2025 nwsl week 26: xG race charts & g+ pass networks

This week the unbeaten streaks of the league’s top two teams were broken, others clinched playoff spots, San Diego hypnotized Chicago, and results left plenty of intrigue for NWSL Decision Day. The Chaos Gods brought us too far to abandon us now.

Here’s what went down…

if you would like an explainer, i got you

I should’ve done this a while ago. Lol. Lmao. My bad. Anyway, it’s here.

Week 26

The Wavé scored early and had an impressive first half, holding the Current to just .18 xG. Then the second half happened.

kansas city current

This represents the first half and shows how much goals and game state can alter a match. The Current never put up a passing network that looks like this. There is literally no one making passes from the center of the pitch. Oof.

san diego wavé

The spacing is nice and expansive, and the passing triangles are there, but you can see the impact of Kansas City’s defense in the thin, light blue passing lines. San Diego completed 442 passes, but 273 of those were in their own half. Vlatko is a demon.

This was the surprise result of the weekend and it’s unfortunate that it didn’t matter much in the end. Also, 3-2 is a scoreline that flatters Gotham, the same way Lavelle’s pen (.76 xG) flatters their 2.29 total xG. North Carolina cooked and should have had more goals. The Bats woke up late to make the match appear far more respectable than it was, but I seent it with mine own eyes — that was stinky from Gotham.

north carolina courage

This gotta be worth at least one Michelin star.

gotham fc

Gotham were weird, like they were going through the motions but at like 3/4 speed. Passes were a second too late or a couple yards too far, and in defense their uncharacteristically late reactions allowed the Courage to repeatedly get the ball exactly where they wanted it.

I dunno if this was a ‘don’t show your cards before the playoffs’ type of game, but if Gotham repeat even 20% of this against Kansas City they will head into the offseason fully wedgied.

This game could have been an email.

utah royals

Utah got to go into the offseason with a dub thanks to the Spirit essentially naming a B team and just trying to make it to the final whistle without an injury. So uh, please clap for Utah I guess.

washington spirit

Sure.

These two will meet again immediately in the playoffs (this Friday!), and with both risk-averse coaches knowing that was a strong possibility, a bland sub 1.0 xG performance from each was to be expected.

But uh also this is just kinda how these two teams play so.

orlando pride

What we’ve come to expect from a Banda’less Orlando Pride, good shape, structure, passing connections and volume on every line except the attack.

seattle reign

You really don’t need ChatGPT to suggest playing like this. Laura Harvey was born in Nuneaton, England, just outside of Birmingham. Diabolical defensive football courses through her veins.

Big Purp came extremely close to becoming Sad Purp. How Did This Happen To You Again Purp. Jet 2 Holiday Purp. Instead Ella Hase scored her first ever regular season goal and they barely survived a Bay team that didn’t really even wanna be there.

rahsing louisville

The funny thing is that bay’s nonchalance functioned as an Uno reverse in that Louisville don’t want the ball but Bay wasn’t really feeling it either. The first half ended with the teams having an even 50/50 split of the ball.

The second half saw Bay play their role and take 60% of the possession, which calmed Louisville down and made them a lot more comfortable.

bay fc

Once again I am asking why it was necessary to drag the team around the country playing hopeless football just so Albertin Montoya wouldn’t have to one day explain the game in his résumé.

Not sure if Chicago or Angel City themselves spoiled the final professional minutes from Christen Press and Ali Riley. I’ve thought about it, considered all angles and perspectives, weighted them properly and came to the conclusion that yes.

chicago tsars

Defense said we’ll stay home y’all go ahead and have a good time, we have peanut butter, fruit rollups and Netflix, go enjoy yourselves.

angel city

Squished.

I dunno y’all, I’m still not seeing it with Alex Straus. If he can’t drastically improve the style of play in the offseason then I dunno, he just might not have the juice, despite his big pants. The one thing this collection of players should always be able to do is have verticality in possession, so how this keeps happening is one of those things that can only be explained by Straus getting his tactics all wrong, or the Lord.

I know I’ve said that Bay, Seattle and the Spirit were just there so they didn’t get fined, but the true ‘I mean I’ll clock in but don’t ask me to do nothin’ award winner was Houston. Sheesh.

portland thorns

A 360° dunk on a Nerf hoop is still a 360° dunk so congrats to Portland I guess.

houston dash

I’m not much of a cruise person but my Mom likes to celebrate achievements so to celebrate graduations and a promotion at her job we went on a family cruise, and I brought along my best friend. This was High School graduation, so we were very young, and still very dumb, despite the piece of paper suggesting we’d spent years learning.

At one of the stops on the cruise we saw a jet-ski rental hut, so of course we plead and eventually got to each hop on one. Jet-skis are, I think, just behind the wheel and sandwiches on the list of humankind’s greatest inventions. We were cackling, weaving about the surface of the ocean and discovering that if we crossed each other’s wake we could get a little air. Then we spotted another cruise ship off in the distance, well beyond the distance from shore that we were told — and agreed — not to be.

We locked eyes, and beelined. The rental guy zoomed after us, blowing a whistle with every breath to try and stop us. Eventually he caught up to us and we had to play it off like we weren’t intending on doing the thing we were very obviously going to do. He made us go back to shore and the fun was over. As we walked through the sand all I could think was ‘Damn, we might’ve made it if we had the jet-ski he was on.’

Anyway, I say this all to say that I’m pretty sure mentally every Dash player was already on a jet-ski. And I also don’t blame them. Mentally, 30% of my existence is spent wanting to be on a jet-ski. It is my sincere hope that they are now on the fastest one available.

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