By a quirk of scheduling, the Boston Breakers will face the Portland Thorns at home, then will turn around and fly out to Portland to face them away. There’s two macro level issues at stake here: Boston wanting to make sure that home games are wins more often than not, and seeing if they can re-balance the scales between themselves and Portland.
Boston has had some of their wackiest results when it comes to the Thorns. In 2014, under former head coach Tom Durkin, Portland was the team they beat the most, including an entirely surprising 4-1 win using a mix of unexpected players.