2026 nwsl week 2: g+ pass networks & shot charts

The second week of the NWSL kept the chaos going. We had surprise results and performances, a couple teams who suddenly seem rather legit, more red cards, a two foal comeback, and a team who got to play ~fifty minutes up a player, then over a half hour up two players, losing 2-0. This league is wild.

More games are coming Wednesday, so let’s get to a quick review of week 2.

a quick explainer

If you want some deeper info on the nerdery that’s about to follow, I got you. Read and reference this explainer for a breakdown of all the elements on the shot charts and goals added (g+) passing networks I’ll be dropping all season. The good Cata Bush helped bring these to life, and there’s a lot of data captured across the two visualizations.

Week 2

Orlando might not be cliquing in attack just yet but this is still a big dub for Denver. The vibe seems to be: Banda will get hers, just don’t let a multi-goal explosion happen and you’ll have a chance. Banda had the top three highest xG chances, scored one and had the other two saved. I don’t know if that means everything went exactly according to plan for Denver, they needed Abby Smith to play like a maniac and luckily for them she did.

This was Smith’s best performance since coming back from a horrific leg injury. If she’s gonna be That Abby Smith, Denver will have a chance in most games.

Seb, sir, what exactly is happening here. Banda can do everything in attack but that doesn’t mean she should, so I appreciate pushing players up to give her some help, but all that space in midfield is USWNT Vlatko’esque, and that is not a comparison you want.

Anyway, let’s get to Jacquie Ovalle Shots Corner…

Oof.

The Summit weren’t able to truly punish the ocean of space in midfield, and their .58 xG from eight shots is rather stinky. Denver’s Yazmeen Ryan doing work on the right kept the Pride’s wide players, Oihane and Seven Castain, busy and disconnected from the attack. The left side overload didn’t yield much in attack, but worked well enough to keep Orlando’s attack one-dimensional.

Washington had five of the seven good/great shots created in the game, didn’t finish a single one, but still fought back to tie after going down 0-2. The notes from this one are pretty simple: Emma Sears is a Transformer, and Jordyn Bloomer hates to see a Sofia Cantore shot comin.

Soccer, eh?

Taylor Flint dropping between the center backs to form a back three is sort of a new wrinkle. It gives her less lateral space to cover, and narrows the gaps that can be found between center backs. The downside is not really having much of a midfield, but given how Louisville build up—yeet the ball to Sears—that’s a small price to pay.

The Spirit, meanwhile, filled the midfield space with as many bodies as they could. The plotting of fullbacks Gabby Carle and Lucia Di Guglielmo is janky since they swapped sides at halftime. But I like Adrián González having Rose Kouassi and Trinity Rodman play closer to the box. Rose’s 1v1 ability is maximized once she’s in the penalty area, and Rodman functioning as a secondary box crashing target is a fun wrinkle and allows her to have an impact without the ball at her feet.

If you were to ask how the team up a player since the ninth minute, and up two for over a half hour, ended up being the team without any shots near the six yard box and lower xG than their opponent, you would be asking the right questions.

We might need to have a conversation about Jessie Fleming. She once again played a huge role in a massive result for the Thorns, directing traffic as a lone pivot while down a player. The g+ isn’t great, but given the circumstance it was always unlikely to be stellar.

We also might really really gotta talk about Turner & Tordin turning into quite the attacking duo. I love Tordin’s reading of the game and space, and that bright green receiving and passing g+ is an outrageous performance in a team playing with a deficit for 80+ minutes.

This is how to make it easy for a team defending with a numbers disadvantage. Narrow shape, no width, and the final third is lava. I’m not one for reactionary coach firing, but I am saying that if we were a proper footballing country losing 2-0 to your rival when you had a player advantage for over 90% of the match, the takes—and the coach’s seat—would be rotisserie hot.

I really wanted to believe in Boston. It’s only two games so my belief isn’t entirely extinguished, but this was a step backwards from what they showed against Gotham, and is super stinky on both sides of the ball. Houston created all five of the good/great shots in this game, scored twice, had one saved and missed two en route to posting the highest xG of the weekend at 2.42.

Weird part is, I’m not sure Houston played a stellar game. They played a solid mid-block that Boston couldn’t crack in any serious way (11 shots for .49 xG), but Houston found ways to create quality chances without pushing numbers in attack. Some of this is taking advantage of an expansion team’s unfamiliarity, but if Houston can find ways to frequently generate 2-3 quality chances with this approach then at the very least they’ll make themselves very annoying to play against.

Boston already seem to be caught in an identity crisis. Through two games they’ve made themselves pests to play against, racking up 37 fouls committed across both games (17 vs. Houston). But they also seem to wanna play a little Fútbol. In this game they had nearly 60% of possession, kept players close to each other, attempted over 400 passes, completed over 320, but couldn’t even crack .5 xG from eleven shots.

If they wanna Fútbol a little, fine, then they might wanna scrap less. And if they wanna scrap, fine, then they might wanna Fútbol less and get a lot more direct.

For Gotham: No Jaedyn Shaw No Party. For North Carolina: No Matsukubo No Party.

I’ll never claim to fully understand everything Juan Carlos Amorós comes up with, and given results I have learned not to question him and just ride the chaos wave. But I dunno what he thought was gonna happen by playing Katie Lampton (née Stengel), Esther González, and Jordynn Dudley together.

All three are more finisher than they are creator, and 10 shots for .68 xG should have been expected. It would have made a lot more sense to drop one for Sarah Schupansky, who instead never got in the game at all. Weird behavior, sir.

It looks like head coach Mak Lind is happy with most of the ball retention instincts of the squad he inherited, and is only trying to get them to take more risks in possession. I like the idea, and the Courage seem like they’re becoming a more fun team because of it, but without a goalscorer a lot of this looks familiar (derogatory). On a positive note, Manaka Matsukubo should be back from the Asian Cup soon, and with a major tournament winners’ glow up.

Angel City: Fury Road.

I’m sorta sad that we won’t get to see this version of Angel City with Alyssa Thompson, but this is the vroom vroomin I always thought they were capable of. Bay had no answers and Angel City created all six of the good/great shots in the game, and scored half of them. Shee—he continued—eesh.

Bay were entirely flummoxed by Angel City and had no idea how to slow them down. They also couldn’t find each other in the attacking half, completing fewer than 100 passes on that side of the pitch, despite having several players’ average position above the halfway line. That’s a recipe for losing the ball and finding yourself chasing players running onto passes in the channels.

I dunno if I’ve ever seen so many attacking options with bright green passing and receiving g+. They found good spaces to receive passes and connected well with each other. If this keeps up Angel City might finally have the team everyone expected to fear when they first entered the league.

SoccerDonna might have to double Huitema’s market value.

Ok but for serious, I know Temwa Chawinga is still out but the Current’s attack is still all-star level, so it’s wild to see that two of the top three good/great shots were created (and scored) by Chicago. Haley Hopkins buried the best one of the game, but she and Michelle Cooper missed the other two.

I don’t think Chicago has the talent or finishers to frequently go 2/2 on good/great shots created and scored, but they did it once to one of the best teams in the league (talent-wise) and already have 15% of their points total from last season (oof).

Chicago didn’t create much with the ball—just four shots—but managed to hold onto it for 50% of the possession. From there it was all about trying to stop Kansas City from connecting in the final third. Beyond scoring a goal, rookie Tessa Dellarose had an immense day at being a straight up pest.

Dellarose’s defensive numbers don’t scream dominance, but she had three tackles, three clearances, and was only dribbled past once. Given that she had to frequently cope with Ellie Bravo-Young, Debinha and Michelle Cooper, that’s a quality shift.

The Current are having a fairly serious accuracy problem and it’s ruining their chances of capitalizing on their absurd collection of attacking talents. In this match they had a super stinky 67% pass completion rate. The xG is still high, and you’d expect another goal or two on a normal day (especially once Chawinga returns), but this pass network is full of weird spacing and missed connections (not the cute kind, either).

Utah looked to be on their way to a solid point earned from a surprisingly effective bit of fighting back in the second half, and then they Utah’d. Tatumn Milazzo got a second yellow in the 83rd minute, and five minutes later Lia Godfrey had the ball in the net for San Diego.

Delzer will be frustrated about missing the best chance of the match, and it’s rather unfortunate too, cause she was out there hoopin.

Utah straight up refused to let San Diego play their high-possession, quick passing game. They stayed disciplined in and out of possession, which is why you can see their 4231 shape in the passing network.

They didn’t take a ton of risks and declined to commit numbers in attack, but the positive was that San Diego struggled to pull them apart or find space to play through in transition. Instead, Utah held the possession advantage 53/47, racked up 22 tackles, 22 clearances, and 20 interceptions.

This was all quite the shock for San Diego, who had 70% of the ball against Houston last week, with 83% pass accuracy on 521 completed passes. All those numbers fell against Utah. The Wavé had 47% of the ball, and completed just 276 passes at a 74% accuracy rate.

Fortunately for San Diego, they were spared the full frustration of what was happening to them. Utah gifted them a goal with some prime foolishness playing out of the back, then the Wavé capitalized on being gifted a player advantage late in the game. It’s a dub in the end, but it wasn’t at all the way the Wavé Fútbol Club want to play. ◼︎

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