Tag: Bella Bixby

Bella Bixby, goalkeeper, turns goalscorer with stunning Portland Thorns equalizer

Goalkeeper goal! This is not a drill!

If you’re a goalkeeper who wants to score a goal in the NWSL, you better figure out how to get a contract with the Portland Thorns.

Bella Bixby did just that late on Saturday, equalizing seven minutes into stoppage time to cap a bonkers 3-3 draw between the Thorns and Angel City FC.

This was a game that had everything, even before Bixby joined Michelle Betos as the only goalkeepers to ever score in NWSL play. Both did so as Thorns players, at Providence Park, in stoppage time.

Alyssa Thompson continued the tremendous start to her first pro season to open the scoring, Olivia Moultrie authored an outrageous assist to set Morgan Weaver up to put Portland ahead, Julie Ertz scored her first goal since returning to soccer last month, and Angel City were on the verge of a badly-needed win in the league’s toughest venue, against the league’s defending champions.

And then, on top of that, a goalkeeper goal to equalize in the dying moments.

With the Thorns looking for someone, anyone to score, Sam Coffey floated a stoppage-time corner towards the back post. Unfortunately for Portland, it looked like Angel City goalkeeper DiDi Haracic had a bead on it. However, as Haracic caught the ball, she also began falling backwards, tumbling into teammates Katie Johnson, Clarisse Le Bihan, and Portland duo Kelly Hubly and Adriana Leon.

Somewhere in the mix, the ball came loose. Even in the world of goalkeeper goals, Bixby’s was outlandish. We’ve seen diving headers like the one Betos scored back in 2015, or long-range goal kicks taking a funny hop, or a simple side-foot shot from a foot off the goal line amid a scramble.

The rarest goalkeeper goal might just be a heel-flick, like the one Bixby produced.

Bixby told reporters that her thought process going forward was to take up a familiar position, standing directly in front of Haracic.

“There are definitely players in this league that are taller than me. Not many, but a few, and it does take some adjustments,” said Bixby, immediately analyzing the goal from the perspective of a goalkeeper, rather than the goalscorer she apparently is. “It’s never easy to have a player parked on you…you try to manage it as best you can. Me knowing that heading is not my strength, that’s where I decided to go.”

Thorns coach Mike Norris pointed out that Bixby did well to both disrupt things for Angel City without getting in the way of Portland’s set piece script.

“It’s more, from a goalkeeper perspective: what is a nuisance?,” said Norris. “She also knows in terms of what we have planned for set plays. So it’s not getting in the way of that, it’s not just about creating chaos… I think Bella adds chaos but didn’t bring chaos to our organization or structure.”

Weaver, with her experience as an NWSL goalscorer, may have had the best summation of the goal

“It was amazing,” said Weaver, laughing at the thought of it. “I loved it. It was hilarious. I was speechless. I looked at Soph [Smith] and I go, ‘Did that just happen?’ and she’s like, ‘What is going on?’ We were just so shocked.”

Watch Bella Bixby go from goalkeeper to goalscorer

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Bella Bixby walks ball into her own goal, but Portland Thorns win anyway

Segra Field was naturally the home for one of the strangest goals of the NWSL season

Bella Bixby has been one of NWSL’s best goalkeepers over the last two seasons, but on Wednesday night she had a moment to forget.

In retrospect, the stage was set early. The Portland Thorns were visiting Segra Field, the NWSL venue most likely to play host to bizarre and inexplicable events, to play the Washington Spirit.

That’s the same Spirit team who seem plagued by an endless stream of oddities in just about every game they play in 2022. And on top of that, in a time-honored tradition for NWSL midweek games, the match was delayed by lightning after ferocious storms swept through the DMV region.

In the 76th minute of a game that up to that point was defined by excellent goalkeeping from both Bixby and Aubrey Kingsbury, the former first got poor contact on an attempted punch from a Spirit corner kick. Washington’s Sam Staab nodded the rebound towards goal, and Bixby recovered to make what appeared to be a clean save.

However, she stumbled amid the crowd of bodies in the goalmouth, and in recovering stepped so far back over the goal line that she carried the ball right in with her, giving the Spirit the unlikeliest of leads.

Bixby tried to recover, tossing the ball back out of the goal, though that just saw Ashley Hatch quickly poke the ball back into the goal to make absolutely sure it was given. NWSL eventually ruled that Bixby had already crossed the line, awarding an own goal.

Still, as the Spirit are in the midst of an absolutely cursed season, the gift that gave them a late lead didn’t hold. Portland produced a stunning comeback, equalizing through Christine Sinclair in the 84th minute and then taking all three points on a Morgan Weaver stoppage time goal.

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