PORTLAND, Ore. – With Wednesday’s training session at Providence Park, one of the most anticipated points of Portland Thorns FC’s 2019 season arrived, yet it did so with little mention of why it was so anticipated. Nursing the scars of 2015, many in the Thorns universe looked at the next World Cup year, this one, encamped in a state of doubt. The last set of absences sunk our team, they reminded. This one may do the same, too.
Yet when Adrianna Franch, Tobin Heath, Lindsey Horan and Emily Sonnett, this week, returned to Providence Park, they did so with the Thorns in a familiar position.