The countdown continues, just six weeks to the playoffs, with a very tasty top 4 challenge leading off. All times US East FRI 20 Sep 20:00 Kansas City hosts Washington (Prime) 22:30 Bay FC hosts Orlando (NWSL+) SAT 21 Sep 19:30 Louisville hosts North Carolina (ION) 20:30 Houston hosts Seattle (NWSL+) 21:30 Chicago hosts Sean Diego (ION) SUN 22 Sep 13:00 Gotham hosts Utah (ESPN2/+/D) MON 23 Sep 22:00 Angel City hosts Portland (CBSSN) Cumulative ELO Table (excludes NWSL X Liga MX F Summer Cup) Code: Team Open Curr Chng SoS Orlando Pride 1444 1616 +172 0.4941 Washington Spirit 1511 1605 +94 0.4368 Kansas City Current 1521 1579 +58 0.4408 NJ/NY Gotham FC 1553 1606 +53 0.4229 NC Courage 1559 1562 +3 0.5297 Bay FC 1500 1490 -10 0.5078 Chicago Red Stars 1497 1485 -12 0.4454 Racing Louisville 1508 1477 -31 0.5546 Portland Thorns FC 1561 1520 -41 0.4563 Seattle Reign FC 1580 1533 -47 0.5642 San Diego Wave FC 1517 1469 -48 0.5263 Angel City FC 1533 1475 -58 0.5071 Utah Royals 1500 1434 -66 0.5896 Houston Dash 1499 1432 -67 0.5143
Here's hoping the Red Stars or Racing find a way into that 6th spot and the entire west coast stays home for the playoffs.
The source of the graphic has been wrong all season - that's last year's format. (Not surprising since the source has never updated with the team crests.) This year is a full 8 teams in the playoffs.
The Orlando turnaround over the past season and a half is really a story that I'd like to read the background on. They started 2023 with four losses and a draw and haven't had a single loss in 2024.
My previous source was missing teams at the start of the year because of name changes. It looks like this one from Google hits the right notes now though: Playoffs this season are fully seeded (1v8 etc) in the quarterfinals.
Good win by Louisville over NC. Plus, the best announcing team called the game: Dellacamara and Loyden. Jordan Angeli is also good.
Gotham/Utah about to start on ESPN2 I'm going to miss Katie Stengel for the rest of the season. I think Gotham is going to miss Stengel the rest of the season I was a big proponent/defender of Lynn Williams for the Tokyo Olympics 2020/2021, but she doesn't bring that much to Gotham's style of play, certainly not since her injury which kept her out of action for a year or so before going to Gotham ADD — Ella Steven has been just short of sensational this year. Where has she been effective? Playing centrally in absence of Esther and/ or Lavelle So where is Amorós playing her the last couple weeks? Out wide ADD — Naturally I'll take credit for the Reverse Jinx if Gotham does well. Either that or it's Utah they're playing after all
We now have four teams qualified for the playoffs, and ORL has even already guaranteed a home playoff game with how far ahead of #5 they are. There are 7pts between 1st and 2nd, and 10pts between 4th and 5th; there are also 10pts between 5th and 10th and between 8th and 14th, depending on how you want to look at the race for the last four/last one playoffs spot. Still, getting an away game in the first round of the playoffs is still likely going to be the end of the road for anyone based on the current standings. The composite home record for teams 2-4 against teams 5-14 is 20W-5D-1L - the lone loss was WASvNC (because NC somehow always has WAS's number) and the draws were KCvCHI, KCvLOU, NJYvLOU, NJYvSEA, and WASvSD.