Portland heads to Audi Field for an NWSL playoff quarterfinal, looking to build on a strong finish to the regular season and overcome a familiar postseason opponent.
The NWSL’s grueling 30-match season is over, and the second season is about to begin. For the Portland Thorns, a sixth-place finish in the NWSL regular season makes them one of the league’s eight best clubs, and a trip to the playoff quarterfinals is on the horizon.
On Sunday, the Thorns will travel across the country to face the Washington Spirit at Audi Field. At stake is a chance to extend their 2026 campaign, securing a spot in the NWSL playoff semifinals against either the San Diego Wave or the Utah Royals.
The Thorns and Spirit have met just once before in the NWSL playoffs. That singular meeting came during the 2025 postseason, with the Spirit winning 2-0. Portland holds a strong record against Washington: 17 wins, nine draws, and seven losses. The Thorns outscored the Spirit 57-33 across those 33 fixtures.
Will Portland’s strong record against Washington continue?
A strong finish to the NWSL regular season
The Portland Thorns will go into Sunday’s playoff quarterfinal in a rich vein of form. Head coach Robert Vilahamn watched his team win its final two matches of the NWSL regular season. A 1-0 home win over the North Carolina Courage was followed by a 2-0 victory over the Houston Dash on the final day of the campaign.
Vilahamn will have been buoyed by the team’s back-to-back clean sheets. The Thorns conceded 41 goals across the 30-game campaign, with their 1.4 goals-against-per-game figure putting them eighth in the league for fewest goals allowed per match.
The first-year head coach may have seen his team struggle to keep goals out at times during the regular season, but he does know his side can score. The Thorns finished fifth in the league in scoring with 50 goals. Indeed, Portland’s scoring was so good across the regular season that they were shut out just twice.
Defense wins trophies
The Thorns’ defense recorded 11 clean sheets in 30 NWSL matches. Seven of those clean sheets came between Matchday No. 1 and Matchday No. 14, but Portland’s defense fell off from there. After recording their seventh clean sheet on July 5, the Thorns endured a five-game winless streak, conceding 11 goals.
Australian shot-stopper Mackenzie Arnold recorded nine of the 11 shutouts and will hope to take her form into the postseason against the Spirit. Arnold did not play in the Thorns’ 1-0 win over Washington on March 13. She has played in 27 matches, but Morgan Messner was in goal for the Week 1 victory.
Just as the defense played well in the Thorns’ final two matches of the campaign, the unit had been nearly perfect during the opening weeks of the season. In fact, Portland opened the campaign away to Washington, recording a 1-0 win thanks to a second-half goal from Olivia Moultrie. Vilahamn will be confident his team can return to Washington and claim another victory.
In the back of his mind, however, will be the Thorns’ 2-1 loss to the Spirit at Providence Park in September. Portland’s Sophia Wilson scored an 18th-minute penalty, but the defense couldn’t stop Washington from coming back. Tara Rudd’s 59th-minute penalty leveled the score, and Melissa Bethi put the Spirit ahead in the 80th minute.
Sophia Wilson is the key to Portland’s success
While the Thorns’ defense will aim to record a 12th clean sheet of the campaign, Sophia Wilson is the heartbeat of the team. Wilson missed the early stages of the season due to maternity leave, but her return brought goals: 15 in total, along with five assists.
Wilson’s 15 goals placed her third in the race for the Golden Boot, five behind top scorer Ashley Sanchez. Wilson was involved in 40% of Portland’s scoring.
Pietra Tordin will likely be involved in the match at some point. Tordin is coming off a breakout season in which she scored eight goals and provided nine assists, a team high. The Thorns’ front office recognized Tordin’s impact on the team, signing her to a new three-year contract during the season.
However, Tordin’s assists dried up during the latter stages of the regular season. Her last assist came on August 16 against the Orlando Pride, and she went her final 10 matches without providing one. Can she find the final pass that made her so important during the earlier parts of the season?
Will the third time be the charm for Washington?
The Washington Spirit were beaten finalists in each of the last two NWSL seasons. In 2024, the Spirit were beaten 1-0 by the Orlando Pride. Last season, Washington fell 1-0 to Gotham FC. Adrian Gonzalez is aiming to bring home Washington’s second NWSL Championship. However, heading into this season’s playoffs, no team has lost more NWSL Championship finals (three) than the Spirit.
The Spirit finished the regular season third with 55 points. Although that feels like a huge accomplishment, providing them with a home playoff match in the quarterfinals, there was just a five-point gap between Washington and the Thorns.
Five points is a fine margin in top-flight soccer. A positive result here and a negative result there could have seen their final position in the table look much different.
Trinity Rodman shows her worth
Trinity Rodman signed a record-breaking contract extension in the NWSL offseason. She was rumored to have received contract offers from big clubs in Europe, although specific teams were never named, making some jaded soccer writers speculate that the interest from Europe was minimal and a bargaining tool used by Rodman’s agent.
Rodman lived up to her status as an American soccer star by scoring 12 goals and adding eight assists in 30 games. Washington scored 43 goals, with Rodman having a hand in 47% of the Spirit’s scoring.
The Spirit averaged 1.4 goals per game. Yet it wasn’t their offense that won games. It was the Spirit’s defense. The team conceded a mere 0.9 goals per match, with only Gotham FC’s 0.8 goals per game better.
Ins and outs
Portland coach Vilahamn will be without Moultrie, who suffered a season-ending knee injury earlier in the campaign. Her absence is the most significant from a Thorns perspective.
Julie Dufour is available for the match, while Wilson and Tordin are fully fit and appeared in the Thorns’ final match of the regular season.
The injury situation for Gonzalez is much more significant ahead of the quarterfinal. The team must somehow replace Hal Hershfelt after a late-season ACL injury. Combined with Deborah Abiodun’s season-ending hip surgery and defender Kate Wiesner’s fractured ankle, the Spirit’s depth will be stretched to its limit.
What to expect?
The Portland Thorns won 1-0 away from home to start the season, but fell 2-1 to the Spirit at Providence Park in the return fixture. Both teams go into the quarterfinal in good form. The Thorns are on a two-game winning streak, while the Spirit have won three of their last four fixtures.
Sunday’s match will be a showdown between two strong defensive teams, and it could be a game with few clear-cut chances in front of goal. The Spirit were second in the NWSL with 12 clean sheets.
Although both teams have attacking superstars in Wilson, Tordin, and Rodman, don’t expect a lot of fireworks between these clubs. Just four goals were scored between them during their two regular-season meetings. Defense wins championships, and Sunday’s quarterfinal should be a defensive struggle.
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