2025 nwsl season preview: the playoff hopefuls

Finally, the 2025 NWSL season is nigh upon us. To make sure we’re all ready for another season of the most chaotic league in woso, I’m previewing every team. I’ve broken them into three groups, the teams that didn’t make the playoffs in 2024 (the playoff hopefuls), the bottom four playoff teams (y’all made it, now what), and top 4 (girl who is going to be ok). In each I’ll recap key losses and additions, a first-year player to watch, and project a breakout star from each squad.

To start I’m going to the bottom of the table to hang out with the cellar dwelling disappointments of 2024. These teams not only missed the playoffs, each had varied bouts of unseriousness that kept them on the outside looking in. But 2025 is a new year and we’ve seen multiple teams drastically change their fortunes in a single offseason. Some clubs made this their clear objective over the break. Others? Not quite.

The 2024 Houston Dash were more soap opera than footballing institution and that had nothing to do with the players. The front office was a mess and engaging in its own season of Survivor, while their head coach was around for just 141 days before straight up disappearing. No one in the aforementioned Real World/Road Rules Challenge ass front office provided clarity for months—when they finally announced they’d parted ways. (Obviously, thank you so much.) Amongst all that, someone decided that a then 33-year-old (now 34) Ramona Bachmann could solve on-pitch problems they were having in 2024, but also 2025 and 2026. Ok.

Now the Dash have a new coach and, crucially, are keenly aware of his whereabouts. He’s also been in the league as an assistant for a while and is therefore unlikely to disappear. If for some reason he does, he’s Morgan Gautrat’s husband so they can probably just ask her to drop a pin. This is improvement. But beyond that the Dash have been one of the most motivated teams this offseason, making solid moves to rebuild and be serious. The rebuild isn’t complete, but it’s moving in the right direction, and the team should be fun.

First Year Player to Watch: Maggie Graham
You may be thinking ‘wow André a former 2024 MAC Hermann trophy finalist might be good at soccer’ but I assure you this selection by me is even worse than that, because she’s the only first-year player on the Dash’s roster so far.

Graham’s last year at Duke was her best, scoring 14 goals and adding 5 assists in 22 starts. I’m not great at math but 14 plus 5 is 19 and that’s not far away from 22, so on a per 90’ish basis, that seems good. Even better is that she piled up these goal contributions in 12 of 22 games, which included huge performances against UNC, Clemson and Stanford (hatty + assist).

2025 Breakout Star: Bárbara Olivieri
Is this cheating? Maybe. Olivieri had an absurd end to last season. She put up numbers that would have been among the NWSL’s best if she’d found and maintained that level earlier in the year, so I’m not exactly being bold here. And that’s fine, learn to prioritize safety in 2025, kings. Seriously though, her numbers after the summer break were wildly impressive.

There should be several more distractions on the pitch, which could provide Olivieri more opportunities, space and 1v1 moments, to cook. I expect Michelin stars.

Prediction: 8th
Last in the league naturally leaves plenty room for improvement, like, simply not being last again. Thankfully Houston finally seem to be quite serious and have moved this offseason like they want more than just avoiding the bottom spot. Unfortunately for them, even if every move they’ve made works out to the maximum of its potential, this era of the NWSL is unlikely to yield another worst-to-first turnaround.

But Dash fans shouldn’t be discouraged. Their team is more talented than last year’s iteration so they should immediately be more competitive, and even capable of entertaining (depending on opponent). The playoffs would be a massive step but given the work they’ve accomplished this offseason, I think it’s a target within reach. And assuming this offseason’s seriousness is sustainable and not just some panicked digging out of a hole, the future is exciting.

The Reign were one of the league’s biggest disappointments last year. This happened for several reasons, and most relate to a delayed sale of the club keeping them in limbo for an offseason of roster building. But also, a shift in the tactical direction of the league seemed to catch longtime coach Laura Harvey out. The same happened to Mark Parsons and Casey Stoney, and the latter two are no longer coaching in the league (one was due more to the unserious cruelty of Jill Ellis, which we’ll get to later). This will be a year for Harvey to show that she can adapt a team to be competitive in this era of the NWSL.

A good start has been to add lots of speed around her 30+ midfielders. Lynn Biyendolo is the obvious zoom zoom, but rookie Maddie Dahlien also has jets in her boots. Along with Nérilia Mondésir (who should’ve started more games last year), the Reign finally have pieces that can cause consistent problems from open play. When runs are being made and angles open up, Ji So-yun is still one of the sharpest passers in the game.

First Year Player to Watch: Maddie Dahlien
Vroom, vroom. Dahlien is a very fun attacking player who already possesses the speed to be dangerous in this league. She’s also very skilled at when and how to use that speed in a pressing system. Angel City already found this out the hard way in preseason, and I predict it won’t be the last time Dahlien scores a goal like that.

2025 Breakout Star: Sam Meza
I really thought Meza’s first year as a pro was gonna be worthy of Rookie of the Year consideration. I was wrong. It’s fine, progress isn’t linear. Instead, she spent most of 2024 year on loan with Dallas Trinity, where she did plenty of cooking. Now that she’s adjusted to a professional level, and Seattle has improved their squad, I’m hoping to see the Meza I was looking for in 2024.

Prediction: 10th
Seattle will have a more promising year but I’m still worried about the lack of speed in midfield, particularly defensively. Jordyn Bugg was close to being my pick for breakout star this year, but in 2024 the Reign allowed the most goals in the league. Barring any late additions to the squad, I don’t think they’ve done enough defensively to turn that around just yet.

R.I.P. Tweedaissance (2023-2024). To be upfront, I was one of those who wanted her to get the job full time. The team looked like it was having fun and playing with more joy after the yeeting of Freya Coombe. Angel City lost 5 of 6 before Coombe was let go, then Tweed led them through a run of eleven consecutive games (in all competitions) without a loss. The vibes seemed to have improved a hundred million-fold.

Then the offseason happened. I dunno what Tweed did in the offseason between 2023 and 2024 but I wouldn’t recommend it. Someone or something forced her to undergo a vibutation, vibectomy, and complete vibe removal all at once. It was unideal, and led to them team losing half their games last season. That squad is much too talented for that kind of carrying on. Rediscovering joy and seriousness in 2025 is a must.

Unfortunately, they still don’t have a coach, so the seriousness part is off to a bad start. Evidently new Sporting Director and former NWSL head coach (and NWSL Champion), Mark Parsons, has said a coach will be coming in the middle of the season, but didn’t divulge whomst that might be. Luckily for L.A. fans, it doesn’t seem to be the recently fired Gareth Taylor. Breathe.

First Year Player to Watch: Macey Hodge
Without knowing the coach it’s hard to predict a lot with Angel City. But no matter who it is (/knocks on wood, crosses fingers, eats Lucky Charms™), the midfield should be better, primarily because they’ve finally expanded the profiles among their midfielders. Hodge is a tough, mobile defensive midfielder who could excel at being a base the rest of the midfield and attack can build from. If Hodge adjusts well to the league, she’ll free up Katie Zelem to do the passing stuff she’s good at, and Kennedy Fuller to do the final third wickedness she’s good at. Speaking of…

2025 Breakout Star: Kennedy Fuller
Again, the coach caveat applies, but I’m still intrigued. Fuller’s struggles last year were largely because of Becki Tweed’s poor attacking and midfield setups, which often had clusters of players hanging out around the center circle without clearly defined roles. If Fuller is allowed the space and freedom to cook, she can have a Claire Hutton-esque season in which a solid team relies on consistent, quality production from a teenager—and it works.

Prediction: 9th
I won’t be chiseling this prediction onto a stone tablet because, again, coach. Last year a coach arrived at a new team in the middle of a season and led their team to the NWSL Championship match, but that was Jona Giráldez and the Spirit were intentional about putting a liaison in place as an interim. Instead, Angel City is going with Sam Laity until the new coach arrives. Laity’s stint with the Houston Dash was incredibly uninspiring, so hopefully he has some better ideas this time around.

If Utah begun their reentry into the NWSL as seriously as they suddenly started taking it five months and several losses in, they would have been a playoff team. I will never understand the decisions they made to start the season. It’s as if the front office woke up one morning, collectively slapped their foreheads, and yelped ‘Players!’, and seconds later, ‘Omg, a coach too!’.

Whatever, they’re cooking now (aside from that damn shirt sponsor). They’ve successfully recruited several fun players from overseas or across the border, which is a thing that I would not have predicted. No shade to Utah, I hear it’s beautiful, but I never assumed it’d be a destination for such a wide range of international talent. Though making them all wear ‘America First’ on their shirts is very stupid and kind of appalling.

Anyway, I am deeply fascinated by Utah’s squad. They enhanced the quality of their XI and added depth, and seem to have a good mix of established veteran talent and young dynamos eager to become household names.

First Year Player to Watch: Aisha Solórzano
You may remember Solórzano from such hits as scoring against everybody in the NWSL x Liga MXF Summer Cup. She cut up expeditiously and I’m glad an NWSL team brought her into the league. Last season Utah struggled to find a consistent 9, and often relied on Hannah Betfort, who scored just two goals all year. With a full season of Mina Tanaka (2025 SheBelieves Cup MVP), and now Solórzano added, Utah has multiple options to upgrade that position.

2025 Breakout Star: Ana Tejada
After the summer break Tejada was bumped out of central defense and into central midfield, where she proceeded to cut tf up.

With these defensive numbers I dunno why anyone thought central defense was her calling, but thankfully it didn’t last. Assuming Utah aren’t goofy enough to drop her back into defense for 2025, expect her to grow into one of the best passing midfielders in the league.

Prediction: 6th
The start to Utah’s reincarnation in the NWSL will always confound me. Since, they’ve moved like a completely different team; one with ambition, keen scouting, and a recruitment team that can sell living in Utah to multiple international players. That’s given them a talented and competitive team that shouldn’t have much of a problem making the playoffs in 2025.

Jill Ellis is finally out of the paint, but she left a trail of madness and lawsuits behind her—and also Camille Ashton. I pretty much dislike everything San Diego has done since firing Casey Stoney (which was some outrageous and truly egregious shit). It’s not unreasonable to think all the instability and toxicity played a role in star talents Naomi Girma and Jaedyn Shaw requesting exits from San Diego, and leaving this offseason.

It’s really annoying because Stoney was a solid coach and important figure in woso. Doing her as dirty as Ellis did her is embarrassing, and puts a stain on the league. A team in San Diego moving like this is not only disgusting, but the epitome of hustling backwards. It was a destination city with fun branding and a head coach known for building teams from scratch and improving players.

Toxic people don’t often use logic when deploying their toxicity, so instead one of the best markets in the NWSL has been turned into the league’s primary source of billable hours. Cool.

First Year Player to Watch: Trinity Armstrong
Armstrong is a 17-year-old defensive prodigy who spent one season at UNC then decided to go pro. Last year she played every available minute at the U17 World Cup, and a fun thing that her Wikipedia page reports is that UNC went 3-3 in her absence, and were 19-2 with her. That could be a quirk, or something more meaningful. Let’s find out together.

2025 Breakout Star: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ain’t even trying to be mean there’s just a lot of random in how this squad was constructed. They focused on signing young players and internationals, two groups who are probably unlikely to have heard about all of San Diego’s bullshit. I hope none of them experience it, and I hope Jonas learned several lessons en route to California. But this squad looks nothing like his Arsenal squad, and will also look nothing like San Diego’s 2024 squad, where Naomi Girma and Jaedyn Shaw were elite talents to lean on.

Prediction: 13th
This club is committed to doing several things I hate. Firing Casey Stoney was dumb and I hate that they did it. Firing her while she was out of the country attending a funeral, leaving her entire family unable to get back into the U.S., was supervillain shit, and I hate that they did it. Pissing off Naomi Girma and Jaedyn Shaw sucks, and I hate that they did it. Hiring Jonas Eidevall, whose players were actively annoyed by him at the end of his Arsenal tenure, is not how you beat the toxic allegations, and I hate that they did that too.

Unfortunately I’m not sure what head coach Bev Yanez has been up to. In a crucial stretch last year she moved Savannah DeMelo out of midfield and onto the wing, which demoted Emma Sears—who earned callups to the USWNT during her rookie year—to super sub. That ain’t it.

Also, trades to presumably chase a playoff spot by bringing in Bethany Balcer and Janine Sonis (née Beckie) didn’t make much sense and ultimately made the team less cohesive. This screams of either inexperience and a lot of front office pressure put on Yanez, or a front office making personnel decisions without collaborating with the person who has to fit them all into a coherent system.

Either way, this offseason hasn’t been spectacular either. In fact, it’s been quite dull. Louisville’s transactions page on Spotrac reveals a startling lack of movement, which is not how you move up the table when teams around you are improving. The only new faces will be four rookies, and two are only signed to one-year contracts. Oof.

First Year Player to Watch: Ella Hase
Hase had a respectably productive final two years at Northwestern, with 14 goals and 10 assists in 41 starts. She transferred to Duke for her last year of college and scored just three goals in twenty-one starts—but dropped thirteen (13!) assists! If that’s indicative of how she behaves with improved talent around her, she could have a fun first year.

2025 Breakout Star: Sarah Weber
At Nebraska, Weber scored 43 goals and dropped sixteen assists in 78 starts. That’s: goodT. Weber played as a forward and midfielder in college (fwiw she’s listed as a forward on Rahsing’s roster page), so there should be an opening for her to grab a significant amount of minutes since the only attacking starters in pen should be Savannah DeMelo and Emma Sears.

Prediction: 14th
The NWSL is in an era where you have to invest in some area to continue to compete. You can scrap for the highest caliber free agents, invest in elite level coaching, and/or establish a top tier scouting department who can find potential gems around the world. So far it doesn’t look like Louisville has done any of that. If the majority of your direct competitors are being ambitious and you’re standing still, you’re actually moving backwards.