There’s nothing new to learn about the teams. They’re seen each other three times in six months, in different locales, and with various lineups. The coaches have faced off over the course of six seasons, and the main combatants between the lines? Some have known each other for longer.
This isn’t the same Portland Thorns FC versus Seattle Reign FC that was saw at the outset of the National Women’s Soccer League, when the Reign were beset by misfortune, and the Thorns, albeit on track to a championship, were still trying to find themselves. The Thorns have fully matured, developing an identity under Mark Parsons that has come to define their part of the club. And after two years outside the postseason, the Reign have redefined themselves, too, having lured two-time NWSL-winning head coach Vlatko Andonovski to the Emerald City with the hopes that he can claim the club’s first title.
Between Parsons and Andonovski, three of the league’s five titles will be represented on the sidelines on Saturday, at Providence Park (12pm PT, Lifetime | TICKETS| Presented by Tillamook Yogurt). And four of the maybe 12 or 15 best players in the world – Tobin Heath, Lindsey Horan, Megan Rapinoe and Christine Sinclair – will take center stage, not only representing the teams that they’ve championed for years but also representing the levels the NWSL has reached during this, its sixth season.
When the league began six years ago, it was an attempt to maintain a standard in U.S. soccer, an organization that has always been at the forefront of women’s soccer, worldwide. Now, the league’s mission is much the same, but it goes about accomplishing it having drastically improved its on-field product, leveraging the depth of talent in the U.S., Canada, Australia and beyond to produce some of the best teams in the world. Whether the top teams in the NWSL could topple those at the highest level of the European game is an interesting, nuanced and, to date, unresolved debate, but in terms of depth, the entirety of the NWSL might land within the top 20 women’s clubs in the game. And given what this year’s postseason qualifiers have accomplished, so far, it’s not far-fetched to suggest each of this year’s playoff participants are among the best teams in the world.
Remember that when you should up to Providence Park on Saturday, whichever team you support. Keep the same in mind when you return on Tuesday, when the North Carolina Courage and Chicago Red Stars engage in the league’s other semifinal (also, due to Hurricane Florence, taking place at Providence Park). Not only has this league never been this good, but with players like Chicago’s Sam Kerr and North Carolina’s Crystal Dunn and Sam Mewis adding to the week’s talent, women’s club soccer in North America has never had this collection of talent in one location, at one discrete period of time, so readily available to fans. This week will be the culmination of a lot of vision, commitment, trail-and-error and financial investment which, ultimately, will commence three amazing matchups with the Thorns and Reign on Saturday at noon.
That quality adds a level of angst to the postseason’s proceedings – a trepidation that comes with knowing any team can oust you at any time. But it’s also something every team has anticipated from the opening moments of the season. From the second, at January’s NWSL College Draft, that the Chicago Red Stars landed Sam Kerr, every coach in the league knew the perennial contenders would be capable of reaching another level. And when Seattle owner Bill Predmore won the battle to land Vlatko Andonovski from FC Kansas City, he immediately restored his team to contenders’ status, once move. Few coaches are more respected in the league than Andonovski, and amid that respect comes an expectation of results, one that left the four teams at the top of the league ruing each others’ potentials long before the first whistle.
For Seattle, expectations came true this season, with the Reign’s third-place finish returning the club to the postseason after a two-year absence. And with the league’s second-best defense, Andonovski’s team has a clear, three-part path to successful. First, the experience he has garnered from postseasons’ past, when he outfoxed Laura Harvey’s Reign teams to claim the 2014 and 2015 titles, has to now be leveraged again. Second, the defense he has built throughout the season, one that has only given up 19 goals in 24 games, must be as stalwart as it was before conceding three times in the season’s ultimate round.
But, perhaps most importantly, Megan Rapinoe must come back, and come back in form. Andonovski was coy about Rapinoe’s status during his midweek conference call, saying his best player had yet to fully train this week, but at this point of her recovery from a rib injury, the U.S. international has to return. And she’s expected to do so. Maybe a month on the sidelines will cast her back short of her normal self (as could the absence for fellow U.S. international Allie Long), but Rapinoe is an MVP candidate for a reason. She is, at her best, one of the most dominant attacking players in world soccer.
She also played the heel toward Portland since her allocation to Seattle. A former standout at the University of Portland, Rapinoe ensconced her legend on the northeast’s bluffs long ago. Little she can do in Reign blue would tarnish that legacy, and if we’re truly being honest, we can admit her recent antagonism toward Portland merely plays the part she’s been cast into. It makes the rivalry better. The platonic ideal of Megan Rapinoe is such that any trash-talking, hype-fueling, rivalry-stoking claims fall into shadow. Yet amid her newfound antagonism to her former home are real embers that need to be fueled. Rapinoe, having fully embrace this new version or herself, will truly want to derail Portland.
All of which only feeds into the most important – yet, amid the controversies of this playoff buildup, most overlooked – aspect of Saturday’s game, one that should trumpet above the woodwind and brass-blown news that has harmonized around the obvious. Saturday will be Portland. Saturday will be Seattle. It will be the playoffs, and for the first time in league history, it will be happening in the NWSL.
It will be the 2013 Timbers-Sounders MLS conference final distilled into one, 90-minute burst, except there’s no uncertainty surrounding one of the teams, as did the Sounders before that matchup. There’s no doubt as to the quality of both of these squads. These are two legitimate title contenders – two teams with the quality to have won any of the previous league titles – and it will be played in front of the one of the most renown crowds the game has to offer.
This is a winner-take-all derby that is flying under the radar – a match that would normally define each team’s season. And, in truth, it will be the same on Saturday. One team will go home, crushed, at the boots of the rivals, and one team will move on. Yet in the context of such a competitive season, the rivalry is taking a back seat. This match is for the right to play another game, the 26th of a season that could have ended at 24, and although both teams have faced each other three times before, the stakes of Saturday’s match promise to offer something more.
