As scoring drought worsens, Wave hope for breakthrough in Portland

by Ryan Finley

The last time the San Diego Wave scored a goal, our hotels were charging summer rates.

Del Mar’s horse racing season was in full swing. Mission Beach was crawling with Arizonans. The sun set at 7:32 p.m.

You get the idea. It was summer.

That night, San Diego’s Kenza Dali punched in a 63rd-minute goal in what would be a 2-1 win over Bay FC.

The Wave haven’t won – or scored – since that Aug. 16 match. A 1-0 loss to Racing Louisville was followed by a scoreless draw against the Seattle Reign, a 3-0 loss to the Houston Dash and a 2-0 loss to NJ/NY Gotham FC.

San Diego travels to the Portland Thorns at 7 p.m. Saturday in search of its first goal in 387 soccer minutes and counting — and, it hopes, a way out of what has become a scoring tailspin.

“After our last performances, we are all disappointed,” Wave defender Perle Morroni said Friday. “But the team has been training with intensity and focus this week, so we are determined to show new faces of ourselves, and we are ready to respond.”

The Wave have actually outshot their opponents 66-45 during their four-match winless streak. They have the exact same number of shots on target – 18 – as their opponents during that stretch.

So is it bad strategy? Poor execution? Bad luck?

Wave fans hope it’s not history repeating.

Last year’s club struggled to find the back of the net, with their troubles so pronounced that the team went through three coaches. Their longest scoreless stretch in 2024 was 402 minutes, between midway through a June 19 match and injury time of an Aug. 24 game.

The 2024 team finished well out of the playoff chase, prompting an offseason overhaul.

This year’s Wave remain right in the thick of things. At 8-6-6, they’re tied with three other teams for third place in the National Women’s Soccer League standings. One of those teams is Portland.

The top eight teams in the NWSL standings make the playoffs.

Coach Jonas Eidevall said Friday that the Wave “know it’s a strong opponent.” The Wave and Thorns played to a 1-1 tie at Snapdragon in May, with Portland’s Jayden Perry hitting a penalty kick in stoppage time to pull even.

“We need to match them on their levels and we need to exceed them at some other levels,” Eidevall said, “and then we have a big belief that at any day, we can beat any team in this league.”