It did feature the oft-oppressing attacking displays we’d seen against Orlando, Seattle and Utah, but the Portland Thorns’ Saturday visit to the Washington Spirit was also devoid of the slips the defending NWSL champions had experienced in each of those recent matches. What was left was a 1-0 result which, reminiscent of the team’s grind-it-out wins in the middle of last season, snapped Portland’s five-match winless run and collected the team’s first shutout of the season.
“We knew we were going to be under pressure for periods, and we knew that we were going to be in control for periods,” Thorns head coach Mark Parsons said after his team’s third victory of 2018.