according to the link you got to join an membership to read the full article. It says free 7 day trial, but wants a credit card as a ways to hook you in. Just reading the first few allowable paragraphs, the one mistake seems always it’s the NWSL vs all of Europe. But if it’s only NWSL vs an individual Euro league, the NWSL has practically beat everybody by a wide margin, with only the WSL being the exception in head to head comparisons I followed mostly the Frauen Bundesliga & despite all its creds, to this day it’s still only fields two real professional paying teams(Bayern & Wolfsburg). These two bigwigs tend to buy up the moment the bottom ten produce a top prospect. Putting all your best on one, or two teams isn’t really the best way to do things other than to compete in the Champions League(similar wise Barca’s bench probably the 2nd best squad in their own league) The WSL is the only league in Europe that is pro from bottom to top. It’s not just made up of English players, just looking at stats. 13 out of the 20 top goal scorers come from other countries. In this way it’s become an truly international league(I’ve seen once Arsenal not have an single English starter in their lineup)—as compared to the NWSL more domestic feel about it(though I guess with an shade of Brazilians & Canadians thrown in) Wish I could find the one Soccerdonna meme that had Americans as 7 of the top ten best paid soccer players of the world—-so NWSL does pay better than the WSL(though salaries are generally not disclosed) So pro side of NWSL—-better pay, more balance, overall more investment money in the negative side—-lack of influence at this last WC where even Brazil & Canadians flopped worse, seems to coincide that the NWSL doing something seriously wrong
But if you say that then you also have to blame the WSL (or other Euro leagues) for the Sweden (not qualifying for the Olympics) and England (most likely not qualifying for the Olympics) recent flops. Sometimes it is just a bad run and you bounce back. Or in the case of the US, a coach way in over his head.
Currently Europe has 6 of the 7 top FIFA ranked teams in the world but only 3 Euro squads are allowed to play in the Olympics. Even 1 of the 4 group winners will have to be eliminated in future. England didn’t necessarily “flop” as instead faced an equally tough Dutch opponent(as US found out too at the WC). What also might helped the Dutch is they got quite a few playing in the WSL as well . Sweden got eliminated by world champs, Spain(so not necessarily a flop either). like I’ve said NWSL could be the best league in the world, even in head to head with the WSL comparisons, but giving mixed feelings of if it’s directly helping its flagship national teams (US & Brazil). I mean when you look at that Morgan was made the scapegoat of the NT, yet still managed to take her SD Wave to win the Shield(as best regular season team) while leading her club in scoring & assists. And then Portland’s inability to score in 120 minutes in the semis vs Gotham despite league leading scorer Sophie Smith as central striker & strongly supported by capable team mates, going up against an very Euro coached opponent, felt a bit Deja Vu via the WC results
You really should watch more matches instead of reading superficial stats like goals-scored, assists at face value. It's wild to say Smith was well-supported by her teammates (no, Thorns could not break the 5-player high press of Gotham entire match, Smith is the major source of Thorns attack mostly from breakaway but, don't know how this is related to the European coaches) or Morgan is the best player in the SD side despite her goals.
And, Rachel Daly walks through defenses in the WSL to the Golden Boot, yet struggled to do so in the NWSL. Whether those European teams were ranked high is not the point. They are failing to qualify for the Olympics. As I said the argument is stupid either way - to blame the WSL or NWSL for the international teams. But you can't blame one league and not the other when things go south.
going with FOTMOB NWSL ratings of players, Thorns had 4 of the top 10 best(Coffey even rated higher than Smith). Morgan ranked #5 top overall player, higher than any of her team mates FotMob rating - NWSL 2023 stats but of course, you know better
Seriously, people still use Fotmob rating? Of course I know better, cuz a naive weighted average of superifical stats is far from a full picture, and it is not useful. If you want to go quantitative, at least use goals added compiled by American Soccer Analysis, which quantified players' on filed contribution in terms of added expected goals, that being said, existing soccer data and measures of on field influences are very underdeveloped compared with Baseball and Basketball. I don't think you should base your evaluation players/league quality based on those data only, there's replacement of watching games at the moment.
Follow your logics, EPL and La Liga must be horrible leagues because Spain and England NTs won nothing in more than a decade, although clubs from those two leagues are doing very well in UCL.
You need to stop whining what I write & give your own opinion then, The NWSL set up got its perks with nearly every club allotted a franchise type players not just for equal competition but attract more fans as well , but it’s not mean’t to compete at the Champions League hierarchy level Daly must be in the dog house with Wiegman as she’s got no playing time in yesterday’s game. If going by current FIFA rankings, then #4 England wouldn’t of been favorites to make it to the Olympics as there’s only two qualifying spots available(since 3rd Euro spot goes to the hosting French)
Well we do actually have new salary data in FIFA's latest Benchmarking Report. NWSL blows almost everyone else out of the water in terms of average salary per player (pg50).
Two caveats, first, the data were up to the end of 22 or 21/22 season, and they're one-year old. One year changes a lot of things in woso because it's developing in a very fast pace. Although, I believe the general picture remains largely the same Second, missing values for WSL and Bundsliga. This overlook likely won't change the big picture, but data from those two leagues are of great significance.
For England, a possible explanation is that most of the top players in the Premier League are not English, they come from other countries but are brought to England due to Salary and the UK's immigration laws that are favorable to international players. For Spain, is it La Liga that is good, or just the top 4-5 clubs? I haven't looked recently so things may have changed, but it wasn't too long ago that the teams that were mid to bottom table were struggling financially. This financial struggle was being pushed down to their youth development systems and it is bound to have impacts on their ability to identify and develop young players.
Well, similar to EPL, WSL also have lots of non-English players. Following this logic, why should WSL takes credit for England's intrenational success. Almost every La Liga club is in deep financial trouble, but clearly there are more than 4-5 teams that are competitive. Otherwise, it is hard to expalin their success in Europa league as well as the UCL.
WoSo is different than MeSo in that not every country has a women's league, while most countries have a men's league. Just giving women the ability to play professionally will result in an improvement on the quality of that country's players and put them ahead of country's that don't have a women's professional league. I didn't say they weren't competitive.. Just that the financial struggles of the teams in the league means the mid to bottom table teams are cutting back on their youth development and that's going to have an impact on how the national team performs.
wonder why there’s no mention where Bundesliga players salaries stand on page 52’s average salary charts?(it’s the one league I tend to follow). The report also got a little wrong in that there’s currently only one non affiliated with men’s/ club(SGS Essen) instead of two. The most infamous independent woso club, Turbine Potsdam, got relegated to Bundi Div 2. NWSL’s weakness might be that only half are affiliated with the bigger budgeted MLS clubs. Isn’t USSF paying the clubs for the salaries of its regular NT players?(got no idea how that’s working anymore) but to be sure cept for the two main clubs, thr Bundi don’t pay well—-in fact their NT just debuted a player named Senss, that works part time as an RN!
It's absolutely a league to watch. #2 in avg attendance, #2 in max attendance, #3 in % professional. They just need some broadcasting $ and more FTE staff.
Why is this a weakness? "NWSL’s weakness might be that only half are affiliated with the bigger budgeted MLS clubs." That affiliation was a problem for the Thorns and Racing Louisville (see the Yates report). There are plenty of European teams affiliated with bigger budget men's clubs but they are not supported well.
Agree, being affiliated with men's clubs reduces the women's sides to trophy projects more often than not. Whenever financial problems arise, the women's sides are likely the first to meet the axe because of being trophy projects. Recently Levante UD's women's side face future financial cut because the men's side got relegated and the club was in a debt of 107 million Euros, although the annual expense for Levante UD woman is likely fewer than 3 million Euros.
I think a lot of people view affiliation as a good business decision as it means overhead costs are shared and the women's team doesn't have to pay to rent out stadiums. This view was greatly influenced by (1) the financial dominance of Portland in the early NWSL days, and (2) the rise of UEFA superclubs once the men's clubs bought in. However, the financial data doesn't really bear that out, at least in the season considered by the recent Benchmarking Report (e.g. pg16) - or, at least the relationship isn't quite as clear-cut. On the plus side, independent clubs, on average, make about 40% more commercial revenue ($482k vs $344k) and about 20% more total revenue ($893k vs $748k) than those affiliated with men's teams. They also tend to have more sponsors than affiliated clubs. This is likely due to effort from ownership, as affiliated teams are never the top priority in their club. It is true, though, that affiliated clubs are slightly more likely to make a profit than independent clubs are (14% vs 9%) and make more prize or broadcast money.
Seems a little odd to call out only the MLS affiliated clubs from the Yates report..Riley and Holly’s misconduct was ongoing throughout their careers, including their time at independent clubs. Not to mention the issues going on at Chicago… As the Yates report identified, the problems they identified were systemic and present throughout the league and FO. Portland, Louisville, and Chicago were the focus of the investigation, but the problem was much bigger than those three clubs..
I would think one issue for affiliated clubs that impacts both the number of sponsors and the amount of commercial revenue they get is they are generally shared with the men's team. This will generally leave how to split the revenue from those things up to the ownership and they will, generally, favor the men's team as that will generate the most money for them. There may be some sponsors that are only for the Women's club, but there won't be many and it is likely more common for a sponsor to only pay for the Men's side.
Sure but the Portland Timbers owner was a big part of the Paul Riley scandal, protecting him. And he is forced to sell the Thorns but will remain in the MLS because blinders over there. And, the issues with Racing Louisville forced them to separate their shared personnel from the MLS side. So there have been issues with the combined entities.