2025 nwsl season preview: y'all made it, now what

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, but 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.

These teams were able to secure playoff spots but were double digit point totals away from the top-4. Some of these teams took that personally, and made it their business to close the gap this offseason. Others chose to moonwalk down the table.

What’s the point of having Ricketts Money if they don’t spend it? To be fair, there are major logistical things Chicago needed to figure out. Like getting the team out of Bridgeview and closer to the actual city of Chicago, plus becoming their training facility’s primary tenant. But you can’t just wait for all the puzzle pieces to be assembled before deciding to field a competitive squad. At the very least that’s unfair to the players and coaches currently being asked to use up portions of their career hanging out in soccer purgatory. Unfortunately, as of right now, that seems to be the approach this season.

First Year Player to Watch: Micayla Johnson
Well this is by default, because as of right now she’s the only first year pro on the team. But she’s a U18 player with a lot of talent and promise. Not sure what Chicago will look like on the pitch, so this could be a scenario where she doesn’t shine until either she or the (Red) Stars are in a better situation. Eventually, though, she will shine. They’d be smart to make sure it’s with them.

2025 Breakout Star: Jameese Joseph
It’s possible many consider her rookie season to have been her breakout year, with it earning her a callup to Emma Hayes’ Futures Camp in January. But I think there’s more to come from Joseph. With Swanson sidelined she’s going to have a lot of responsibility, and she demonstrated last year that she has enough xDawg to welcome the challenge.

Prediction: 12th
I’m worried about this team. This was not what I expected when this ownership took over, and it’s quite unfortunate. Several teams below them have had quality offseasons, where Chicago has largely stagnated.

The new owners spent money on a rebrand that whittled away their iconic connection to the city’s imagery, and now seem poised to field a team that isn’t likely to repeat as a playoff team. If that happens, questions will need to be asked of ownership, particularly if they try to pin poor results on head coach Lorne Donaldson.

Bay went anti-Utah to start their inaugural season, breaking records to snap up big name talents. Until Naomi Girma’s signing at Chelsea, Bay FC held the record for doling out the highest transfer fee to bring in Racheal Kundananji. They also added Asisat Oshoala, and Deyna Castellanos. They also might’ve done too much.

It was a struggle early on trying to fit their pieces together, and by the midway point of the season they’d shifted tactics completely. That left Castellanos out of the squad, and Bay abandoning their effort to be Bay Area Barcelona to instead go vroom, which allowed Kundananji to cook expeditiously.

First Year Player to Watch: Taylor Huff
Now that Bay seem to know the type of pieces they need, they’ve been a lot less chaotic and headline-grabby in the leadup to this season. That doesn’t mean they haven’t been putting in work, and signing Taylor Huff is evidence of that. If the draft still existed (glad it doesn’t, stay six-feet under tysm), Huff would have been a top-5 pick.

She’s a versatile attack-minded player who can drop deeper and hit line breaking throughballs, or lurk around the final third to create shots for teammates or score herself. Also, she’s a low sock baller, and you can never have enough of those.

2025 Breakout Star: Hannah Bebar
Hopefully USWNT head coach Emma Hayes choosing to replace an injured Lynn Biyendolo with Hannah Bebar let people know about the talent and promise she possesses. Bebar cooked in midfield for Harvard, then Duke, so she real smart, but also really damn good. Bay needed to strengthen their midfield and with Huff and Bebar they have two of the brightest collegiate prospects, and likely future USWNT mainstays.

Prediction: 5th
Bay were a bit of a mess for the first half of their first season in the NWSL, but figured a lot of things out and got a lot right in the second half. They came extremely close to knocking Washington Spirit out of the playoffs at Audi, so didn’t need to do an overhaul, just a refinement. They seem to have done just that, and if they pickup where they left off, they’ll easily nab a playoff spot. And if things go really well they could even host a playoff game. (This all assumes the investigation into Albertin Montoya is resolved in a way that’s satisfactory for the players.)

Unfortunately pain caves and a nagging ankle injury gave the Thorns a glimpse at what being The Fighting Sophia Wilsons (née Smiths) would look like without a fully fit, ever available, and completely dominant Sophia Wilson. It weren’t good. The Thorns lost 7 of their last 10 regular season games, managed to back into the playoffs, and lost 2-1 to Gotham.

The Gotham result isn’t terrible, but the season was very ungood overall. Now, they’ll have an entire season without Sophia Wilson, who recently announced her pregnancy. A big problem Portland had was a few too similar profiles in midfield, a leaky defense, and below average goalkeeper. As of right now, it seems like they still have all three. oof.

First Year Player to Watch: Pietra Tordin
Tordin was very fun to watch at the U20 Women’s World Cup last summer, and tore the Ivy Leagues up in three seasons at Princeton. She had 34 starts, scored 30 goals, and added 11 assists. She’s a real hooper. It may take a minute to adjust to the NWSL, and Portland aren’t necessarily setup to help a first year player cook, but Tordin is too talented to not have several standout moments this season.

2025 Biggest Question Mark: Deyna Castellanos
It hurt my heart to change ‘Breakout Star’ to ‘Biggest Question Mark’ but it had to be done. Castellanos has struggled in multiple stops now in her career, and I’m quite skeptical about this move as well. Reports from preseason are that she’s been moved to central striker, which makes some sense with Wilson will be out for the season. That’s not Castellanos’ best position, but it might be the best one to let her focus solely on doing the stuff she does best, particularly in this league.

Figuring out how to be effective in the NWSL is not easy, especially when 1v1 dribbling or top end speed aren’t part of your game. Getting Castellanos into pockets off space as a false 9 could work, but Portland will have to surround her with box crashers out wide. With Morgan Weaver also out for the season, that gets tough. They recently signed the very direct and fun former Wake Forest standout, Caiya Hanks, who could fill this role. Castellanos is only 25, but it feels like this move has to work if she’s ever going to get back to her best self.

Prediction: 11th
Oh dear. I’m gonna be honest, this wasn’t much higher before the news of Sophia Wilson’s pregnancy. I don’t see a tremendous attempt to improve the defense, and the midfield profiles have largely remained the same, which was a contributing factor to a lot of the teams struggles in attack and defense. There have been a handful of interesting additions this offseason but it feels like there’s a narrow window in which to align the team’s talents in a consistently successful way, and I’m not confident Rob Gale is yet the caliber of head coach who can find it.

Losing Narumi Miura from your midfield sounds like a very worst case scenario for most teams, but this might actually work for North Carolina. Their problem was always getting bogged down, and while that wasn’t Narumi’s fault, it may have signaled that two defensive midfielders and a dribbly 10 meant there wasn’t a natural way to get the ball forward by passing. Adding one of the best central passers in the game, Jaedyn Shaw, changes that.

Shaw managed to put up positive goals added (g+) numbers across every category in a pretty shitty year in San Diego overall. She is that damn good, yes already. I have no idea if Nahas is bonkers enough to start Jaedyn Shaw and Ashley Sanchez together in midfield, but I so hope he is. Defensively it’d put a lot of strain on Denise O’Sullivan, but she’s one of the best in the league at the position, and they need to score some dang goals. Nothing would please me more than this Courage team adopting the vroom this season.

First Year Player to Watch: Brooklyn Courtnall
Courtnall is here by default but also because I’m very interested in how she can adapt in the NWSL, and into North Carolina’s style. The Courage added Maycee Bell last year, and if Nahas can get Bell and Courtnall comfortable in the team and performing well in the NWSL, they could have half their backline sorted for the next decade.

2025 Breakout Star: Cortnee Vine
Coming into any new league in the middle of their season is a tough thing to do. Vine also seemed to need a bit of extra time to settle and adapt, and I like that she turned down a national team callup to focus on herself and her mental health. If she’s prepared to start the season, she can be the direct runner Nahas’ attacking scheme needs, and one of Jaedyn Shaw’s favorite targets.

Prediction: 4th
I’m not sure how it will look but the prospect of Jaedyn Shaw and Ashley Sanchez int he same midfield feels diabolical, and I am so here for it. Defensively, North Carolina was one of the best teams in the league last season. They only allowed 28 goals, tied with the Spirit for third best goals against average (Orlando, Kansas City). The Courage’s problems were at the other end of the pitch, where they only scored 34 goals. For context, that’s one more than Rahsing Louisville. Yeah. Adding Jaedyn Shaw should change that, potentially drastically.