. We're going to play North Carolina. And that's the one that really matters for us. So depending on what happens there, I don't have the exact details up. No, but that can do. It's, okay. So definitely North Carolina is like really important because that's the scariest game for us. They're playing great. We like we just discussed Ashley Sanchez. Like they're playing great. But really, I'm, let's Boston, our next game Boston in Portland next Saturday. Boston has more fight than Houston does, in my opinion. So I don't know what the fuck we're doing at Providence Park, but we need to like have some urgency and we need to play because if we lose, like, these points are important. Like we can't just. be praying that teams lose, you know? Like, we need to take, you know, we need to take the reins, be our own women, right, Alan? Exactly. Yes, high five. That was, first one was bad, it was second one. We nailed it. So, yeah, so we need to, yes, that's, I'm stepping off my soapbox now. Thank you for my TED Talk. So that does bring us to, we have some congratulations in order for the U20 World Cup. Yeah, we do. Yeah, let's give a shout out to. Val Loboa and Colombia. They took the bronze medal at the U-20 Women's World Cup. Phenomenal job, Val. We were talking about them last week, and that's so fucking good. Bringing home some fucking hardware. It was that they beat Italy. Yeah, beat Italy. Beat Italy. Our girls coming back home with some hardware. It's so exciting. And she helped bring Colombia their first U-20 World Cup podium. So, you know, this is. This is good for them for Colombia and also good for her. And yeah, we love to see it. Yeah, dude. Bring that medal home, sis. We love you. We're stoked. Like, seriously, congratulations. You'll never hear this. Maybe you will, you know. But seriously, congratulations. Like, it's really awesome. Like, that's a lot of hard work. That's hard. That's really hard work. And congratulations, yep. It's great to see those, you know, it's good to see acknowledging. for people who are doing really cool, amazing, you know, hard work and really putting in the training and putting on just incredible game. And, like, I don't want to sound selfish, but like, her playing at this level and doing these other things, that's only going to help her, I'll help us when she comes home. You know, like, that's awesome. Like, yeah. Okay, Val segment. That's right. Good job, Val. Well, and so I do want to thank Dingo's. Once more. We have had so much fun here. This has been so good. Cheers. It's so much fun. We're definitely going to be back here again. And, yeah, we'll see either next week or, I don't know, we'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll play it by ear. We'll play it by ear. Yeah, figure it out. We will definitely be here. Again, but next week we play Boston at home this next Saturday. Hopefully one of us will be there and we'll see how it goes. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. Have a good beautiful day, everybody out there. And as I always say, all smiles, no injuries. Fuck Seattle. And let's go, Thorns. Let's go. Thorns.