Do you remember when Barbra Banda scored a goal on her birthday to tie up Orlando’s match against Denver? How about when Emma Sears ran the length of the pitch with the ball at her feet to put Louisville up 2-0 on Washington? Or when the Spirit came back to tie it up with a Sofia Cantore scorcher and a Leicy Santos snipe?
Of course you don’t. That’s because the Cascadia Rivalry happened.
Friday’s edition of the NWSL’s most storied rivalry—and arguably its only true rivalry, as the manufactured “District vs. Empire” clash between Washington and Gotham has only just started to grow real teeth over the last couple seasons—had an air of the bizarre before the season even started. It was oddly set for just the second week of the season, and would be Portland’s home opener.
For their respective season openers, both teams had traveled to the east-coast giants who had knocked them out of the playoffs last year, and both came away with three points. Portland, which hadn’t hired head coach Robert Vilahamn until nine days before the season started, showed up to a sold out Audi Field and put up a 1-0 win over Washington. Seattle, meanwhile, went down to Orlando and won 2-1, suggesting that they had figured out how to attack—a rather critical skill they were lacking last year. The Reign's trip to Florida was capped by weather- and TSA-induced travel delays that prevented them from getting back to Seattle until Tuesday evening, just two days before traveling to Portland.
Unfortunately for Seattle fans, the Reign’s play on Friday was too dismal and perplexing to be explained away by travel fatigue. Portland picked up two red cards and still won 2-0, and it didn’t look particularly difficult.
The chaos started in the fifth minute, when Reilyn Turner found Cassandra Bogere in a far-too-open spot at the top of the box who then blasted a dangerous shot at Claudia Dickey. Dickey was able to tip the effort over the bar, but Bogere seemed poised to leave her mark on the match. She would go on to do that, but not in the way I expected.
Three minutes later, Bogere pulled Jess Fishlock’s arm after the Seattle veteran had beaten her, and was thus booked for a yellow card. Normal enough—a new player to the league playing in her first Cascadia Rivalry can be forgiven some nervousness. But the ink in the referee’s book had barely dried when Bogere pulled down Nérilia Mondésir in an oddly similar fashion. From the ref’s pocket came a yellow card once again, swiftly followed by that dreaded red.
There it was: Seattle’s chance. If playing at Providence Park—home of the NWSL’s largest and most vocal fanbase—after their hellish week was a knock for Laura Harvey’s squad, the one-player advantage should have balanced the scales. But Seattle failed to implement any tactical changes that would have made their extra player salient in any way. Instead of exploiting space and forcing the Thorns to break their shape, Seattle left the wide channels unoccupied and rarely made more than limp attempts at goal. Portland was, and looked, the far better team.
So it wasn’t a surprise when, in the 28th minute, an unmarked Pietra Tordin subtly redirected Olivia Moultrie’s inswinging corner past Dickey to put the Thorns up. The roar from the crowd and the red smoke that filled Providence Park were the perfect sensory exemplifications of the moment.
“In those moments, if you don’t play simple and you don’t play what the game’s given you, you can give them opportunities to get in the game. And that’s what we did,” Harvey said after the match.
Nine minutes later, Moultrie played a devilish through ball up to Tordin who then flicked it to a sprinting Turner. Turner controlled the ball to perfection and slipped it past Dickey, capping the brilliant counterattack and doubling Portland’s lead.
As the half has worn on, Claudia Dickey is showing some frustration at the Seattle attack
— Taylor Vincent (@tayvincent6.bsky.social) 2026-03-21T03:51:50.719Z
Seattle played no better in the second half, which is especially embarrassing considering that Portland went down yet another player 12 minutes into it. Contact that Reyna Reyes had made with Madison Curry was flagged by VAR, and after a lengthy review, the referee determined that the Portland defender had pulled Curry’s hair. Out came a red card, and out went Reyes.
In the Thorns’ disbelief, substitute Marie Müller entered the pitch, and was immediately given a yellow card, apparently because she hadn’t been properly whistled into the match by the center referee. (And to think that that was about the fifth weirdest thing to happen in this match!) But when the German finally was subbed in one minute later, it was alongside Sophia Wilson, making her return to Providence Park after giving birth in September. Going down to nine players doesn’t sting so bad when you’ve got a former MVP and Golden Boot winner coming off the bench.
The pitch wasn’t the only place where things went wonky. In the 67th minute, the Amazon Prime broadcast reverted to just footage from the tactical camera and noise from the crowd—no commentators, no score bug. The two minutes and 32 seconds while that lasted were a respite that made me feel like I was levitating. I was simply a bird, enjoying the blurry shapes moving below me and thinking about the meaning of soccer, and life. Even after the normal camera angles were back, it took 28 seconds to add in the score bug and commentators’ stream. Prime quality stuff.
During the technical difficulties, none other than Seattle Reign legend Megan Rapinoe had joined Mike Watts and Lori Lindsay on the broadcast, but the lack of sound had elided her introduction entirely. What a representation for how the night was going for Seattle!
And even more importantly for the game itself, those same minutes included the substitutions of Emeri Adames, Brittney Ratcliffe, and NWSL debutante Holly Ward—a triumvirate of Seattle attackers meant to claw something back for the visitors. Needless to say, they did not, unless you count the yellow card Ward earned, or the yellow card awarded to Seattle’s bench.
“The things that we were not figuring out tonight had nothing to do with travel or fatigue,” Fishlock said after the match. “It was game situations, game management, decision-making. And whether we had two days or whether we had six days, we are better than what we did tonight.”
Harvey, however, seemed to think that the fatigue did play a part in her team’s performance, though not in any way that would invite sympathy. “I think it showed in their brains,” she said.
For Portland, the win was a triumph of grit, and buy-in to their new manager’s tactics. Of playing with nine players, M.A. Vignola said after the match, “I think the staff did a great job adjusting us, putting Marie in and shifting to a back five. We dug deep and did what we had to do.” Later, she said, “I’ve never experienced that. It’s not something you train for, you just fight through it.”
The defender, who was traded to Portland from Angel City midseason last year, also added an all-timer of a quote when asked what it was like to play in her first Cascadia Rivalry: “Honestly, I already disliked Seattle, so coming here wasn’t that big of an adjustment for me.”
In the offseason, there was so much drama around the league.The policies, grievances, stadium chaos, departing players, and commissioner Dubai appearance can make you forget that the point of it all is, or should be, to watch great athletes battle it out week after week. Friday’s derby was a refreshing reassurance: the soccer in this league is as entertaining as ever.
As a parting gift, here is Portland’s share of the misconduct summary:
Cassandra Bogere (Yellow) 8’, Cassandra Bogere (Red) 9’, Reyna Reyes (Red) 57’, Marie Müller (Yellow) 58’
Perfect.
