The first thing to say is that the Thorns are absolutely delighted to not be playing this game at Memorial. Memorial is weird, you know that right? Sure, it’s a lovely historical venue, but most stadiums don’t require visitors to pee on rusty walls. It’s tiny, there are football lines on it, and the ball just bounces weird there. Avoiding a trip up there was as much motivation for the Thorns to come out swinging and win Friday’s game as anything.
The Thorns have been a strange team this year: for almost all of the season they’ve been incomplete, missing players, trying to integrate new ones.