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Sometimes following a soccer team sucks.
That’s certainly how it felt when the Portland Thorns announced Tuesday that star midfielder Olivia Moultrie will miss the rest of the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. She suffered the injury during training the week prior (and sat out last weekend’s 4-3 victory over the Boston Legacy as a result).
“Heartbroken doesn’t even begin to sum up all of the feelings right now,” Moultrie posted to her Instagram. “To be taken away from something you love more than anything is a feeling I never wanted to experience.”
In her sixth year in the league, the 20-year-old Moultrie’s shown herself to be an invaluable part of the Thorns. She provides a keen attacking threat—her five assists and five goals on the year rank second and third on her team, respectively—and knows how to pick out the perfect pass to slip through an opponent’s defensive line. She can compete physically, providing her efforts on the defensive side.
From an on-field perspective, losing Moultrie is a huge blow for the Thorns. They’re already without Reilyn Turner—who put up her own five goals this season before being temporarily sidelined by a knee injury—and Morgan Weaver is still working her way back into match fitness after her own knee injury that kept her off the pitch for a year and a half. (That’s not to mention Caiya Hanks and Julie Dufour, who are expected to return from ACL tears sustained last season later this year.)
And then there’s the midfield, where Portland was finally starting to figure things out with the signing of Nina Nijstad last month. The Dutch Nijstad and Canadian international Jessie Fleming will still have the opportunity to build their relationship as dual box-to-box midfielders, but it’s unclear what will happen in Moultrie’s attacking midfield position.
The Thorns started Deyna Castellanos at that position against Boston, but her minutes have been few and far between this year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the club give rookies Renee Lyles or Shae Harvey a shot while Turner and Weaver are building up fitness, and then rotate Pietra Tordin in from out wide; she played there when Moultrie was out for a couple games earlier in the season. (Portland also has the option of playing Nijstad higher, which is a role she’s accustomed to, but I’m guessing that Nijstad and Fleming growing their rapport is a higher priority for the club—especially since the Thorns have more options at attacking midfield than they do at a more central position.)
But all this speculation about what Portland will do on the pitch doesn’t take away from the fact that Moultrie tearing her ACL is upsetting. I know I’m not the only one who’s grown attached watching the Thorns’ young veteran take the pitch every week, with all her intensity and technique and brilliance.
But it’s not the end for Moultrie—even if it is the end of her season.
“I can promise I’ll be back,” she wrote on Instagram. “And I’ll be back better.”
