Tag: OL Reign

NWSL Challenge Cup semifinal pairings set after dramatic end to group stage

Four teams remain in the hunt for the Challenge Cup

The 2023 NWSL Challenge Cup has a final four.

NJ/NY Gotham FC’s tense 1-1 draw with the Orlando Pride on Wednesday settled the group stage in this year’s tournament, with the semifinals awaiting on September 6.

Gotham could have claimed the East division with a win in the final match of the entire group stage, but their draw let the North Carolina Courage advance on goal difference.

As a result, the defending Challenge Cup champions will travel to face the Kansas City Current, who won the Central division. OL Reign, the winners of the West division and top seed out of the semifinalists, will host Racing Louisville, whose 12 points were good enough to clinch the best runner-up spot over the Gotham FC (11) and Angel City FC (8).

Both games will be broadcast on the CBS Sports Network, with the Current vs. Courage match starting at 8:00 p.m. and Reign vs. Racing starting at 10:00 p.m. (both times Eastern).

The Challenge Cup final will take place on September 9. As the top seed, the Reign will host if they get past Louisville. Otherwise, the winner between Kansas City and North Carolina will get the showcase match, which will be broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.

2023 saw NWSL adjust to criticism over the scheduling of last year’s edition of its second competition, with the Challenge Cup moving away from being a preseason tournament. This year’s version has been spread throughout the season, with essentially half of the tournament taking place during the World Cup break from regular season play.

New territory for three semifinalists

Three of the semifinalists would be in line for their first-ever win in a final, at least in their current guise. OL Reign has won three NWSL Shields as a model of regular-season consistency, but two appearances in the league’s championship game have ended in defeat.

While FC Kansas City won two NWSL titles in 2014 and 2015, they’ve been moved to Utah and then back, changing names twice in the process. As the Current, they lost in last year’s NWSL championship game.

For Racing Louisville, this trip to Lumen Field will be entirely new territory, as the club has not advanced to the playoffs or Challenge Cup knockout rounds in either of their previous seasons.

On the other hand, the Courage have six major trophies to their name, with a victory in last year’s Challenge Cup going with two NWSL titles and three NWSL Shields. The Courage had a 15-game unbeaten run in this competition broken up this past Saturday by a loss at Gotham, but survived to advance after the New Jersey-based side stumbled to a draw at the last hurdle.

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Harvey honored to be linked with (still occupied) USWNT coaching job

The OL Reign head coach will be a prime candidate to take over if Vlatko Andonovski is replaced

Vlatko Andonovski is still the coach of the U.S. women’s national team, but potential successors are already being asked about replacing him.

That’s not a huge surprise: Andonovski is widely expected to be replaced imminently, after the USWNT crashed out of the World Cup at the last 16 to seal the team’s worst finish ever at the tournament.

One of the prime candidates to take over will be Laura Harvey, whom Andonovski narrowly beat out for the job in 2019. Harvey has extensive experience with U.S. Soccer, having previously served as a USWNT assistant and as a U-23 and U-20 head coach.

Harvey is now in charge at OL Reign, a team she insisted she is singularly focused on for the time being.

“I’ve lived it before, I lived this four years ago. I’m very mindful that this is my priority – this job is my priority,” she said in a press conference. “I love it here, that’s no secret. I’ve committed to the future of this club.”

Last month, Harvey signed a contract extension with OL Reign through 2025.

“My focus right now is the Reign,” she added. “We’re in the middle of a season. We’ve put ourselves in a really good position in both competitions that we’re in. And right now my focus is solely on the Reign.

“I actually give our team and players credit if my name is anywhere near anything, because that just shows the performances that our group’s been putting in.”

Still, Harvey wouldn’t deny the appeal of the USWNT position, which she called the top job in women’s soccer worldwide.

“I enjoyed my time at U.S. Soccer. That’s no doubt,” she said. “The U.S. women’s national team is probably the top job in the world, if not a top-three job in the world. That’s just reality. And if my name is anywhere near it, then that’s an honor.

“But first and foremost, my priority is the Reign. It is going to be hard to block it out, there’s no doubt about that, but I’ve lived it before. So I’ve got a little bit of experience with it.”

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NWSL Weekend Take-Off: Racing Louisville, Orlando Pride serve notice with statement wins

Heading into the World Cup break, and the chaos is back

The NWSL is heading into its World Cup break, and the vibes are all over the place.

Some teams could use the break to make some tweaks, get healthy, or even go for a wholesale adjustment. By contrast, a few others may just be hitting their stride, and will be understandably frustrated to have a couple of weeks without more games to build on their current momentum.

Naturally for this topsy-turvy league, the teams that need the break are closer to the top of the table, while most of the teams that are settling into a groove are the ones just outside the playoff places. In a couple of weeks, the NWSL has gone from the brink of “we might not have a serious race for postseason spots” to “everyone’s in the mix.”

For one last time before the World Cup gauntlet begins, here’s your Weekend Take-Off.

Soccer fans paid tribute to Megan Rapinoe after the USWNT legend announced her retirement

A legend in American soccer will be hanging up her cleats this year.

A true legend in American soccer history will be calling it quits soon.

Megan Rapinoe, the longtime winger for the NWSL’s OL Reign and the United States women’s national team, announced on Saturday that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of her NSWL season this fall.

In her decorated career, the U.S. women’s national team won the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the gold medal with the team at the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

Rapinoe also individually won the Golden Ball and Golden Boot honors at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup for her stellar performance.

She received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden in 2022 for her on-field achievements and her off-field social activism.

Rapinoe will play in her final FIFA Women’s World Cup with the U.S. women’s national team this month.

After Rapinoe announced news of her retirement, soccer fans paid tribute to the trailblazing athlete and advocate’s career.

NWSL Weekend Take-Off: Shim returns as league parity verges on parody

The only predictable thing in the NWSL is its unpredictability

The National Women’s Soccer League is not a normal league.

Last week, the major through-line for this column was that the league’s six playoff teams were already threatening to separate themselves. This past weekend’s schedule paired the teams in playoff places with teams on the outside, and could have more or less sealed a haves and have-nots stretch run (give or take the Houston Dash clinging to the contending pack).

Instead:

The “we are SO back!” vibes are off the charts.

The teams entering the weekend sitting seventh or worse went 3W-2D-1L against the top six. The Kansas City Current and Orlando Pride got road wins against the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit (arguably the two most consistently good teams in the NWSL in 2023). The Chicago Red Stars got a shutout! Up is down, left is right. That’s our league.

We talk all the time about NWSL parity, but this was parity to the point of parody. Of course the NWSL had a weekend where the teams that can’t win all rise up to beat the teams that can’t lose.

This league knows no other way to be.

NWSL Weekend Take-Off: Top-of-table clash delivers, crunch time arrives for playoff outsiders

The game of the year may have already happened

The World Cup break isn’t quite here yet, but for this NWSL season, it feels like we’ve hit an inflection point.

The 13th round of matches is clearly past the halfway point in a 22-game season, but it does serve as a sort of act break for the drama that is this league. With players leaving for the World Cup, it’s a moment to take stock on where teams are, and what the stretch run might start to look like.

In short, we really have two groups: a top seven who should be in the battle for six playoff spots through the end of the season, and a bottom five whose hopes are already surprisingly dim.

That might seem harsh on Racing Louisville, just three points out of that top seven, but consider this: the San Diego Wave hold the final playoff spot, and their current points-per-game (PPG) pace has them on course for a 34-point total.

Louisville would need 19 points from their final nine games to match that total, which is 2.11 PPG. A hypothetical team on 2.11 PPG through 13 games this season would have 27 points and be two points clear of the Portland Thorns, who have been outstanding this season.

Barring a collapse from the playoff contenders (none of whom look like they have a lengthy losing run on their bingo card), the teams on the outside have already hit their It’s Go Time moment.

NWSL Weekend Take-Off: McKeown, Spirit back atop table after parity-driven week

There are no days off in the NWSL

When people talk about how competitive the NWSL is, this is exactly the kind of week they’re talking about.

The top six teams from last week’s standings took on the bottom six, and rather than the gap between the haves and the have-nots growing, we saw the league’s parity on full display. Two teams entering the weekend in playoff position lost to teams that were out of the mix, with the San Diego Wave falling in the Chanclásico and NJ/NY Gotham FC stumbling against Racing Louisville.

Meanwhile, the Washington Spirit went top of the table, but only after coming from 2-0 down against a Kansas City Current team that sits in last place (probably not for much longer though, it must be said). The Portland Thorns, who are currently in second place, were pushed extremely hard by the 11th-placed Chicago Red Stars.

There are truly no days off in this league. Let’s get into the action.

NWSL Weekend Take-Off: NC Courage create a masterpiece, standings stay tight

Kerolin, Adriana, Borges, oh my!

Just like that, the NWSL regular season is halfway over after the 11th round of games finished up Sunday night.

As is typical for this particularly wild league, the top of the table is comically close. The North Carolina Courage, in sixth place at the time this article was published, have multiple scenarios in which they could end up in first place by next Sunday night. Next weekend’s games feature the top six against the bottom six, and there’s one set of results that could see three teams tied on 20 points, followed by four more on 19. Last year’s potential seven-way tie for first could once again loom over us in September, and that doesn’t even account for improving teams like Racing Louisville or the Orlando Pride.

That’s the big picture. Getting more granular on the week that was, it was a great week to be a Brazilian attacker, and a not-so-great week if you happen to play for a team in the bottom three.

Here we go:

Rapinoe leaves OL Reign game injured as USWNT World Cup roster announcement looms

The veteran forward lasted just seven minutes against the Current

With just over a week until its World Cup roster is revealed, the U.S. women’s national team has a new injury worry.

Veteran winger Megan Rapinoe had to depart OL Reign’s 2-1 win over the Kansas City Current on Saturday with an apparent calf issue.

Rapinoe was in the starting 11 for the Reign, but within the first 45 seconds she could be seen touching her lower leg and trying to loosen up an issue that she suffered off the ball.

After a chat with the training staff and an attempt to jog it off as play continued, the Reign opted to make a change, with Veronica Latsko entering the game in the seventh minute.

“She’s OK, I think. I truly don’t know the severity of it,” OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey told the media after the game.

“I think if there wasn’t that (the World Cup) on the horizon, we might have handled it a little bit differently. I’m glad she could get out quickly and not have to push through it.”

USWNT roster reveal looms

With just over a month until the World Cup kicks off, even a fairly short-term issue at this point could keep a player from being fully fit for the tournament.

The Washington Post has reported that USWNT players will be informed if they’ve made the roster in less than a week, with an official announcement to follow shortly after.

Rapinoe battled an injury earlier in 2023, missing the USWNT’s January camp. While it is possible that she simply experienced some calf tightness, a full-on strain would make it very difficult for the star of the 2019 World Cup to be available for this summer’s edition.

Losing out on Rapinoe would add to a long list of USWNT attackers who are on course to miss the tournament. Catarina Macario has ruled herself out after a torn ACL suffered in May 2022, while Christen Press — while not giving up on her chances of being available for selection — has not yet returned to play after a similar injury. Starting left forward Mallory Swanson suffered a torn patellar tendon in a USWNT friendly earlier this year, and in all likelihood is months away from taking the field again.

Rapinoe’s teammate for club and country, Rose Lavelle, has not played since April due to a knee injury, though she appears close to a return.

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NWSL Weekend Take-Off: KC Current gets tough, Angel City stumbles

The going is tough, and the tough are about to get going

The NWSL’s halfway line is in sight, and not far beyond it we can make out the faintest outline of what this year’s playoff race is going to look like.

After 10 games, the lucky teams are starting to be found out, and the tiers that have started to form broadly conform with the vibe around each of the 12 teams in the league.

For the Take-Off at least, this is what is appearing on the distant horizon:

  • Contenders: Portland Thorns, San Diego Wave, Washington Spirit, NJ/NY Gotham FC, OL Reign
  • Hopefuls: Houston Dash, North Carolina Courage
  • Still in the mix: Racing Louisville
  • Time to get moving: Orlando Pride, Chicago Red Stars, Angel City FC, Kansas City Current

There’s still wiggle room in here, of course, and through a weekend that extended out into a weird Monday night match, we saw teams threaten to move up and down the ladder. The Reign, mired in about a month of very inconsistent performances and results, may only be in the Contender tier based on past results and the quality of their roster. Kansas City and Chicago, meanwhile, are showing a pulse.

We’re both a long way from the playoffs (summer hasn’t started yet!), and yet also, teams have a dozen games to get the job done. Grab your lucky pine cone while we figure out where things are headed.