How the Thorns can get Deyna Castellanos back to her goalscoring ways

Recent evidence may indicate otherwise, but Deyna Castellanos is a goalscorer. During her college years with Florida State, she averaged a goal every 1.7 games. After turning professional with Atletico Madrid, she hit the net once every 2.7 games.

Since then, though, her numbers have dropped off a cliff. She scored once every 7.2 outings for Manchester City, and last year she averaged one every 10.5 appearances for Bay FC.

At her very best, Castellanos makes ghosting runs in behind defenses. She combines speed with cunning, that old saying of a player with a ‘nose for goal’ applies well to the 25-year-old. She is at her best facing play, and has a sense of the attack unfolding around her. On top of all that, she strikes the ball well. Her compatriot and Venezuelan soccer legend Juan Arango once said that “there aren’t many players who can score the goals she does.”

Yet, in recent years, this former sharp-shooter has a hit rate that would resonate more with a moderate midfielder. After a disappointing campaign with Bay, Castellanos is on the move again in 2025, where she will play for the Portland Thorns. Can she find her footing with Portland? And how can the franchise help bring out the talent in the recently-underperforming forward?

Upon the expiration of her contract with Atletico in 2022, Castellanos moved to Manchester City. It felt like a natural progression, an ambitious player joining an ambitious club, looking to take her game to the next level. In Madrid, she reveled leading the line or as a ‘shadow striker’ underneath the primary attacking focal point. But with Manchester City, she was shunted into a less familiar, deeper position. It was rainier in Manchester, but the goals dried up.

This isn’t a story unique to Castellanos. Other players of similar ilk have moved to Manchester City only to see their careers stagnate within the club’s rigid devotion to a 4-3-3, and its preference for prescriptive tactics over actual talent. United States midfielder Rose Lavelle kicked her heels on City’s bench more often than not, her creativity stifled. England international Georgia Stanway took every position available in pursuit of minutes before leaving for Bayern Munich and reasserting herself as one of Europe’s best midfielders.

The real missed opportunity here was that Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor failed to recognize the potential of Castellanos alongside Khadija Shaw as a strike partnership. One of the five goals Castellanos scored during her stay in Manchester showed what might have been had Taylor and City been more open-minded. In a 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, Shaw received and the defenders focused on her, Castellanos sneaked in behind, Shaw picked her out, Castellanos finished.

Strike partnerships aren’t in fashion at Manchester City. Then again, they aren’t in fashion — full stop. More and more, teams want to control possession and control the game, and that requires three midfielders at a minimum. Usually, the sacrifice made for that extra midfielder is one less attacker. The old big player/little player, target/runner combination is no longer visible at the highest echelons of the game, and equally rare are the synergies formed when two strikers have a deep mutual understanding.

In the National Women’s Soccer League in 2024, for instance, nobody committed to a strike partnership week-in, week-out. The top three teams — Orlando Pride, Washington Spirit and NJ/NY Gotham — went for lone strikers, usually all-rounder types who cover a lot of ground or who link moves just as well as they can finish them (Ouleymata Sarr being the best example). Kansas City Current tweaked their offensive system to put Temwa Chawinga in more central positions, but hers was a unique case for a unique player, and she still started plenty of games up front on her own.

Increasingly for Castellanos, the consequences of this modern obsession with control are that she is played out of position. This was the case even after leaving Manchester City for Bay FC last year.

In their debut campaign, Bay tried to play a short passing game, with three midfielders. And because they also signed Asisat Oshoala, that meant Castellanos played box-to-box. She scored just two goals — one a scorching, instinctive drive into the top-left corner against Houston Dash — and obviously wasn’t suited to the defensive demands of the role, nor with receiving the ball so deep inside her own half. Again, the idea of a strike partnership of Castellanos and Oshoala remained just that.

In Portland’s announcement of Castellanos’s signing, they mentioned her “lethal offensive threat.” Mere marketing, or an inclination that the Thorns know what they are getting? Time will tell.

Portland tried most formations under the sun last year, but the Thorns typically play a short-passing game, their possession flowing through the midfield probing of Sam Coffey while the fullbacks push on and the wingers drift in. Sophia Wilson (nee Smith) is the star attraction and that has been the case since 2022, when former head coach Rhian Wilkinson ditched the 3-5-2 for a 4-3-3 with Wilson leading the line alone. Suddenly, Portland realized they had a cheat code on their hands, and won the Championship.

It’s possible that Portland utilizes Castellanos as extra ammunition behind Smith, but it’s hard to see a cohesive partnership forming between two players who fundamentally want to run at defenders, and thrive more on hitting space behind than space between lines.

What makes more sense is Olivia Moultrie or Hina Sugita taking the No. 10 role, while Castellanos plays inside-right or -left, similar to the role Morgan Weaver has taken on in recent years, attacking the gap between fullback and centerback, snapping up rebounds and generally enjoying whatever opportunities emanate from the chaos caused by Smith’s one-woman wrecking ball.

Whatever Portland does, it mustn’t involve Castellanos playing box-to-box, or some other deep midfield role. Proven goal-scorers should be signed to score goals. And if they aren’t, something has gone wrong along the way.