Does anyone want to win the NWSL Shield this season?
That’s the question at this point, after first place exchanged hands yet again. In the last 11 rounds of games, we’ve woken up on Monday with a new team atop the table eight different times. The Portland Thorns’ triumph over Cascadia rivals OL Reign, coupled with the San Diego Wave stumbling against a Kansas City Current side that kicked off in last place, gave us yet another change in the race for the Shield.
Let’s take a quick look at this insightful video that explains how this entire season has felt.
The Thorns do appear to be this season’s “best” team, whether you approach it from the eyeball test, data, or results. Portland can hit heights no one else can hit, and have shaken off Sophia Smith’s injury thanks to Best XI candidate Morgan Weaver.
However, as impressive as the Thorns can be, there are only 11 points separating Portland from the Chicago Red Stars in 12th. A team that hasn’t won a regular season game since June has nonetheless stayed above the playoff line all season. There are three rounds of games to go, and no one has been eliminated or clinched a postseason berth.
Morgan said if she had planted her leg, she wouldn’t be walking today
San Diego Wave star Alex Morgan was furious over a no-call in her side’s 2-1 defeat to the Kansas City Current on Saturday, saying she wouldn’t be walking if she’d planted her leg on a challenge from defender Stine Ballisager.
With the Current up in first-half stoppage time, Morgan took the ball in on goal and attempted a cutback. Ballisager, sensing her chance to win the ball, slid in hard and took the ball and Morgan simultaneously. After a VAR check, the officials deemed the Danish international’s challenge to be clean.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Morgan vehemently disagreed.
“In what world is this not a penalty and red card, or even foul? Completely reckless and the leg going in for the tackle doesn’t even get a ball when I cut her?” she wrote. “Just glad I saw her coming and didn’t plant on that leg or I’d 100% not be walking today.”
In what world is this not a penalty and red card, or even foul? Completely reckless and the leg going in for the tackle doesn't even get a ball when I cut her? Just glad I saw her coming and didn't plant on that leg or I'd 100% not be walking today. pic.twitter.com/ruQ2rXtcK3
Morgan would stay in the game but limped off the pitch at full time, with Wave manager Casey Stoney saying after the game she had no update on the star forward’s status.
The match also represented the latest scoreless outing for Morgan, who has now failed to find the net since May. Speaking to reporters, Stoney backed the U.S. women’s national team forward to turn things around.
“You don’t go from being a world-class striker to being a poor player overnight,” Stoney said. “She’s a fantastic player. She’s still a world-class striker and the goals will come. Her contributions this season for us have been magnificent even when she’s not scoring goals, so keeping her in a good space is important.”
Morgan won the NWSL Golden Boot last season by scoring 15 goals. This season, the 34-year-old has scored five times in NWSL play.
“It’s important that while she’s trying to get to the top, she enjoys the journey to the top”
Jaedyn Shaw’s first U.S. women’s national team camp is, per the San Diego Wave attacker herself, all about learning as much as possible.
The 18-year-old is one of the new names on USWNT interim coach Twila Kilgore’s first roster for an upcoming pair of friendlies against South Africa on September 21 and 24. According to Shaw, the objective is to ease in, gain her footing in a new environment, and take plenty of lessons from her first senior-level camp.
“I’ve always loved high pressures moments,” Shaw told reporters on Thursday. “I have been told that this is a no-pressure camp, just getting my feet in the water and kind of enjoying the experience, and that’s something that I’m really taking to heart. I’m just trying to go and learn as much as I can, gain as much as I can from this experience.”
Shaw added that getting the call was “an amazing, happy moment for me,” but noted that she can’t afford to lose focus between now and when she steps on the plane to Cincinnati.
“I kind of had to bring it down a bit, to make sure that I’m still focusing on what I have going on in front of me with [San Diego] and the game coming up on Saturday,” said Shaw.
Still, there was time for a little excitement, especially from her family.
“First person I called was my mother,” said a laughing Shaw, “She was practically crying through the phone, per usual.”
San Diego manager Casey Stoney called Shaw “a quality player with huge potential and a huge amount of talent,” and added that the call-up was “deserved” in her eyes.
“It’s a great opportunity for her to go in without any pressure,” said Stoney, whose own international career spanning 130 caps began with a first cap at the same age as Shaw. “Being in a senior environment is very different than being in a youth environment. I think she’ll go in and she’ll show her quality. It’s just for her, going in and soaking it all up, soaking in the experience.”
While much of that will of course pertain to improving her craft as a player, Shaw said she’s also had plenty of more practical questions for her Wave teammate Naomi Girma.
“I feel like I’ve already like bombarded [Girma] with a bunch of questions,” said Shaw. “One of them was seating arrangements, on the bus, in the meetings. That was something that I know a lot of teams, you kind of have [assigned seats]. I know we do, like I have my front row seat…I was like, ‘Where do I sit?’
“I think another thing was, how do the training kits fit, so I know what size to get? And then there was like, if I need to bring a notebook, what do you pack? Like that kind of stuff. Literally not even soccer-based. It’s just stuff off the field.”
Shaw highlighted the World Cup stretch as a particular moment of growth as a player, with the Wave leaning more heavily on her with international attacking players like Alex Morgan and Sofia Jakobsson heading off to the World Cup.
“I think, for me this season, at least when all of our international girls left, I had to kind of take a different role and be okay with playing different positions, or taking more of, I guess a leadership role,” explained Shaw. “Kind of — not putting the team on my back — but allowing myself to carry more of the weight than just coming in as a young player and doing whatever.”
Mandatory Credit: Troy Wayrynen-USA TODAY Sports
Per Stoney, helping Shaw take that next step has been “an absolute dream” because the youngster’s focus level is so high.
“Jae’s unbelievable,” said Stoney. “She has nothing in her mind other than being the best player in the world: ‘What am I going to do to make myself better?’ You know, she’s a dream to manage, in that sense, an absolute dream. She’s very coachable, she wants to be the best.”
The Wave head coach noted that after last season’s emphasis was on “building [Shaw’s] physical capacity” as she adjusted to the exhausting speed of play in the NWSL, the focus has shifted to the technical side.
“She’s been utilized in [all] top four positions: wide left, wide right, [No. 9] and also as a [No. 10],” explained Stoney. “I think now, she’s played more of a 10 role, it’s how she can position herself between the lines, how she can face forward. Because once she gets to faced forward with the body position, her ability to play a through ball is some of the best I’ve ever seen. She sees things other people don’t see.”
Still, despite Shaw’s rapid rise, Stoney says it’s important that the Texas native maintains a process-oriented focus rather than only concerning herself with results.
“She’s got a lot of maturity in certain ways, in terms of wanting to be the best, but also remembering she’s still 18,” said Stoney. “I think it’s important that while she’s trying to get to the top, she enjoys the journey to the top.”
There’s no other conclusion to reach after another weekend that could have blown the standings wide open instead drew the entire table closer together. For the second time in recent weeks, the schedule set things up for the top six to largely push the bottom six adrift. Four of the six games over the weekend paired a team in a playoff position up against a team on the outside looking in.
And just like last time, the results largely skewed towards a tighter, more tense race. Racing Louisville and Angel City FC got big wins to keep pace, the Washington Spirit had a surprising stumble at home, and the only match between teams in playoff position ended up somehow being a bonkers 3-3 draw.
With four games to play, the gap from top to bottom is only 11 points. The teams in seventh and eighth are within six points of first. If you pull up Google’s NWSL standings and look over at the “last five” column, you’ll see more red X images signaling a loss for the teams in the top six (12) than in the bottom six (eight).
The seatbelt sign for this NWSL season should be flashing, because we’re about to have a turbulent landing.
Bad news for Portland, while Angel City picked up a huge win
The NWSL regular season returned from its World Cup slumber last week, but with several big names not truly ready to come back just yet, it was only this past weekend where the league felt truly “back.”
There were major developments: multiple draws for teams in the top six, paired with Angel City’s win over OL Reign, breathed life into the race for the final playoff spots. However, we’d be remiss if we didn’t start off with the league-wide show of support for Jenni Hermoso and the players of Spain’s World Cup-winning national team.
“Contigo Jenni” was on wrist tape all over the league, while fans — and not only those in supporters’ groups — brought banners reading the same. This is a league that knows all too well how vital it is to push abusive figures out of the game, and the resumption of club play isn’t going to mean the issues with Luis Rubiales, Jorge Vilda, and their enablers in Spain are going to be pushed aside.
That said, a different unfortunate piece of news bubbled up this weekend, with Sophia Smith suffering a knee injury of (as yet) unknown severity. An injury to the runaway MVP favorite is hardly the news anyone out there wanted, and it could change the entire complexion of this season’s stretch run.
The veteran defender announced her return with a tremendous strike for the Wave
Abby Dahlkemper marked her recent return after nearly a year out by scoring her first NWSL goal since 2016, as the San Diego Wave beat the Orlando Pride 2-1 on Friday.
Dahlkemper suffered a back injury last September and later underwent surgery. After signing on with the Wave prior to their 2022 expansion campaign, the center back ended up making just eight NWSL appearances.
The 30-year-old would miss nearly a year of action before starting in a Challenge Cup match against Angel City FC on August 5.
The longtime U.S. national team defender fully announced her return two games later against Orlando, latching onto an attempted clearance before slamming home to give her team an early lead.
San Diego assistant coach Louis Hunt paid tribute to Dahlkemper after the game, saying she’s picked up right where she left off before the injury.
“She’s been incredible over the last few weeks or so since she was cleared to be in training,” Hunt said. “She’s been bright, she has been confident, you can see the quality oozing out of her.
“So for her to get that nice little bonus of a goal as well and helping us win is brilliant because her performance in the last two games, two 90-minute matches back-to-back, you would never have thought she’d been out for a year or so. So just showing her professionalism and showing her quality.”
Dahlkemper has earned 77 USWNT caps in her career, and was last called in for friendlies against Uzbekistan in April 2022. She started every game for the USWNT at the 2019 World Cup as the team won its second consecutive title.
The World Cup is over, but the drama is not, because the NWSL is already back.
We’re not just getting to loosen up and ease into the league’s return, either. The NWSL stretch run is literally here, with each team down to its final six games. The standings are packed tightly, and the next few weeks before the September FIFA window are going to feel like a full-on sprint.
Some teams were fully prepared to get moving at full speed. With four teams outside the playoff places hosting games over the weekend, this was a huge opportunity for most of the league to either get seriously into the mix, or for teams in the top six to keep the chasing pack at bay.
The Orlando Pride got off the line fastest with a blowout victory, while the Kansas City Current came up with a gutsy win that effectively kept their playoff hopes alive. Racing Louisville and the Houston Dash came back to get draws, but neither side is in a place where home draws are going to get the job done.
We’re going to be attempting a format experiment here, at least with the next couple of Take-Offs. The hope is that with a little streamlining, the column is more easily digested. We’re thinking less of a minivan and more of a hatchback.
And with that in mind, let’s get this car on the road.
Notes on returning World Cup players from all 12 NWSL teams
The World Cup may still have a final and third-place game to finish, but the NWSL is done waiting.
The league’s break from regular season play concludes Friday, with the Kansas City Current and OL Reign kicking off a full slate of matches.
It’s awkward timing, with a few players still participating at the World Cup, others still recovering from a physically and mentally grueling process, and yet more having come back quickly after the group stage. With 61 different NWSL players going to the World Cup, there are probably 61 unique situations to deal with here.
Pro Soccer Wire knows fans want to know when their team’s internationals will be back in uniform, so we’ve done the relevant social media research and Zoom press conference recording. Consider this a status update for all 61 World Cup participants as the NWSL playoff chase truly gets underway.
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.
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:
Wrote last week that it was now or never already for the bottom 6, and they appear to have chosen "now" https://t.co/i8cvUldj3c
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.
