PORTLAND — It did not take long for Nadine Angerer to demonstrate her value to the Portland Thorns fans, or for the fans to make an impression on the Thorns’ new goalkeeper.
Angerer made a series of world-class saves. Allie Long continued to show her worth, and Jessica McDonald finished two late-game chances.
It added up to a satisfying opening performance for the Thorns in their 2014 home opener, a 3-1 win over FC Kansas City in front of 14,124 on a rainy Saturday night at Providence Park.
“The crowd was amazing and it felt like a World Cup game,” Angerer said, noting that the crowd was much larger than most for the top women’s league in her native Germany.
The goalkeeper who last season was named the soccer world’s women’s player of the year made two scintillating saves in the first half hour. She dove to her right to stab away a low shot from 15 yards out, and later leapt to her left to deflect a goal-bound shot from Lauren Holiday. Among her six saves was a punch over the bar on a shot by Jenna Richmond in the 78th minute.
In addition to the saves, Thorns coach Paul Riley called Angerer a calming influence on the team. He said her take-charge approach to Kansas City’s 11 corner kicks and other crosses into the box was as significant as her tough stops.
“It just gives us that sense that we’re OK, we’ve got Nadine behind us,” Riley said. “I think we’re just going to grow with her.”
The one goal that beat Angerer was a Holiday penalty kick that tied the score at 1 in the 56th minute. That penalty kick matched Long’s conversion after she drew a foul in the box from Becky Sauerbrunn in the 44th minute. At that point, Long had all three Thorns goals this season.
Long was also instrumental in the go-ahead goal in the 84th minute, just seconds after Columbia River High School graduate Kat Tarr made her Thorns debut as a substitute for midfielder Amber Brooks. McDonald took a pass from Long and drove it past Kansas City goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart.
Christine Sinclair slid a pass between defenders that Long reached just inside the penalty area before sending a pass into space to her right for
McDonald.
“I heard Jess screaming. I played it. I was hoping she wasn’t offside,” said Long, who played with McDonald in college at North Carolina. “She finished it perfectly. A great goal.”
McDonald’s next goal was fantastic as she ran between two defenders to collect a long pass up the left side from Mana Shim, then chipped the ball over the charging Barnhart.
“Words can’t even explain it,”
McDonald said, describing the experience of scoring twice in her debut in front of Portland fans as incredible and phenomenal.
The overall performance was not that.
Kansas City (0-2-1, 1 point) took the game to Portland (2-0-1, 7 points) for significant stretches of the night. But with several key players either injured or not yet in Portland, Riley was pleased with the result against an experienced Kansas City team.
“I thought we would need this game to show (our players) that we can grow from this and get better in position in the middle and get better at the back under more pressure,” the coach said.
Noting that most of the roster and the whole coaching staff has changed from last season, Long called learning to play in Riley’s diamond midfield with new players “a work in progress.”
Notes
• Tarr had one shot, a header, in her eight minutes of action. She also sent a cross into the box that almost produced a shot for Sinclair.
• The Thorns travel to Western New York next weekend, than are home on May 10 against Seattle.
