the nwsl is so back, let me get you ready for the rest of the season

As far as midseason finales go, the NWSL delivered. The surprising and high-powered top two teams on the table faced off for the first time in what as a wild match. It featured a first half red card, a penalty, the team down to 10 winning, and the losing team’s players and fans taking the loss extraordinarily hard. Like, screenshot-apology-on-social-media hard. Also, Marta unleashed years of frustration all over CPKC Stadium, which was hilarious. It was a time.

With the season ready to roar back—seriously, the first weekend back is filled with banger matchups—let me help get you ready. I’ve split the table into four groups—’Horror Movie Characters’, ‘I Think it Needs…Paprika?’, ‘We’re Trying, Jennifer’, ‘New Squad Who Dis’, and ‘Oof’—and highlighted notable summer signings, and losses. There’s also their current position on the table, record, and next three league games. With only ten games to go there’s not a lot of time to (re)build momentum or consistency, so teams will have to mash the pedal to the floor from the first minute.

Ah, I love this league. Let’s get to it.

Horror Movie Characters
These are teams that have the rest of the league shook. There’s no escaping them, they will be on your schedule, you will have to face them, and it will be terrifying. Things may seem like they’re fine, you may even think that you’ve won and the nightmare villain is buried. Lol. Lmao. There’s a reason there have been seven-hundred Friday the 13th movies.

NJ/NY Gotham
4th (31pts) | 9W 4D 3L | v. Portland, @ Orlando, v. Houston

Incoming: Jess Carter (DEF), Jéssica Silva (FWD)
Outgoing: Maycee Bell (DEF)

Gotham didn’t play fair in free agency and it was delightful to see. They won a championship, and then signed Crystal Dunn, Rose Lavelle, Tierna Davidson and Emily Sonnett. They also haven’t stopped adding talent. Ella Stevens is having a saucy breakout season, Ann-Katrin Berger has been an upgrade in goal, and Jess Carter arrived from Chelsea to add even more solidity to the backline.

All this talent has been placed inside Juan Carlo Amorós’ ‘organized chaos’ style of play. In short, it’s relentless pressing and positional flexibility, and it’s a nightmare to play against. Injuries and several new players forced a slow start to their season, but rocketed up the table by winning six of their eight games leading up to the summer break.

They’ll have to get everyone back on the same page within the ten remaining games, but they’re deep enough to do it, and potentially peak at the right time—just like they did last season.

Kansas City Current
2nd (35pts) | 10W 5D 1L | @ Washington, @ North Carolina, v. Utah

Incoming: Alana Cook (DEF), Hildah Magaia (FWD), Mwanalima Jereko (MID)
Outgoing: Alexa Spaanstra (FWD), Lauren (DEF)

Vlatko took shit personally. I mean, he deserved it, his USWNT were dull, unfun, and tactically lagging. Somehow, his Kansas City Current are fast, fun, brave and dominant. The duality of man, or simply the result of having your reputation dropkicked into a well and being embarrassed.

Temwa Chawinga has also been somewhat of a savior. In her first NWSL season she is a legit MVP candidate because she just straight up cannot be defended. She’s scored twelve goals and delivered five assists in sixteen appearances.

Oh and uh Kansas City also has Vanessa DiBernardo also playing at an MVP level, 18-year-old Claire Hutton bossing midfield (no seriously), second year pro Michelle Cooper showing the talent that made her a second overall draft pick, and oh yeah they have Debinha lol. They’ve only lost one game and took it extremely personally, and while the reaction seemed overdone (and slightly funny), it means that this monster—which scored the most goals in the league before the break—has even more motivation to haunt.

Orlando Pride
1st (38pts) | 11W 5D 0L | @ Houston, v. Gotham, @ Chicago

Incoming: Grace Chanda (MID)*, Carson Pickett (DEF)

It’s such a perfect NWSL story that the Orlando Pride—a franchise known for dysfunction in the front office and, relatedly, failure on the pitch—has transformed into the best and most balanced team in the league. They’re unbeaten and were the only team to beat the Kansas City Current, which they did even after going down a player in the first half.

Barbra Banda is their superstar player and current MVP favorite. Before going to the Olympics and scoring her third hat trick in six Olympic games, she hit the NWSL like a meteor. She missed the first handful of games, then played twelve games in the first part of the season and scored twelve goals and dropped five assists. She has been unreal, and general manager Haley Carter and head coach Seb Hines have done a masterful job at building a team that can maximize a superstar like Banda.

They also have the goat, Marta, plus fellow Brazilian, Adriana, who should have been on the MVP shortlist in 2023. Be afraid. Be shook. Be very afraid and very shook. But also enjoy this team, they’re extremely good, a very fun story, and—I cannot believe I’m saying this given their history, but—should be a model to the rest of the league.

*Unfortunately Chanda was injured during the Olympics and won’t play for Orlando this season. The severity of the injury seems to have been the result of negligence from Zambia’s staff.

I Think it Needs…Paprika?
I suck at cooking. I’m not like ‘set off the smoke detector trying to toast a bagel’ bad, but I can’t do much more than the basics. Spaghetti or pancakes, I got you. Might even get fancy and do french toast. You want lemon butter chicken? Word, let me pull up DoorDash right quick. Essentially my cooking skill is akin to my swimming skill: I can do just enough to not die.

So given all that, this section is labeled as such because paprika feels like the go-to spice for people who don’t know what they’re doing. We do the finger-dip taste test, smack our lips and give a pensive upward gaze as if we’re figuring something out cause that’s what we’ve seen people on TV do, and believe something is missing. In reality, likely several things. But because paprika sounds fancy and has a flavor the most basic of palates can immediately understand, we can’t help ourselves.

Anyway, these teams are missing something and they can’t quite figure it out. If they do they’ll not only be able to rewatch The Bear and feel a new sense of relatability, but also might become very good by season’s end.

North Carolina Courage
6th (25pts) | 8W 1D 7L | @ Seattle, v. KC, @ San Diego

Incoming: Cortnee Vine (FWD), Charlotte McLean (DEF), Aline Gomes (FWD), Maycee Bell (DEF)

North Carolina play a possession-heavy, fun style that’s pretty unique to the league. There’s just ooooooooone teen tiny little itty bitty problem: they don’t score enough dang goals. Their nineteen non-penalty goals are tied for second fewest among teams currently in playoff positions. To be even more accurate, their problem is consistent goalscoring. Prior to the break they endured a six-game stretch in which they scored just a single, solitary, extremely lonely goal.

This problem might be immediately solved if last season’s MVP, Kerolin, will be back on the pitch. There’s good reason to believe that 1) she will be, and 2) she’ll also be back to her devastating self. During the Olympics she scored Brazil’s fourth goal against Spain in incredibly disrespectful fashion, which, hopefully, was a delightful and perfect omen.

I’m also interested in what summer signing Cortnee Vine can do in this style of play. The Courage have a lot of players good at wide play and moving the ball between the lines in midfield but direct vertical threats have been missing. This has led to some predictable play reliant on predictable crosses into predictable areas. With Kerolin, and maybe Vine if she takes to the team and league quickly, they could solve that problem.

Portland Thorns
5th (27pts) | 8W 3D 5L | @ Gotham, v. Bay, @ Spirit

Incoming: Reilyn Turner (FWD), Alexa Spaanstra (FWD), Mackenzie Arnold (GK)
Outgoing: Janine Beckie (FWD)

You could argue that any team with Sophia Smith is already a horror movie character because she’s been unstoppable for multiple seasons now. The reason they’re not is because they have a fairly serious problem: their defending and goalkeeping can be a bit clown shoes-y—particularly against teams in playoff positions. While ‘It’ is terrifying and I am sorry for making you conjure that image or Google it, their clown shoes have been just plain ol’ clown shoes worn by a regular clown trying to make ends meet one nose honk at a time.

In matchups against the rest of the top-8 teams Portland has won four and lost five, which isn’t great but not terrible. The problem comes in looking at the goals they’ve conceded. Across those games combined they’ve let in seventeen goals, which is a lot, but it gets worse. In their five losses they gave up a total of fourteen (14!) goals. Fourteen. In five games. That’s more than a stack a month, and that simply will not do.

We’re Trying, Jennifer
CJ McCollum is a basketball player who tweeted ‘Im trying Jennifer’ to a Twitter user who told him to win a playoff game. It was vulnerable and extremely funny. These teams embody this. I don’t think they’re bad bad, but they are bad at things. They’re trying, they just aren’t doing a very good job—yet.

Angel City
11th (15pts) | 4W 3D 9L | @ San Diego, v. Chicago, v. Seattle

Incoming: Katie Zelem (MID)

The #FullTweedAhead momentum of last season when then-interim head coach Becki Tweed took over has fizzled this season under her as permanent head coach. Partly due to odd decisions like a refusal to use the whole of her squad to solve problems. Like the problem of linking midfield and attack and finding a way to not have Sydney Leroux play striker and fourth midfielder at the same time.

What they’ve needed all season is a grownup defensive midfielder. Now that Mrs. Disney owns the team they’ve gone out and got one in Manchester United captain Katie Zelem. Actual midfield structure and someone dictating play instead of everyone trying to do midfield by committee, players should be able to fulfill their specialized roles. If that doesn’t happen, Tweed likely won’t last long. If it does, Angel City are close enough to catapult themselves into a playoff position.

Bay FC
8th (18pts) | 6W 0D 10L | @ Utah, @ Portland, v. Louisville

Incoming: *tumbleweeds*
Outgoing: Scarlett Camberos (FWD)

Not gonna lie, I didn’t think Bay FC was in a playoff spot, but they are, if only narrowly. Bay spent a ton of money prior to the season to bring in big name talents like Asisat Oshoala and Deyna Castellanos, and paid a record women’s transfer fee for Rachael Kundananji. Given all that you’d expect a serious charge toward the top of the table, but nothing about Bay on the pitch has looked anywhere near serious or as dangerous as they should.

Part of this is defensive midfielder Alex Loera tearing her ACL early in the season, but there are several other reasons too. They struggle with transition in central defense, Castellanos has yet to play anywhere near her talent level, and head coach Albertin Montoya’s quest for expansive, beautiful football has led to a slow and predictable team in possession that leaves massive gaps to exploit in transition.

Still, all that and if the season ended today they’d be just the second expansion team in NWSL history to make the playoffs in their inaugural season. But that’s a bit of a rhetorical trick because this season there are eight playoff spots instead of the usual six. In any other year Bay would be seven points away from the playoffs, and that feels more right given was we’ve seen in their Act I.

But this season there are eight and that’s all Bay need to be concerned with. Well that and the fact that several teams below them got better this summer. A repeat performance in Act II is unlikely to be enough to keep that playoff spot.

Chicago Red Stars
7th (23pts) | 7W 2D 7L | @ Louisville, @ ACFC, v. Orlando

Incoming: Julia Grosso (MID), Ludmila (FWD)
Injury: Sam Staab (Achilles)

First things first Sam Staab tearing her Achilles during the Summer Cup is awful, extremely bad vibes, and makes me want to quit my job and commit the rest of my life to hunting and killing the soccer gods one by one.

Now that that’s off my chest, losing Staab is a serious problem for Chicago. Naturally—because why wouldn’t you—they used her left footed passing range in possession, plus delivery from set pieces, to facilitate chances at goal. Without that, a lot will have to change. In fact, even with that, Chicago often struggled to progress the ball to gold medal match winner Mal Swanson.

They’ve attempted to address this with some fun summer moves though. Julia Grosso is a solid midfielder who will increase their ability to control games and play through the middle of the pitch. Brazilian forward Ludmila—the only player to make Naomi Girma look average during the Olympics—will force defenses to contend with more than Swanson in attack.

These are the best case scenarios though. Chicago has to actually make it happen on the pitch, and somewhat quickly. They’re five points clear of the final playoff spot, but a loss against Louisville the first weekend back would cut that to two.

Rahsing Louisville
9th (16pts) | 3W 7D 6L | v. Chicago, v. Seattle, @ Bay

Incoming: Bethany Balcer (FWD), Janine Beckie (FWD)
Outgoing: Reilyn Turner (FWD), Jaelin Howell (MID), Carson Pickett (DEF)

I’m still somewhat insecure about my paprika analogy but I’m gonna lean in anyway. You know how sometimes if you’re not paying attention to the top of a spice bottle you’ll accidentally dump a quarter of it into one dish? Shutup I told you I suck at cooking. Anyway, I’ve done it before, and it feels like that’s what Louisville has done with their summer moves.

Carson Pickett reportedly wanted to move closer to family, so that’s understandable and I am glad they worked to make her return to Orlando happen. On the pitch for Louisville though, Pickett’s wide service and set piece deliveries were crucial. She hit thirty-eight (38!) key passes int he first half of the season, which was twenty one (21!) more than their next highest player.

They also traded away rookie Reilyn Turner and captain, midfielder Jaelin Howell. It’s unclear how these moves make Louisville significantly better. If Ary Borges is healthy enough to get back in the starting XI, maybe this was a way to maximize the tradeoff between creativity (Borges) and defensive solidity (Howell) in midfield. Maybe that’ll work, maybe it won’t, but Rahsing are within just two points of a playoff spot and have the best chance of any of the outsiders to crash the party.

Unfortunately, if these moves don’t immediately pay off this is as close to the playoffs as they’ll be for the rest of the season.

New Squad Who Dis
A few teams used the summer break to evolve into something unrecognizable from the first half of the season. I don’t know how Pokemon works but basically these are the teams that entered the summer break looking like a Squidward or Hufflepuff, but collected enough Sonic the Hedgehog coins to purchase several Poketokens which they used to transform themselves into an army of Squidbillies or Targaryans. Whatever, you get the idea. These teams reconstructed themselves and will be very interesting to watch across the next ten games.

Seattle Reign
13th (11pts) | 2W 5D 9L | v. North Carolina, @ Louisville, v. ACFC

Incoming: Nérelia Mondésir (FWD), Jaelin Howell (MID), Ana-Maria Crnogorčević (ALLOVER)
Outgoing: Alana Cook (DEF), Bethany Balcer (FWD), Sam Meza (LOAN)

Head coach Laura Harvey’s team had been slow and plodding, and lacking a midfield enforcer to control games and give the attack a base to go forward in numbers and/or take risks. The result was StruggleBall™, and it was not good. With Howell they finally have their defensive midfield base. (I actually think Laura Harvey can be just as good for Howell as Casey Stoney was for Naomi Girma, it’s a diabolical coach/player fit.)

They’ve also gotten better, and faster, in attack. Haitian superstar Melchie Dumornay, currently playing for Lyon, gets the headlines for her national team, but teammate Nérilia Mondésir is a serious problem for defenses too. The one summer move I didn’t understand was Crnogorčević, but Seattle are an older team in defense and midfield and the 33-year-old Swiss baller has literally played every outfield position throughout her career. Still a weird one, but the Reign are not a complete team by any means, so maybe acquiring a human Swiss army knife was a smart thing to do. We’ll see.

Seattle had a limited and predictable style of play in the first part of the season, and their only consistent way to compete was to yank the handbrake, grind everything to a halt, and hope to score with a set piece. Now Laura Harvey has options, and can increase the team’s tempo in possession. This should be a different-looking team on the pitch, and not your five-year-old nephew’s Seattle Reign.

Utah Royals
14th (9pts) | 2W 3D 11L | v. Bay, @ Houston, @ Kansas City

Incoming: Claudia Zornoza (MID), Mina Tanaka (FWD), Cloé Lacasse (FWD)

I cannot understand why—in this ownership’s inaugural season, in the team’s first season back in the league, and with a first-time head coach (who has since been fired)—Utah refused to recruit and spend money to construct a talented squad prior to the start of the season. It’s like they didn’t know the NWSL was a competitive league, and that if you don’t match teams on a talent level, they will destroy you.

Well it took eleven losses in sixteen games (with just two wins) but Utah finally got to work on adding significant talent to their squad. Zornoza comes from Real Madrid, and while near her mid-30s she’s still an effective midfielder and a profile Utah didn’t have. Tanaka is hyper-mobile in attack, always seeking pockets of space for herself or teammates to exploit. Also, in a wildly hilarious and shocking move, former Arsenal winger Cloé Lacasse traded London for Utah this summer. Don’t ask me why, but it’s awesome. Both are solid finishers who should ease the burden on #1 overall draft pick Ally Sentnor, who’s scored or assisted on six of Utah’s total of eight goals scored.

You read that right. That’s how poorly/broke-ily they setup the team to compete in this league.

Sentnor-Tanaka-Lacasse is the kind of forward line that would have been fun to start the season with, but at least it’s here now (kinda, Sentnor leaves to play with the U20s soon). Points-wise, Utah are too far down to threaten for a playoff spot without nearly every team above them being blipped by Thanos. Thankfully, though unfortunately for Utah, he’s not real. But they are very well-equipped to steal hope from teams who will be desperate for three points, and won’t find them nearly as easy to come by against this iteration of the Royals.

Washington Spirit
3rd (34pts) | 11W 1D 4L | v. Kansas City, @ San Diego, v. Portland

Incoming: Leicy Santos (FWD), Rosemonde Kouassi (FWD), Esme Morgan (DEF)

Rookies Croix Bethune and Hal Hershfelt burst onto the scene to put the Washington Spirit ahead of schedule. That was great and terrific but the Spirit said more. So they signed Leicy Santos, Esme Morgan and Rosemonde Kouassi this summer. Santos should solidify that hybrid left wing role the Spirit have rotated players through all season, while Kouassi will fly up and down either wing. Morgan is their first real attempt at addressing the hole left in central defense with the trading of Sam Staab.

But the biggest reason the Spirit might emerge from their cocoon looking like a different species is that former Barcelona head coach Jonatan Giráldez has finally had significant time with the team since arriving in late June. The players have looked at this break as a mini-preseason, which has allowed him the time to refine and implement the foundations of the style he wants them to play. Several players were missing due to the Olympics, but several key players remained. Including three key players right up the spine of the team, striker Ouleye Sarr, midfielder Andi Sullivan, and center back Tara McKeown.

Now everyone is back in some capacity, Santos and Kouassi have already made their debuts, and the Giráldez version of the Spirit are on their way. The fun part is, no one yet knows what that will look like. Let’s find out together!

Oof
If anyone has ever spoken to me in real life they’re likely annoyed at how often I ‘oof’. I can’t help it, a lot of things in this world are oof. How am I supposed to avoid oofing when there’s so much oof in the world? Everywhere you look there’s oof. There’s just so much off, all of the time.

Oof is basically when something is so obviously wrong that commentary or conversation is pointless, but it still requires a verbal response. So, oof. These teams are oof.

Houston Dash
12th (14pts) | 3W 5D 8L | v. Orlando, v. Utah, @ Gotham

Incoming: Nary a soul

I dunno man. Their actual head coach, Fran Alonso, hasn’t coached the team since June 22, and has since been out with what the team have said is an illness. There’s a lot swirling that there’s chaos behind the scenes, and the firing of GM Alex Singer suggests there’s finger-pointing and/or a power struggle going on. If Alonso is actually sick, of course I wish him well. But this situation is quite odd and I would expect more than vague or dismissive comments when people ask the very logical question of “Hey so uh where is your head coach?” in pressers.

On top of that, Houston is an oddly built team without much direction. I’m not sure what can be done about that this season, and neither are they apparently, as they’ve done nothing this summer break. With the only two teams below them—Seattle and Utah—getting better, I expect Houston to slide to the bottom of the table by the end of the season.

This team was made for oof. They are oof to the power of oof. Ultra strength oof.

San Diego Wavé
10th (15pts) | 3W 6D 7L | v. ACFC, v. Washington, v. North Carolina

Incoming: Delphine Cascarino (FWD), Perle Morroni (DEF)

I have no idea what Jill Ellis is doing. Well, besides allegedly creating a toxic workplace environment, hiding behind two World Cup trophies to defend her leadership style, and suing a former employee.

Oh also she woke up one day and decided to fire the club’s only manager, Casey Stoney. After doing that she was then like, ah, hm, guess I gotta hire an interim coach. So she called Rebecca Lowe’s husband and he was like um weird but ok, but only for like five games. The team did poorly, winning one game out of five across all competitions and scoring just three goals (all in one game) and Rebecca said please stop embarrassing this household so he left. Jill said damn that’s crazy, uh, Landon Donovan seemed to enjoy being a coach in San Diego for his one and only coaching gig that he’s ever had so I should hire him. And she did. Lol what. Sure. Ok.

Anyway, even as odd as all that is, they still pulled off a shock move and brought over one of my favorite sauce gods, France winger Delphine Cascarino. She’ll add to a suddenly stacked attacking unit alongside María Sánchez and Jaedyn Shaw. They also signed France fullback Perle Morroni, who I am less enthusiastic about, but could do a decent job on the flank in the NWSL.

Problem is, I have no idea what the overall plan is. And, given the recent string of head scratching front office moves, it’s hard to believe Ellis does either. Or if she does, it’s hard to believe that the plan is a good one. The Wavé are only three points away from Bay FC in the last playoff spot, but all this turmoil has been clearly unhelpful. I would have backed Stoney to push the team up the table with these player additions, but instead the team now has to get used to their third coach of the season—second in a month—with just ten games to go. There’s very little time for learning curves and even less of a margin for error. All brought to you by Jill Ellis for no apparent reason at all.

The largest of oofs. I’m talkin planetary.