My view on Playoffs/no playoffs. If the league is small enough that you can play a home and home round robin, then the best way to determine a champion is no playoffs. I'd be really surprised if there are any leagues around the world where they can't do a h/h round robin, but don't have playoffs. If the league is too big for that, then you have playoffs. The NWSL is small enough to play a h/h round robin. The better way to crown a true champion would be to do that. But, in the US, we like playoffs. It's what gets our attention. There's no way NWSL is going to forego playoffs for the noble cause of crowning a True Champion. It sucks, for NWSL, because women are much more injury prone than men. Much more likely to be missing a player, or players, that got them there, than a men's league. (Can I say that?) I asked this in another thread, no one bit. Would it make sense to call the game differently for women and men? Call tackles differently - protect the players (and their knees) more? Or, are most of the additional injuries of the non-contact variety?
Playoffs do not cause injuries more than a regular game. Portland's injury riddled roster has nothing to do with the playoffs. They were hurt in preseason, on national team duty, and in regular season games. Round robin, no playoffs is boring. No one cares about the end of the season in France, England, or Spain. The winner was decided before match 1. Why do you think their attendance is so poor in Europe? Also, the ACL rate in Europe through 3 months is much higher than it was in the US this season.
What the hell do you think you're responding to? Attendance for women's soccer is poor because they have a culture that actively devalues women's sports. How's attendance in the PL? I like playoffs, I never said otherwise. Sheesh, take your zoloft. I was talking about philosophically the best way to determine a true champion. I never said anything about entertainment value. Is this supposed to be in response to something I said? Damn, you're just making stuff up to argue about.
You said women are much more likely to be injury prone so they should change their schedule. At least that is how I interpreted it. I explained that the playoff schedule had nothing to do with injuries. Not everything in my post has to be directed to you. No need to be so defensive. Sports are entertainment. If they are not entertaining, they will not survive.
I asked "Would it make sense to call the game differently for women and men? Call tackles differently - protect the players (and their knees) more? Or, are most of the additional injuries of the non-contact variety?" I did not specify "during the playoffs." Though, since the rest of the discussion was about the playoffs, I s'pose I should have been clearer.
Not really, that's how band-wagon-riders and fair-weather-fans view sports. Other fans enjoy the ride, not just one moment in time.
Yup. Washington had a better game plan, and executed it better. Saying that, it mostly came down to the speed of the team. Across the board, Washington has faster players and used that to their benefit in all areas of the field that they could. And that made it really one sided.
The 2007 Patriots were the best team in the NFL that year, the fact that they lost a close final to the Giants doesn't change that in my opinion, and I'm not even a fan of the Patriots. The NBA, NHL, and MLB play multi-game series in the playoffs to avoid these types of conversations; maybe the NWSL should too.
I didn't watch the match, but, as an Italian, I am interested in Sofia Cantore's performance: did she play well?
Fairly well, I think. Not dynamic. She did have a late shot go off the post which she probably should have scored. But it's really hard to pull her specifically out of the attack which was high pressure on both sides of the ball and made life for Portland really difficult. To put in context how dominate Washington was, they had Monday, Bethune, Kouassi, and Cantore all pressing and driving hard, with Santos and Hershfelt in support. And even Esme Morgan was getting forward. And then Rodman replaced Cantore late, and nothing changed. The only notable thing about Cantore to me, in that context, is she hit the post rather than the back of the net.
Another goal scored after the 90th minute! That Shaw transfer is looking like such a great piece of business!
Gotham/Orlando. After 96 minutes I was ready to declare this was the most boring match of the year -- but then good things happened for Gotham.
Just because there was ONE good shot and ONE good save does not make the match exciting. This match was about as far from good as any semifinal I have ever seen in any soccer playoff even in rec or armature leagues, 93 minutes of boredom followed by 2 minutes of moderate excitement does not mean the match was fun to watch. In fact the old phrasing that reads something like "Well that is xxx minutes of my life I will never get back" springs to mind. The match was not played cagey but, rather, it was just played poorly. Throughout the match I kept waiting for something to happen but the only thing that happened was in the last. There were many bad passes but that was not the problem. The problem was the choices. It seemed that both teams were told to not take any risks and they executed that pretty perfectly. I hope the final is better. I also hope Rodman plays as she is not known for not taking risks. I do not mean to sound so negative and I am sure part of my negativity comes from listening to the foolish announcers talking about so much "history" and so little "match info." Their jabbering was so bad I simply muted the audio for long periods of time but my old eyes have deteriorated to the point where identifying players is not easy. I had to turn on the audio to discover who was involved where or, sometimes to even know what was happening as the camera work was very bad and they kept showing closeups of players even when there was action on the field. Maybe we won't have ESPN next year. All the complaints I've had about regular NWSL coverage this year pale when compared to the travesty perpetuated by ESPN we saw on this day.
Yeah. Drama =/= Quality. It’s clear that some prefer drama and that’s cool. For me, the standard of play has dipped significantly in recent times. We have gone back to a p and p dominating.
Don’t expect any different from the final—-it’s two Spanish coaches who will play the tiki tacca to the hilt. So a lot of tedious, repetitive passing in order to get the highest percentage shots. I immediately fell asleep when watching both games of the recent Nations Lesgue semis between Spain & Sweden…..and now ironically, KC ready to hire another Swedish(would make it 3rd one in the NWSL)
While I missed the first half (had the wrong starting time), what struck me watching the second half was two things: 1 - Gotham was, largely, sitting deeper minimizing Orlando's attack. Multiple times I noticed Lavelle pick up the ball around the top of her own penalty area to start an attack. 2 - The field condition was not great. Muggy? Soft? It wasn't bad/soggy, but didn't allow the ball to run which seemed to slow down the play, particularly in the middle third of the pitch. The two things amounting to a bit of a slog. It also looked like the last 15+ minutes both teams were looking quite tired. Well, except for Shaw, who seems lively from what I saw. And that seems to be Shaw, in general. I can't recall ever seeing her tired. Her endurance score must be at 100. This match, of course, was also dynamically different than the Washington v. Portland match in which Washington was high pressure and used their speed advantage. That is not how Washington played v. Portland. Washington was not tedious and used their speed to great advantage. They might not have as great a speed advantage v. Gotham, but I still think they are a faster team, and have a deeper bench. IMO, the difference will be how well Berger plays.
Referee for the Championship match will be Natalie Simon according to a post in the Referee Forum* NWSL Final (Saturday 11/22, 8pm ET on CBS) Washington Spirit vs NJ/NY Gotham FC PayPal Park (8PM ET) REF: Natalie Simon AR1: Chris Schurfranz AR2: Matt Trotter 4TH: Nabil Bensalah VAR: Shawn Tehini AVAR: John Krill RAR: Christian Clerc * and now I see the announcement on the PRO (Professional Referees Organization) website https://proreferees.com/2025/11/19/2025-nwsl-championship-crew-confirmed/
For this match the teams seem to be pretty even on the number of really important players missing. Baring in match injuries or stupid red cards this should be a very even even match. I think the "best" of Washington is superior to the best of Gotham but it can go either way depending on in match events. If the old "truism" of "Offense wins games and defense wins tournaments" holds I thing Washington hold an advantage but Gotham's defense is pretty strong also. I expect a low scoring but very dynamic match it which we could easily have extra time with the final score being 2-1 with Washington winning and, should it go tp PKs, Washington still wins as their shooters are calmer, in general, than Gotham's. It is the shooters that make the difference in PKs because very very very few PKs that are even remotely well taken are saved. That is most shootouts are lost not won. I expect this to be about as entertaining a final tournament match as possible and I just hope that neither side chooses to play excessively conservatively because conservative play is boring. The one concern I have is that this is played at a neutral site which means the crowd will not be supporting anybody and so might just mask the quality by sitting on their hands too much. I do NOT like noise but I am not there so noise is a positive for this match.