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Congratulations to Rose Lavelle for doing the unprecedented double of winning the CONCACAF W Gold Cup and the Oscar for best actress on the same night.
Huge night for Rose Lavelle 🏆🏅 pic.twitter.com/Gx8GNeAtE7
— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) March 11, 2024
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this post by USWNT comparing Lavelle to “Poor Things” actress Emma Stone and this video of players naming who should play them in a movie. I’m Emily Olsen here with Meg Linehan, Steph Yang and Jeff Rueter — welcome to Full Time!
NWSL Season Preview
Another year begins
We’ve made it. The 2024 NWSL season is here with a full slate of games on deck and a nice amuse-bouche of the newly formatted Challenge Cup to kick things off. In its latest iteration, the Challenge Cup is a one-off game between the league champions and the Shield winners. Gotham FC (league winners) will host San Diego Wave (Shield) at Red Bull Arena on Friday, March 15 at 8 p.m. ET, streaming on Amazon. The game does not count toward the regular season. The rest of the weekend looks like this:
Saturday, March 16
- KC Current vs. Portland Thorns at 1 pm ET on ABC, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes
- Racing Louisville vs. Orlando Pride at 4 pm ET on NWSL+
- NC Courage vs. Houston Dash at 7 pm ET on NWSL+
- Utah Royals vs. Chicago Red Stars at 7:30 pm ET on ION
Sunday, March 17
- Seattle Reign vs. Washington Spirit at 6 pm ET on NWSL+
- Angel City vs. Bay FC at 7:30 pm ET on NWSL+
If you’re wondering why you’ll need at least three different channels and two streaming platforms to watch the opening games, you can look at the league’s new four-year media rights deal that spans ESPN, CBS, Prime Video and Scripps properties. The Athletic will have the full breakdown on how to watch the action later this week.
Teams are getting into form, including on social media, where the Utah Royals utilized a certain current event to tease its opening game. Meanwhile, the Washington Spirit, in yet another year of transition, is embracing the yellow and the “Universal S” in its merch.
Some shots of the Spirit’s new black and yellow merch, featuring, yes, That S Thing That Everyone Drew in Middle School pic.twitter.com/mT7GDA5SGo
— Ella Brockway (@ellabrockway) March 11, 2024
One key performer from each team
While we can’t catch you up on all 280 first-team team players across the league in this newsletter, we can hone in on a select few — one from every team to be exact.
The Athletic’s Jeff Rueter analyzed 14 players who are set to make a difference on their team. To keep on the Oscars theme, they aren’t the leading roles or even supporting nominees but they would still earn a statue if their team won Best Picture.
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For example, the attention of Bay FC this offseason has been its European-based signings of Deyna Castellanos from Manchester City, Jen Beattie from Arsenal, Asisat Oshoala from FC Barcelona, and Racheal Kundananji from Madrid CFF, whose $785,000 transfer fee is a world record. But the team’s first signing, defender Alex Loera from KC Current, is also poised to make an impact in the back line.
New tournament with route to Club World Cup
CONCACAF, the confederation for North America, Central America and the Caribbean, is set to launch a women’s tournament that will offer sole qualification for the region to the new FIFA Women’s Club World Cup.
The CONCACAF W Champions Cup will be the first continental women’s tournament by the federation. Here’s the basics:
- Preliminary and group-stage matches of the annual competition will be held across August, September, and October, with the semi-finals and final held in May 2025
- The tournament will feature 10 clubs from the NWSL, Liga MX as well as those from across Central America and the Caribbean
- The setup includes two groups of five
- The draw for the tournament will take place in June after clubs from Canada and El Salvador play off to reach the group stages.
Meg’s Corner: What to expect from the 2024 season
The 2024 NWSL season is upon us. We had such a clear narrative of the NWSL as a whole heading into the 2023 season: the opportunity of a World Cup, the potential of the media deal, and the usual drumbeat about increased growth. It’s debatable how much the NWSL got out of the World Cup, but the media deal came through for the league in a big way.
Now, in 2024, I hope that the league turns its attention more fully to the product on the field. Teams have brought in a ton of international talent, and now is the time to see greater investment into player care (and, considering the entire history of the league, player safety), coaching, medical staff, and so on. The NWSL loves a parity talking point, but there’s also still so much room for improvement when it comes to the league’s reputation around transitional play.
This season is different from its predecessors in a few ways — primarily with the addition of two expansion teams. The Olympics are also happening, which has prompted the league to take a midseason break and host an international club tournament while the U.S. women’s national team competes in Paris.
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This is also a year for the league and the teams to lock down the foundational stuff before it grows again. The Utah Royals have done this before. Bay FC has four former players at the helm who know the landscape. But a season where the league simply functions well and things go smoothly feels like a simple thing to wish for right now.
I still don’t feel any closer to knowing the way the NWSL, its owners, and the commissioner hope to accomplish their grander ambitions, but with the sizable media rights deals they’re going to have some more wiggle room to aim bigger.
As someone who’s been around the league since the beginning, I still think there’s some value in making sure the small things happen, too.
USWNT Wins A Trophy
U.S. captures first Gold Cup title
A few weeks ago, it was difficult to look at this inaugural Gold Cup as anything other than another tournament the U.S. would waste while waiting for head coach Emma Hayes to take her post in May. But the USWNT pulled the most out of the competition, including: overcoming a lackluster group stage, polishing rising stars like Jaedyn Shaw and Jenna Nighswonger and vanquishing some lingering World Cup penalty kick demons. Oh yeah, and they added another trophy to the cabinet.
Tamerra Griffin was on the ground for The Athletic. She explains how the competition itself was multidimensional, demanding similarly urgent questions and answers from the confederation about the region it oversees, and the place it wants to occupy globally as women’s soccer continues to grow.
GO DEEPER
Gold Cup gave USWNT chance to find answers, CONCACAF left with questions
Olympic roster look ahead
The Gold Cup provided a good case study for several players hoping to make Emma Hayes’ Olympic roster. Jeff Rueter takes us through who helped their cases for Paris and who left something to be desired.
Stock Up
- Jaedyn Shaw, 19, deservedly took home player of the tournament honors, and her case was further fortified by how much worse the USWNT attack looked when she was on the bench against Brazil. Her interplay with club teammate Alex Morgan has also helped the latter’s case, as her selfless line-leading work unlocked Shaw and the other supplemental attackers.
Stock Down
- I take no joy in writing this, especially as she was called in at the last minute, but Becky Sauerbrunn’s group-stage performances reopened the competition to start alongside Naomi Girma at the back. It’s easy to chalk that up to offseason rust, but if she plays at a similar level in SheBelieves, we may not see her on the Olympic squad, especially with Tierna Davidson pairing well with Girma.
Stock Neutral
- Korbin Albert, 20, was another of the young players who broke out in the tournament, and it was easy to see why she kept getting started as the tournament progressed — her defensive convergence was particularly vital to shield a makeshift USWNT backline. Still, her decision-making was exploited often by Brazil, from errant shots and passes to opponents easily bypassing her with the ball as she overcommitted to a challenge. That should be remedied with additional seasoning, but this summer’s Olympics may come too soon in that respect.
Full Time First Looks
Speaking of the Olympics: Mallory Swanson and Catarina Macario are making their comebacks following injuries. The latter, Macario, has now scored twice for Chelsea in three games back. Her latest goal was the lone score against Everton in the FA Women’s Cup quarterfinal, a well-poached, short-range effort to help Chelsea advance. Before we leave The Blues, some positive developments for Mia Fishel: The USWNT forward successfully underwent surgery to repair her ACL. Fishel confirmed the news on Monday.
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A serious note: Leicester City Women’s manager Willie Kirk is under investigation over an alleged relationship with one of Leicester City’s players. He was suspended from the club and missed the team’s win over Liverpool on Saturday. A few weeks ago, The Athletic reported that former Sheffield United manager Jonathan Morgan had a “secret” three-year relationship with a teenage player while he was Leicester manager.
Wrex Coast Tour: The Wrexham Women’s team is coming to America this summer. The tour is in conjunction with Ally Financial, which also sponsors the NWSL. Dates, venues and possible opponents have yet to be announced, but The Athletic’s Steph Yang spoke to Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney and Ally executive Andrea Brimmer about the partnership.
“Putting Africa on the map”: Orlando Pride announced the addition of Zambian forward Barbra Banda last week. She joins the team from Shanghai Shengli for a transfer fee of $740,000 on a four-year contract worth $2.1 million. The Athletic’s Tamerra Griffin spoke exclusively with Banada about the move.
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(Top photo: Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports)