Category: NWSL

USWNT star Crystal Dunn gives birth to baby boy

The 29-year-old and her husband Pierre Soubrier welcomed Marcel in the early hours of Friday morning

U.S. women’s national team and Portland Thorns star Crystal Dunn has announced the birth of her son Marcel.

Dunn and her husband Pierre Soubrier welcomed Marcel in the early hours of Friday morning, with the baby boy weighing in at seven pounds even and measuring 19.69 inches.

“Welcome to the world Marcel Jean Soubrier,” Dunn said in her post. “I can’t believe I’m somebody’s Mama.”

Dunn and Soubrier, who is the head athletic trainer for the Thorns, announced they were expecting a child in November.

Dunn, who played 15 times for the Thorns last season, was recently seen training with her NWSL side as she continued to work out into her third trimester.

Dunn was one of a number of recent USWNT players who were pregnant, with Julie Ertz, Casey Krueger and Allie Long all set to give birth in the coming months. Long, who like Dunn and Ertz won the 2019 World Cup, is due to have twins next month.

The 29-year-old Dunn has been capped 123 times by the USWNT, most recently in September.

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NWSL cites covid protocols in Gotham FC vs. NC Courage postponement

With a large number of players unavailable due to Covid-19 protocols, NWSL has announced that NJ/NY Gotham FC’s home opener against the North Carolina Courage has been postponed.

Citing a Covid-19 outbreak, NWSL has postponed Saturday’s scheduled match between NJ/NY Gotham FC and the North Carolina Courage.

Just one day after announcing a new policy regarding Covid-19 replacement players, the league was forced to act due to numerous players ending up unavailable after being placed in Covid-19 protocol by their teams. On Friday night’s pre-game availability report, the Courage listed seven players as out for that reason, while Gotham had four of their own.

In a club statement announcing the postponement, Gotham termed the outbreak as being “within the Courage’s tier one personnel.” Both teams and the league said that an announcement on when the game would be rescheduled would be made in the near future, with no details on that front available at the moment.

The remaining four games on the NWSL’s slate this weekend appear unaffected at this point. The teams playing in Saturday’s other games (Orlando Pride vs. Kansas City Current and Racing Louisville vs. Houston Dash) reported no players out for Covid-19 protocol reasons, while Washington Spirit head coach Kris Ward told reporters Saturday afternoon that his side had no worries on that front. Washington hosts Angel City FC Sunday evening, while San Diego Wave FC hosts the Chicago Red Stars as well. Sunday’s availability report has not, at this point, been sent to media by the NWSL.

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NWSL announces Covid-19 replacement player policy

After last year saw league matches forfeited, the NWSL announced a new policy to allow teams to make emergency replacement signings to avoid that fate in 2022.

The National Women’s Soccer League on Friday announced a new policy allowing teams to sign players to short-term contracts in the event of a Covid-19 outbreak putting a team’s ability to play a game in jeopardy.

NWSL’s new policy, which it says will run for 60 days before being re-evaluated by the league and the NWSL Players Association, will allow teams to operate within the same framework used for national team replacement players.

Previously, NWSL required teams to have a minimum of 14 players available and in uniform for a matchday roster. The new regulation will allow for teams to sign enough players to get up to what NWSL refers to as the “non-Covid minimum of 18 players.”

Last year, the Washington Spirit were forced to forfeit two games by the league, with NWSL saying that they broke Covid-19 protocols for September games against the Portland Thorns and OL Reign. In other instances, teams were barely able to put together a gameday squad, with the North Carolina Courage only having 15 players available for their visit to Kansas City on July 23, 2021.

The announcement came just minutes before the league’s latest availability report was released, and the timing ended up being very important. The Courage have 11 players unavailable after being placed in Covid protocol ahead of Saturday’s visit to face NJ/NY Gotham FC, while Gotham will be without four players for the same reason.

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The NWSL Challenge Cup final was ugly, and the league’s players noticed

The game was supposed to be a showcase, but instead it again revealed some of the NWSL’s player-safety challenges

The NWSL Challenge Cup final was supposed to be a showpiece event, but the league may not have been pleased that a national TV audience witnessed some of the ugliness in Saturday’s match.

The North Carolina Courage defeated the Washington Spirit 2-1 in the finale of the preseason tournament, but the final score seemed secondary after age-old issues of refereeing and player safety again stole the headlines.

The most prominent incident came near the end of the game when the Spirit’s Jordan Baggett scarily collided with an opponent and stayed down. With Spirit medical staff on the pitch, players took it upon themselves to get a stretcher out to their teammate quicker.

Spirit star Trinity Rodman was far from pleased after the game.

Two more incidents left Courage players fuming. Courage defender Abby Erceg was caught with a stud to the chest, but Erceg and goalkeeper Katelyn Rowland said the incident went unpunished because the referee (wrongly) determined it was the ball, not Ashley Hatch’s boot, that caught Erceg.

The Spirit again got away with a potentially serious challenge when Sam Staab’s tackle in the box on Kerolin was not deemed to be a penalty despite replays clearly showing Kerolin’s ankle being rolled up under Staab’s tackle.

Courage defender Kayleigh Kurtz, among others, was left fuming.

Unlike in most professional men’s leagues, NWSL referees do not have the ability to utilize VAR, which could have reversed the decisions in the incidents with Erceg and Kerolin.

NWSL players past and present weigh in

With player safety on the pitch clearly still an issue, a number of NWSL players, both current and former, took to social media after the game to voice their displeasure with what they saw.

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