Hello good people,

The good (but for what is to follow: completely disrespectful and unthoughtful) people at American Soccer Analysis jumped into the sports simulation game and developed Road to 75, which has taken over my life. It’s the only such game that I know of that allows you to choose women’s soccer (NWSL) and do the whole spin, pick players, build your team, simulate a season and playoffs thing—and I cannot stop playing it.

So far Adjacent FC and Steward of Capital FC have been locked in a wicked scrap to see who can have the best season and playoffs. Currently, Adjacent FC is winning with this squad.

This game is fun af but also really highlights the random nature of the playoffs and how frustrating it can be to see your team dominate the season then lose the championship match in penalties to Racing Louisville (this legit happened in one sim and I almost dropkicked my laptop). I’m fine, it’s fine. I’m fine.

For extra cruelty, they added a daily game that doesn’t give you any data or re-spins. It’s unkind, but it’s fun (and/or humbling). Anyway, I am both extremely delighted and terribly sorry to have introduced you to this thing, and no I cannot refund any hours lost. Feel free to share your teams with me if you get to 75 or over, I’m fascinated by the thousands and actually probably millions of potential combinations.

Alright, let’s get to the non-simulated woso…

Only one Wednesday night game but it got weird.

Before the next round of games start, catch up on what went down last weekend.

One of the benefits of the NWSL is that a plethora of young players enter the league on a regular basis. However, the high expected chaos (xC) quotient of most games makes it difficult for young players to stand out on a consistent basis—but these five do.

If you read that piece on The Ringer, I am sorry. Read this instead. If you have no idea what I’m talking about because you are not terminally online, I envy you, and read this anyway.

It’s infuriating how a mythical trans athlete has become an entire industry of hate powerful enough to influence elections and dominate conversations around women’s sports.

This is some real ‘we’re all trying to find the guy who did this’ stuff. Blaming any of this on fans, when the owner and front office has refused to contribute the investment or resources required to compete in this NWSL, is pure clownery. In this he also boasts about attendance at Louisville City games, the USL men’s team that shares the stadium with Racing.

I’m confident it wouldn’t require too many PowerPoint slides comparing marketing investment and community outreach per team. Louisville City is currently fourth on the table, after topping it in back to back season in 2024 and 2025. I would love for this man to look me in my eyes and tell me the investment into each team is exactly the same.

Ted Lasso inspires a lot of feelings among the soccer sicko fanbase and also the casual viewer fanbase, and that’s fine. If you love it, I get it, when it started it was different than almost everything else in popular TV. If you hate it, I get it, the schtick was literally born out of a comedy sketch that was never written with the intent of full episodes let alone seasons.

But now that the new season has pivoted from men’s soccer to the women’s game, some people with chronic marketing brain syndrome cannot help but overplay its importance. And, le sigh.

I really want people in women’s soccer who love soccer. It’s the most popular sport in the world, I promise the soccer is and will be enough. Yet statements like these—this one made by a co-owner of a club that currently employs the best goalscorer in the world—are infuriating because they squash the product that is the soccer into something that needs validation from a made up TV character with a mustache.

Annie, Ella & I are back as a trio After catching up, we dive into assessing the Spirit's performance during a jam-packed stretch. We discuss positives and negatives, then dive into a WAFCON update.

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Black kids dressing up as Spider-Man is a guaranteed way to get my eyes misty.