The NWSL Draft 2020, the eighth such draft for the league, featured a first. Sophia Smith, taken with the No. 1 overall pick by the Portland Thorns, became the first teenager selected in the draft on Thursday morning.
Smith, a 19-year-old forward who just finished her sophomore season with Stanford, won a national title and scored 24 goals in 33 games with the Cardinal.
The Houston Dash lost their captain, all-time leading scorer and most-recognizable player on Monday. The Dash sent Kealia Ohai to the Chicago Red Stars after the forward had requested a trade.
Ohai’s fiancé, a popular professional athlete also based in Houston, was incredibly supportive of the move but became upset Tuesday when it came time to read the headlines.
The eighth episode of The Players’ Tribune series “Bad as a Mother” starring USWNT forward Sydney Leroux and her husband Dom Dwyer dropped on Dec. 31, and it was a captivating finale with the proud parents bringing home newborn daughter Roux. (This actually happened on June 28, 2019.)
Tired of hearing about Megan Rapinoe? Yeah, me neither.
Rapinoe has had herself quite the year and to add on to her standout persona, Nike honored her with a pair of cleats designed specifically to commemorate her triumph at Monday’s Ballon d’Or ceremony.
She’s known for her pink hair, her activism and her recent World Cup performance with the USWNT, where she earned herself the Golden Boot and Golden Ball awards. Now if you had to describe Rapinoe by customizing a cleat, it would look a lot like Nike’s design.
NWSL player Carson Pickett plays for the Orlando Pride and shows her pride each and every game both on and off the field. She does not only stand out for her play, but she was a born with a birth defect, which caused her to not have a left forearm and hand.
Despite her minor difference she did not let it hold her back from chasing her dreams and allowing others with similar qualities to be proud of who they are and to follow their dreams.
Argentina’s 1-0 friendly victory over Brazil on Friday — thanks to Lionel Messi’s goal in the 13th minute — created quite the conversation on Twitter. From Messi telling Brazil manager Tite to shut up after he believed Messi should’ve been given a yellow card to penalty misses from both Gabriel Jesus and Messi, it was quite an entertaining match.
Reporter Lindsay Gibbs has a great newsletter called Power Plays and I highly recommend you subscribe. A self-proclaimed “no-bullshit newsletter about sexism in sports,” Gibbs supplies a great look at inequality in sports, often focusing on soccer, sent directly to your inbox.
I like bourbon as much as the next person. I quite like it with smoked orange bitters, agave syrup and Meyer lemon juice. But I don’t get this Proof Louisville FC name.
The new NWSL expansion team in Kentucky has a name, and we’re not sure what to do with it. It’s just weird, which can be good, but also it’s weird, which can be bad.
On Tuesday, reports surfaced that trademark filings were made for NWSL’s 10th team, along with a logo.
The worst part about Vlatko Andonovski’s new-look USWNT is probably the absence of right back Kelley O’Hara. There’s nothing Andonovski could do to change that — O’Hara is still dealing with an ankle injury that forced her to miss a significant portion of the NWSL season.
So the Utah Royals defender is currently continuing her recovery in Washington, D.C., where her partner lives. Last we saw of O’Hara, she was chugging Budweiser in Paris…
The National Women’s Soccer League, which just finished its seventh season by crowning the North Carolina Courage as champions, is overhauling its pay structure to try to stay relevant on the global state.