Nov/Dec matches - Nov 28 and Dec 1

What are the cons? I feel like it's time for Emma to start settling into a rotation. But, looking back on the year, I can't identify many, if any call ups that I would say were wasted. If she calls in almost 50 different players this season, then I'd say she's gone overboard.

We've done proposed rosters a bunch of times, here's a proposed pool for 2026. Orange means not guaranteed.
CB's: Girma, Sonnett, McKeown, Bugg (this is a position that, for me, is in flux. Sonnett is great, but I worry about her playing a high line, she's lost steps. McKeown has defensive deficiencies, fantastic contributor on O, but still learning how to play D. Bugg, looked great this weekend. Imo, there are any number of CB's in NWSL that could fill this spot)
4

FB/WB: Fox, Patterson, Reale, Izzy. I think that Fox and Patterson drop off enough when moved to the left, that I want a 2nd LB.
4

Defensive oriented MF: Coffey (backed by Hutton)
1
Two-way MF: Hutton (b/u Moultrie)
1
Attacking MF: Yohannes, Rose, Bethune (b/u Moultrie, Shaw)
3
F: Macario, Cooper, Thompson (b/u Moultrie, Shaw)
3
Multipositional: Moultrie, Shaw
2
Keeper: Tullos-Joyce, 2 more, incl. Dickey I guess.
3

That's 21. I need two more. Rodman, if she's healthy, is one. So, the last person on my roster would be Howell or Herschfeldt, my roster is thin at 6/8.

So, that's 23.

Who else would I look at? Forward is crazy. Obviously, if any of the 3E are in form. Then, I think there is a good chance that one or more of the young forwards explodes: Tordin, Adames, maybe Turner. And, late in the year, maybe Hanks. But, it's going to be hard for any of them to knock Alyssa, Macario, Cooper out. And, Shaw and Moultrie gotta be there, maybe as forwards, maybe because of their versatility. So all those players have an uphill battle to knock someone out of the roster.

In midfield, I'd still want to get a look at Herschfeldt and/or Howell and/or Schraeder. Two of those at the most.

I'd look at one more CB, in addition to Sonnett/McKeown/Bugg/Girma

And, Weisner is intriguing.

That's it for field players. I'd cut it down to that, which is still a lot. And, I'd focus on getting the primary rotation down.

 

I respect your thoughts. I pray, Smith and Swanson decide to play this WC. Props for the Heaps omission.

 

NWSL average attendance 2025: 11,250

WSL 2024-25: 6,661

UEFA Women's Champions League 2025: 3,951

But UEFA Women's EURO 2025: over 20,000

So as leagues go, average attendance for the NWSL is well above any other league.

 

No, my defintion of competing is going undefeated in full matches. That's what I am defending. The US was highly competitive in that one. As was Nigeria.

Since we drew Viet Nam early, we were just rying to bank the points, not win the boot early.
And that team was built on defense, not offense.

Soccer is a game where ties are rather common, and do not represent abject failure.

 

so you're sticking with comparing our WC favorably to Spain's.

 

The only really positive thing about the last WWC was that it allowed us to get rid of a bad national team coach, which we should have done years earlier, and hire a MUCH better one that actually knows how a national team differs from a club team.

We actually played four poor matches and we can thank our luck and our reputation that we even got out of our group. We played really crappy football and we got deservedly beaten.

I expect our next WWC to be much better mainly because we have a coach that knows how to design a system to fit her players rather than coming up with a system and trying to shoehorn our players into it.

This team, even missing some probable starters, is already worlds better that the team we drug to the last one.

 

Not sure what you mean

 

To me, football is a Club game. Nations have all sorts of inbuilt factors that can make the games unbalanced. Again, its ironic that the USA is fine with the massive advantages it has, but want its leagues to be regulated via caps and artificial rules. No country spends more money on developing female soccer players than the USA. it stands to reason that IF that money is well spent, the US should have dominant WoSo team!

 

Just pointing out that that is an exaggeration about the CBA. You can go back and look at the CBA's themselves that came out in the court filings (although I don't think we ever saw the one right before the current one; we just know some details about it). There were limits on the number of "floaters" per camp, restrictions on how many days a player could be a "floater" before being offered a contract, and a set number of contracts, but the total number allowed to be called in wasn't as low 26 players/year. I'm pretty sure most of the former coaches had at least one year where they would have called in more than that. Ellis definitely called in more. There was an incentive for coaches to call in the contracted players since they were going to be paid anyway, and there was probably pressure from the federation because of that. But that wasn't codified in the CBA. Andonovski, like Sundhage really, was just super conservative on who he called in. He was somewhat limited on how many new players he could call in, but he didn't have to go as conservative as he did. Personally, I think he would have been that conservative regardless of the CBA's restrictions.

I think you're mixing the NWSL CBA with the USWNT's, and we're talking about the USWNT's CBA. The USWNT's CBA has had pregnancy leave for awhile, and the Yates Report was an investigation into the NWSL. Plus, of course, the current USWNT CBA does not have contracts at all; they get paid per game, same as the men.

 

No, I'm pointing out if you don't lose a match, you are by definition competitive.

I'm proud of that team and proud for Nigeria's team as well. If it is another process that eliminates you, not the game itself, you showed up and the other team was constrained to get past you by an alternative to beating you in the actual competition.

You competed just fine.

 

There are definitely owners who would spend fortunes to win championships here in the US (eg, the Yankees). However, I think the US model attempts to cater to the experience of all fans in a particular league. I mean, who wants to watch the same 2or 3 powerhouse teams win the club championship every year?

 

I do think leagues need a small playoff system.

You will always have owners who want to spend money like Orlando, but other owners, like Angel City, don't show signs that they want to spend. There should be a salary cap, but I don't know how much it should be

 

You mean inter-league playoffs?
Yes, I definitely agree that would be fun to watch.

 

but then the MSL is the 2nd most attended league in the world, but it don’t make us an broso super power. I think it’s more to do that we’re an sports crazy country that usually have
the best supported league in just about any sport

Spain(which finished fourth)definitely complained that they didn’t have enough time to prepare as their mainly NT dominated Barca players felt overextended season already as they went into extra matches when they won both the Champions & Nations League. Usually most Euro leagues will try to end their seasons a little early if there’s an upcoming WC or Euros, but they don’t do it for the Olympics.

and keep in mind, Euros dominated the 2023 WC—-7 out of the 8 quarter finalists were from that continent, yet only three were allowed to qualify for the Olympics

I started switching over from watching broso to woso around early 2010’s, and except for the one shining beacon, Lyon, was shocked how bad things were over there. I followed the Frauen Bundesliga—-a few hundred would usually show up to their games. The players were paid at best, part time salaries. One for example named Hegering was working 12 hour shifts as a construction worker while playing full time club soccer, yet good enough to be Germany’s starting CB for quite a few years.
The NWSL was the first real paying pro league in the world, but the best employer by far was the USWNT who gave those $250k a year salaries to its regulars, no other country’s did that, it’s why it gave the US an extra edge in the 2010’s.

 

I'm out here trying to figure out if I missed a league somewhere. It's MLS .

The USWNT rostered player salaries were subsidized by USSF and that definitely helped, but the rest of the NWSL players were playing for peanuts. Most of the big-name foreign players were playing in Europe for the majority of the 2010's.

The French, German, Swedish (and don't know if I'm forgetting any other) leagues were considered better in terms of competition than the NWSL was for many years.

 

the MLS attendance # is a red herring that has been exposed repeatedly. How many teams does mls have?

 

penalties are part of the actual competition.

My standard for what the level at which the U.S. competes in a WC is much higher than one win.

 

Most of the Euro leagues were very top heavy during the early NWSL years. There were some dominant teams, but most got no competition until the later rounds of the UWCL.

 

I don't think this is true.

 

I'm comparing inter-league competitiveness vs. intra-league competition.
At least I think that's what @hotjam is referring too.

I agree that the Euro leagues had much higher quality top-heavy teams, and that the NWSL always had better top-to-bottom parity.

 

To clarify, I'm comparing the best teams in 'other' leagues vs. the best teams of the NWSL.

 

And yet they don't happen until group play is over, or in friendlies, nor does FIFA consider them as deciding the match, only who advances. the game is recorded as a tie.

They are better than a coin toss, and more practical than replays, but that's about all that can be said for them. They certainly do not measure competitivity particularly well.

You seem to me to just want to feel free to critique any arrangements made by anyone who does not seek your approval first.

Which, of course you are free to do, but it comes off more like the growl and yap of the neighbor's rat dog than anything analytic. More annoying than serious.