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Just like that, it’s over. The Portland Thorns ended their season Sunday in front of a crowd of 15,500 in New Jersey, falling 2-1 to defending NWSL champs NJ/NY Gotham FC.
“It sucks and it’s hard,” a tearful Morgan Weaver told the media after the match. “I just think this year has not been our year.”
It feels anticlimactic for the Thorns to close their 2024 campaign on this note, after finally getting key players back from injury, after dealing the first-place Orlando Pride one of their only two losses on the year, after scrapping to make it into the playoffs and playing a defensively stellar game against Gotham’s attacking firepower.
“We shut down for like 0.5 seconds, and that’s where we let it go,” Weaver said.
It’s a rough way to go out, to put it mildly—especially when it looked like the pieces were finally falling into place. “We have great energy right now,” Sam Coffey had said in a press conference the day before the match. “We have a purpose bigger than any of us, especially in wanting to give Sincy the best final few games of her career and send her out as a champion.”
That last part stings, too: Christine Sinclair’s 12 years as a Thorn ended in quarterfinal loss. It’s a muted ending for the Canadian soccer legend, who finishes her Portland career with three league championships, two NWSL shields, and 66 goals in her 200 regular season appearances.
She now joins the ranks of Thorns fans. And they can take some comfort in how this team is set up for next year, with players like Coffey, Weaver, Hina Sugita and Sophia Smith raring for another chance and young stars like Reilyn Turner—the rookie Portland acquired midseason, who scored the Thorns’ lone goal of the afternoon—just getting started.
“You look at Gotham, I think they’re a team built for right now,” Thorns head coach Rob Gale said after the game. “We’re a team that will learn from this and go on, a team that’s built for the future.”