Stumptown’s own Katelyn Best sums up the Thorns 2-3 road win in Chicago nicely: “...moments of brilliance matched with cringeworthy mistakes.”
I don’t have a lot to add to Best’s summary, both because she did well and because this was a difficult match to analyze. Both teams were brutally depleted; the Red stars dressed only fourteen players, the Thorns, sixteen. The weather conditions were appalling; the cold rain made footing chancy, and the strong north wind bent and sailed long passes, and turned clearances into performance art.
So without a theme to hang this column on, I’m going to make some general observations and move on to player ratings and comments.