Meghan Klingenberg enters every season with the same set of targets. Individually, 2020 was no different. She wanted to be the best left back in the National Women’s Soccer League, score and assist on goals, and play “lockdown defense” for the Portland Thorns.
“My goals are very similar every year,” she concedes. As long as soccer stays the same, her job does, too.
But there are also team goals – the ones which, for the Thorns, were completely derailed by the nature of 2020. The idea for competing for the NWSL’s best record or a league title became irrelevant sometime in late May, around the same time a one-month, Challenge Cup tournament in Utah came into view.