BEAVERTON, Ore. – Thorns FC returned to practice this week with the same intensity they’ve shown all season. To the eye, there was no increased urgency within the group. There was even a little levity at the beginning of Tuesday’s session, though not enough to depict a team losing focus. In terms of the broad swath of a professional soccer team’s season, it was business as usual at the adidas Timbers Training Center, a state that would be unremarkable if not for the team’s last five results.
For the first time under head coach Mark Parsons, who joined the team before the 2016 NWSL season, Portland is winless in five, a run of results they haven’t matched since their ill-fated 2015 campaign.