SkoPurp Soccer Episode 45: Portland Rewind, Barbra Banda on Fire, and Listener Mail

The Orlando Pride got a signature win Friday night in the club’s 2-1 home win over the Portland Thorns. While Sophia Smith’s absence was a blow to the visitors, the Thorns have plenty of talent, and it’s not like the Pride aren’t dealing with some key absences. The end result was an NWSL-record eighth win on the bounce. The Pride have now gone 11 games this season without a loss, and with four of the next five on the road, it’s time to find out if Orlando can get through a crucial part of the schedule unscathed.

We break down the win over Portland, check back on our score predictions, and make our selections for Player of the Match. Beating the Thorns isn’t something that the Pride have done often, so it feels like this year’s team has found a new level of confidence that we haven’t seen in the team’s history — even in the playoff year of 2017.

We had a brief side discussion of Barbra Banda, who has a chance to completely rewrite the Orlando Pride record book (and possibly the league’s) if she can keep up her torrid form (or even improve upon it).

Our mailbagbox this week asked us about scorers beyond Banda, our favorite non-goal-scoring moment of the win over the Thorns, and more. Remember, you can ask us anything by hitting us up on Twitter at either @TheManeLand or @SkoPurpSoccer and using the hashtag #AskSkoPurp. Or you can visit our show page, scroll down, and fill out the handy form. We’d also appreciate any ratings or reviews you can leave wherever you get your podcasts, and if you do that on Apple Podcasts, we’ll find them easily and read them on the show.

Without a game this weekend, we held off on our next Pride preview. Enjoy the show and thanks for listening.

Here’s how Episode 45 went down:

0:15 – The Pride denied the Thorns a seventh win in a row while picking up a new league record of their own.

20:13 – The mailbagbox is always fun after a win, and this episode was a perfect example of that.