Since the super-sized News of Note was published on Tuesday, there have been two big intra-league trades as well as a pair of notable signings. Topping the trade headlines is another player swap involving Racing Louisville that will see a veteran forward head to the Bluegrass state from Cascadia.
The big news of the day, the unveiling of the new collective bargaining agreement by the NWSL Players Association, will be discussed in a separate article.
After a seven week break for the 2024 Paris Olympics, where the USWNT once again won gold, the second-half of the 2024 National Women’s Soccer League season gets underway on Friday, August 23rd.
During the Olympic break, most of the teams were involved in player trades, signings, and other roster moves. The most notable (and shocking) trade during the break, just happened on Monday, when the Seattle Reign and Racing Louisville swapped forward Bethany Balcer for Racing’s captain, midfielder Jaelin Howell. Meanwhile, the most surprising signing was not a player, but an interim head coach: Landon Donovan, with the San Diego Wave.
Updates:
August 20th: Racing signs Colombian defender Ángela Barón, NC Courage loan defender Talia Staude to USL Super League side Tampa Bay Sun…
For player-related moves, as well as other developments involving all fourteen NWSL teams, including Angel City FC’s sale to Willow Bay and Bob Iger, keep reading…
The inaugural edition of the Concacaf W Champions Cup, the confederation’s first international tournament for professional women’s soccer teams (mostly), gets underway tonight with a play-in match between the Vancouver Whitecaps FC Elite of Canada and Alianza of El Salvador.
Three NWSL teams are in the competition: The 2023 champions, Gotham FC; 2023 Shield winners, San Diego Wave; and the Shield runners-up, Portland Thorns. Gotham is in Group A, while the Wave and the Thorns are in Group B.
For the first time, a significant number of the players, who range in age from 18 to 20 years old, will be professionals, as eight out of the twenty-one players will represent NWSL teams at the tournament.
Up through the 2012 cycle, the USA’s final roster for the U-20 WWC consisted exclusively of collegiate and pre-collegiate players. Until this year, only two professionals have played for the USA at the U-20 WWC: Lindsey Horan (Wikipedia) in 2014 and Olivia Moultrie (Wikipedia) in 2022.
This year’s roster is also unusual in another respect, as multiple age-eligible professional players have not been included: Jaedyn Shaw, who is currently with the USWNT at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Olivia Moultrie, and Alyssa Thompson. All three have full senior caps with the USWNT and have essentially ‘graduated’ from the U-20 WYNT after competing for the USA at the last U-20 WWC in 2022.
On Friday, July 26th, Gotham FC announced that they had signed U-15 USWYNT player McKenna “Mak” Whitham. Whitham is the youngest player ever signed to an NWSL club.
Elsewhere, the Washington Spirit’s home stadium, Audi Field, is receiving a new grass surface next week, and, on Thursday, July 25th, the Houston Dash announced that they have “parted ways” with General Manager Alex Singer.
As expected, Stanford sophomore forward Sophia Smith was selected by Portland Thorns FC as the overall #1 pick in this year’s NWSL College Draft. What was unexpected was the series of trades that saw Sky Blue acquire USWNT forward Mallory Pugh from the Washington Spirit and the Chicago Red Stars acquire forward Rachel Hill from the Orlando Pride. Oh, and Portland also ended up with the #2 overall pick, which they used to acquire Washington State forward Morgan Weaver. Continue reading “2020 NWSL College Draft: Sophia Smith Goes #1, Mallory Pugh Traded to Sky Blue”
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