Portland Thorns forward Christine Sinclair ‘trying to go with the flow’ amid suspended NWSL season

As she waits to find out whether there will be a 2020 NWSL season, Portland Thorns forward Christine Sinclair’s thoughts from day to day probably mirror those of many others when it comes to the prospects for reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“I personally go through one day, I’m like, ‘Yeah, you can see progress is being made and somewhere down the line this is going to happen,’” Sinclair said Tuesday during a conference call with reporters. “And then the next day you’re like, ‘Who are we kidding?’ For me it just depends on the day. I think as a team and as a league, we’re just following the guidelines of experts and we’ll see where that takes us.”

The Thorns took the first step toward reopening this past weekend by allowing players back to Providence Park for voluntary, individual workouts. But many safeguards are in place, and group training is prohibited while the NWSL season remains suspended.

“I still think we have a very long way to go,” said Sinclair, a former University of Portland star. “But yeah, it was a nice changeup, I’m not going to lie, from finding random fields and training in your garage to actually have a world-class pitch to train on and actually get to throw on some Thorns gear.”

The NWSL says on its website it is targeting a late June start to a season that had been scheduled to begin April 18 before the coronavirus scuttled those plans.

The Thorns’ retooled roster includes top NWSL draft picks Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver. Though Sinclair’s interactions with the rookie forwards have been limited to conference calls thus far, she said their maturity has stood out.

“Their soccer knowledge seems top-class,” Sinclair said. “Those for instance are two of the players that, you just wish this season could have gone on normally.”

During the past two months of social isolation, Sinclair said she has rediscovered her love of golf and has been “just trying to go with the flow.”

“It’s been a rollercoaster of a few months, especially with the Olympics and things like that,” she said. “You head into this year with goals and aspirations. You qualify for the Olympics and then all of a sudden they’re postponed. A little bit of a reset in terms of the focus for the year and just trying to make the most of it.”

It was during Team Canada’s Olympic qualifying in January when Sinclair broke Abby Wambach’s record to become the all-time top goal scorer in international soccer. Sinclair now has 186 international goals.

The record was 20 years in the making for Sinclair, now 36, who scored her first international goal at 16.

“I remember scoring my first goal for the national team and I looked at what Mia (Hamm) had at that time — it was like 150-something goals — and two thoughts crossed my mind. ‘I’m going to beat Mia’ was one, and then the next was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a lot of goals. That’s a lot of games and years on the national team, but why not, let’s go for it.’”

Sinclair said the stress of the scoring record had been weighing on her for about a year and a half leading up to breaking it, and that she was grateful to have it behind her. Sinclair’s love and passion for soccer and her desire to win remain, but she said her approach to the game has changed somewhat.

“I think now it’s more about what kind of impact I can have on the next generation, whether it’s like 5- and 6-year-olds that are dreaming and aspiring of one day playing for Canada or playing for the Thorns or just dreaming their crazy, wild dreams — hopefully to be an inspiration for them,” she said. “Because when I was 16 first playing for the national team, I was completely overwhelmed and nervous and just trying to survive. Now it’s probably a little bit more meaningful every time I play for my country.”