The North Carolina Courage opened their home campaign with a 1-0 win to the Portland Thorns. While the game ended 1-0, the scoreline doesn’t reflect how exciting the match was. The Courage could have had several goals in the match and outside of a few decent chances for the Thorns, was able to keep most of the possession, cause problems for Portland when they tried to build out of the back, and had the most dangerous scoring opportunities.
The game was highly anticipated with a rematch between the Thorns and NC Courage who beat them in the semi-finals of the NWSL playoffs when they were the Western New York Flash in one of the most exciting games of the year.