There’s a rhythm to almost every professional soccer tournament we watch. It could be the World Cup. It could be the Olympics. The patterns are the same. Weeks, sometimes months of preparation burst into a glorious start and settle into absolute grinds. Short rest, rotated squads, injuries, yellow-card accumulation. Teams are rarely as primed as they are for game one, and over a tournament’s middle rounds, it shows.
Such were the two hours we got from Portland Thorns FC and Chicago Red Stars on Wednesday morning, a 0-0 draw that leaves both teams at the bottom of the NWSL Challenge Cup standings with one point, each.