The Portland Thorns will be without their U.S. Women's National Team stars for the entire month of July.

The USWNT, which is expected to announce its 18-player roster for the Rio Olympics this week, will open camp ahead of the Olympic Games on July 1.

"Obviously, I think it's a bummer for us because we want to play with our club teams," U.S. Women's National Team and Thorns midfielder Tobin Heath said. "Especially for me here in Portland, it's a joy for me to play here. I love it. So, in that way, I'm kind of bummed about it, but obviously our focus has to be on the Olympics and our preparation and making sure we're great for that. Obviously, when we come back in with the NWSL, we'll be ready to rock."

The Thorns knew ahead of the 2016 season that they would be losing their USWNT players for much of July and the league decided to take the entire month of August off to accommodate the Olympic Games.

But the Thorns and other NWSL teams didn't know until recently that they would be losing their USWNT players this early.

Eight of the ten teams in the NWSL have games on either July 1 or 2. The league could have possibly moved those games up had they known from the get-go that the USWNT players would be leaving at the start of July. The Thorns play Sky Blue on July 2.

"You got to respect that the national team have to have a preparation," Thorns coach Mark Parsons said. "I feel that if we knew those dates as a club and league, then could we have squeezed in all those games that weekend (of July 1-2), could we just put them midweek somewhere else? If we could have done that, then we wouldn't be talking about it."

The Thorns play four games in July. The USWNT players will miss all four, while the Thorns are expected to be without their other national team players -- Christine Sinclair (Canada) and Amandine Henry (France) -- for three out of the four games.

Still, Parsons said the team will be ready to deal with the absences.

"We'll be ready to take it on," Parsons said.

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg