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After a global head coaching search, the Portland Thorns are sticking with who they have.
The Thorns announced on Friday that they have hired Rob Gale as the team’s full-time head coach following Gale’s successful stint as interim coach since mid-April.
“This is a club that we want to be successful, so Rob’s record in the interim was impressive, but it also was beyond that,” Thorns general manager Karina LaBlanc told ESPN. “I mean, the players love him, the community loves him, the fans love him, the staff love him. But in the beginning, I said to him, ‘Make this [decision] hard on us.'”
Gale did that. He took over a winless Thorns team and has guided Portland to an 8-2-2 record since. The Thorns sit fifth in the National Women’s Soccer League table at the league’s extended summer break from the regular season.
LeBlanc said the global search was done in conjunction with a reputable talent identification company that she declined to name.
The long list included a diverse set of candidates from both the men’s and women’s game. It was narrowed to a final three and then again to the final two candidates.
The data — specifics of which LeBlanc declined to share, citing competitive advantages and other open coaching positions within the NWSL — supported the feelings of those around the club that Gale was the “adaptable” coach they needed.
“I’d say, politely, there were things that metrics or data can give you clearer answers for,” LeBlanc said. “And then there’s things that are subjective, and even in the process, even though we know Rob, he still had to do some tests along the way — situational tests.”
Gale was on vacation with his family in Greece during the NWSL’s mandated week off when his phone showed a message from LeBlanc saying that they wanted Gale to continue full-time.
“It’s exciting; it’s humbling when you find out,” Gale told ESPN. “Very honored. Proud moment for me and my family, the people who supported me, the people who make sacrifices all through your life for you to do what you do and be able to do a job that we love, and it’s a reward for that and all their hard work, just as much as it is for me.”
It has been a year of change for the Thorns on and off the field. The $63 million sale of the team to the Bhathal family, led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and brother, Alex Bahthal, began an ongoing uncoupling process of the Thorns franchise from the Portland Timbers, the MLS club it had shared ownership with since the NWSL’s inauguration in 2013.
Portland started the season with three losses and a draw while conceding 10 goals before former head coach Mike Norris was reassigned to a newly created technical director position.
The Thorns seek to return to the top of the NWSL after winning the 2022 NWSL Championship, their third league title.
There have been bumps along the way. They lost out on the NWSL Shield on the final day of two successive seasons in 2022 and 2023 after entering the final weekend in first place each time.
Rhian Wilkinson guided the team to that 2022 title and resigned a few weeks later following a league investigation into a potential relationship with a player. Wilkinson was cleared of wrongdoing, but she lost the locker room by her own admission. Norris, who was Wilkinson’s assistant, was hired in late 2022 following major player support for the move.
Players wanted continuity, multiple sources said at the time. Gale was brought in by Norris ahead of the 2023 season as an assistant. Gale later revealed that a few weeks after arriving in Portland, he was diagnosed with cancer in his throat.
He had arrived in Portland without his family, and he relied on the help of others within the organization who were more settled, including Norris’ family, to take care of him during that time, which required surgery on his throat.
He was cancer-free and returned to the sidelines later in 2023.
“That all sort of hit me when the job got offered to me,” Gale said this week. “These people really helped me and my family through that and connected us all over the world and helped me get back on my feet. This is my opportunity, hopefully, to give back to those people, to this organization. The Bhathal-Merage family has been unbelievable to me.”
LeBlanc told ESPN that the Thorns’ captains, who include veteran United States center-back Becky Sauerbrunn, expressed their support of the hiring of Gale prior to the final decision.
The next steps, Gale said, are about a “natural evolution” of the squad to “continue to get younger and hungrier.”
He hopes to add further sophistication to a talented Thorns squad in a rapidly evolving NWSL.
He will do so with the backing of a new ownership group that has committed to, among other things, building the team its own training facility.
“The players have been phenomenal,” Gale said. “The staff has been fantastic for me. The fans have been so kind and supportive and connected with me, that you have the advantages of that, but you also need to make sure that the vision and the Bhathal family’s vision for the brand and the objectives and the goals going forward are aligned. It’s that process of marrying the day to day and trying to think ahead and see where the tactical and technical evolution of the team can continue.”