True, but soccer convention (which is what I've always seen the typical crew of WoSo journos including Lauletta use) is home team first, which verifies with what Goff said earlier.
And now we have the home openers for all 9 teams: https://www.nwslsoccer.com/news/article/nwsl-announces-2020-home-openers 4/18 - NC v CHI 4/18 - POR v UTA 4/18 - DC v SEA 4/19 - ORL v NJ 4/24 - UTA v ORL 4/25 - CHI v POR 4/25 - HOU v NC 4/26 - NJ v SEA 5/3 - SEA v CHI Expect the full schedule in a week or less, just based on how leagues tend to drop home openers no more than a week before the entire schedule.
And the last two NWSL schedules came out on Feb 21 and Feb 22. The NWSL has been astonishingly consistent in this regard despite continual challenges of having to wait for other leagues to lock down their dates, negotiating late (or non-existent) national broadcasting agreements, and folding or relocating teams.
We have a commish! https://www.si.com/soccer/2020/02/27/nwsl-commissioner-lisa-baird She starts on the 10th. She also Tweets fairly regularly. Gosh, communication! 1230796983738228737 is not a valid tweet id If only we had been watching Budweiser's replies last week...
NWSL just tweeted that, in addition to having announced the schedule and a new commissioner this week, that they have *more* announcements coming in the near future. What is this league that's made such a 180° in the past two weeks,I barely recognize it!
wow! mia is commissioner?! that's what i thought when i first glanced at this page: https://www.nwslsoccer.com/ had to do a double take.
Portland gave 100k and Elizabeth Ball a defender to Utah for Becky. 100k is a lot. Enough to persuade a good player from overseas to come over.
How's Utah's roster looking at the moment? IIRC they're certainly a team desperately in need of a good player or two to get into the squad. (Might be a better discussion for the Player Moves thread than General News.)
Proactive messages like this must be what having a commissioner is like: #NWSL issues the following statement on COVID-19 ahead of the 2020 season: pic.twitter.com/AbIXv1uU3x— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) March 10, 2020
I know some members probably talked about this. But we need a freaking new better looking trophy! The SheBelieves Cup was new and looked better than the previous trophies. The trophy that NWSL currently has looks like it belongs to the employee of the month. Or a high school trophy for a band or orchestra. A lower division of women's soccer has a better looking trophy. Scotland in their domestic league just got a new trophy designed by a 11 year old girl! And previous SheBelieves Cup trophies in past compare to now. Newest one you see below. It looks like they made it narrower and taller. Looks better. The UEFA Women's Champions League trophy.
MLS Trophy. Some say its one of the best looking trophies in men's football/soccer compare to other football leagues in the world.
For those who don't follow the men's league, MLS has suspended their season for 30 days; I'm sure NWSL is adopting a "wait and see" for the next couple of weeks regarding the season openers, but I'm guessing at preseason will be affected.
Yep; X-posting with the preseason thread: Preseason matches are cancelled: "After receiving guidance from local and state authorities and medical personnel, and with the support of the Board of Directors, the National Women’s Soccer League is canceling the 2020 preseason match schedule in the wake of the most recent developments surrounding COVID-19. Our priority continues to be the safety and well-being of our players, coaches, staff, and fans. We are reviewing all contingency plans related to our regular season schedule and are monitoring developing events and their potential impact. We are deeply appreciative of our fans and partners for their continued support of our league and all our world-class players.” https://www.nwslsoccer.com/news/art...issioner-lisa-baird-regarding-the-2020-season
I suspect it'll take a bit still for the NWSL to come to a decision and make an announcement, but the CDC just issued a recommendation (recommendation, not requirement) to cancel any large gathering of over 50 people (for all of the US) for the next 8 weeks, so now we're looking at the start of the season being impacted. It might mean postponement and/or shortened season although I guess it could also mean playing matches without spectators. Postponement seems most likely if things stay the same/worsen. Playing closed-door matches would be an option if things improve. EDIT: Also there's an NWSL Watch Party (group re-watch of Sky Blue vs Seattle in 2017) happening NOW while we're all social distancing...follow the hashtag on twitter: #NWSLWatchParty
NWSL has actually paused team activities. Players are to "stay in market", but team training is currently off. I would think that having an opening slate of games with players who have had inadequate preparation would be a bad idea. And I, frankly, don't expect things to be returning to normal by April 18th.
I don't either. IMO, things are going to get worse before they get better. 8 weeks from now, under current CDC recommendations, would be starting around May 10, which means a shortened season, IMO, is looking more like a probability not possibility. And on that note, the NBA is thinking June might be a possibility as a best-car scenario but with closed-door games: Best case...mid/late June...closed arenas.NBA and Adam Silver are often ahead of the curve. So take this as potential precedent and apply to soccer, and we could be talking about drastically shortened seasons. https://t.co/wPMvzwbdtM— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) March 16, 2020
If the start of the season does get postponed, I guess the "easy" thing would be to eliminate the first of three times each team plays each opponent, i.e. reducing the season from 24 games to 16 games, and find byes/midweeks to move the "early" current game 2's to later.
To be honest, I would think a league like the NWSL will potentially just lose the year outright. The Big 4, and maybe even MLS, have a financial incentive to play games for the broadcast revenues, but as, even with the CBS deal, I'm guessing the NWSL's deal is probably closer to break-even (at least the league isn't paying for infomercials), unless they're able to open the stadiums to normal amounts of ticket buying fans, that economically shutting it all down after a certain point becomes the financially responsible thing to do. Part of that probably depends on what USSF's plans are with the "Federation Players". The USSF could just up and decide to play a steady stream of friendlies (assuming no Olympics), then I think the NWSL is toast. If the USSF doesn't do that, you have to try to figure out what's the minimum number of games to have a meaningful season? MLS cutting 34 to 24 is one thing, but the NWSL cutting from 24 to ???. Where's the "what's the point" line? 16 games? 12 games? Just turn the season into Cup style knockout tournament with home/home games just to award the trophy? How legitimate would that be if those are the only games team play this year? I would think the break-even point would be as soon as some time in June. If we get to mid-July without games, I struggle to see how they save the season without losing huge amounts of money. As someone who financially depends on sports actually taking place, these are worrying times indeed. But I'd rather we be safe than sorry.
NWSL has continued the pause on all training for another couple of weeks and officially announced that the regular season will be delayed: Update on the start of the #NWSL season: pic.twitter.com/Uf45KweIio— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) March 20, 2020
Again, looking at June sometime. Empty stadiums. Looking at South Korea as an example and their leagues are resuming in two weeks with empty arenas.
Have some free time these days? Meg Linehan at the Athletic is asking NWSL fans to fill out this survey. She'll do an article from the responses.
Latest from the NWSL is that they're thinking end of June may be a possibility to return to play (of course, subject to change): Just spoke with #NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird: The league's current, working target is a return to play at the end of June.Everything is fluid and things could change, but that's what current plans are being based on. Story shortly at @EqualizerSoccer with a lot more detail.— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) April 1, 2020 Also Lisa Baird never really even got a chance to ease into this job. Just right into the fire.