Riding a four-game point streak, Orlando Pride (2-2-3, 9 points) heads to Providence Park on Saturday afternoon to face Portland Thorns FC (2-2-3, 9 points) for the second time in less than a month. The game, which will be featured as the Lifetime Game of the Week, will kickoff at 3:30 p.m. ET and will close out a three-game road trip for the Central Florida-based side.
“Traveling to Portland is never an easy task and, coming off a physical midweek game in Utah, we expect it to be another battle to close out this road trip,” Pride Head Coach Tom Sermanni said. “That being said, I’m happy with the way we’ve started the season and, obviously, the way we’ve played over the previous four matches to take points from all of them. If we contain the midfield and take advantage of our opportunities, we’re hopefully heading back home with the points.”
Orlando and Portland both enter the weekend game coming off mid-week road draws and are tied in the table with nine points each.
The Pride traveled to Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday night, playing to a scoreless draw against Utah Royals FC. The match, which saw a combined 30 fouls between the teams, featured both defenses making big stops on the game’s limited chances to keep a clean sheet for each side. It was the third shutout of the season for the Pride.
The Thorns tied as well, with Ana-Maria Crnogorčević putting Portland up 1-0 in the first half before the host Houston Dash’s Kyah Simon equalized in the second stanza.
In the previous meeting between the Pride and Thorns on April 15, Chioma Ubogagu scored her first goal of the season to put Orlando up by a goal in the 20th minute. However, Portland’s Lindsey Horan and Christine Sinclair struck in the 28th and 38th minutes, respectively, to go up 2-1 - the game’s eventual final score.
Riding back-to-back shutouts, the Pride defense will look to continue its strong play against one of the most potent attacks in the league, which includes NWSL leading scorer Sinclair, Horan, Tobin Heath and Brazil’s Andressinha.
