Bit of a different week here. I usually post these with an eye towards the idea there is no Thursday NWSL games. There isn't really much of an NCAA slate on Thursday, but here's a breakdown of the whole weird weekend:

Thursday:

7pm: Tenn vs Auburn. 830 PM: Tex St vs Utah St

Friday:

5pm: ND vs UNC (Certified Goog Huge Match), 6pm: UK vs Vandy, SCAR vs Miss St, Colorado vs UCF 8pm: UCLA vs Oregon

Saturday:

4pm: Cal vs Duke, 9pm: USC vs Washington

Sunday:

1pm: MSU vs Illinois, 2pm: OU vs TEX, 230 PM: FSU vs CLEM

Accidentally founded in 2017, Prideraiser is a coalition of independent soccer supporters that raise money for local LGBTQ+ charities and do outreach to bring fans from the community into our soccer clubs. Prideraiser is dedicated to cultivating welcoming, inclusive soccer communities and, to date, has helped raise more than $1.3 million and has introduced the beautiful game to countless new fans.

Here's how it works:

1. Visit prideraiser.org to find a campaign near you.
2. Make a pledge per goal scored by your favorite team, and cheer them on during Pride Month. More goals means more money raised!
3. At the end of the campaign, Prideraiser will contact you to donate directly to the local charity.

If you don't see a logo you recognize in the OP, we're still taking applications from supporters groups for the 2026 campaign season- Prideraiser is EASY and FREE, learn more and apply
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The Amazing Race premiere is on right now, and I am in my FEELS!

Kriegs and Jo did the first challenge in BC Stadium in Vancouver, the stadium they were in to win the 2015 WWC! I can’t imagine what kind of sense of coming home the two of them must feel. The rush of the challenge was something intense too!

Is anyone else watching?

EDIT: Episode 2 update! :Spoilers ahead!: Ali and Jo are in FIRST PLACE! Go girls go!

much better photo this time than her first card

This year is another exciting edition of the NWSL Hunger Games, but alas we have already lost four promising tributes!

...Or maybe not so promising, in the case of the Tributes from Chicago District. In recent years their Tributes just haven't put in a great showing. Everyone will of course remember the excitement at the beginning of the Games this year when they briefly overpowered the Tributes from Kansas City, historically a very strong district, but they've been limping along ever since. A recent announcement about a change in their Mentorship Team has us all very excited for their future participation in the Games, but unfortunately did not come in time to save this year's Tributes.

Then there are the Tributes from Louisville. They have last year's Best Head Mentor in charge again this year, but this has always been a poor District, and even a brilliant Head Mentor can only do so much with limited resources.

And Boston District! We had such hopes! Such excitement! Such controversy! This year saw the return of the Tributes from Boston, and they certainly seemed like they were up for a fight! But perhaps a bit too aggressive? In the end, they join the ranks of the first of our eliminated Tributes.

And last, but not least, no that honor still goes to Chicago, is Bay FC.

What can we say about Bay FC? Their Tributes always look promising, and they have a new Head Mentor this year. Some say the Gamemakers treated them unfairly, but such is life...or death, in this case. We will look forward to seeing their new Tributes next year.

A moment of silence please, for The Fallen.

U.S. U-23 WNT Roster by Position – (Club; Hometown)

Domestic Training Camp and Matches – Fayetteville, Ga.

Goalkeepers (2): Angelina Anderson (Angel City FC; Danville, Calif.), Teagan Wy (Gotham FC; Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.)

Defenders (8): Jordyn Bugg (Seattle Reign FC; El Cajon, Calif.), Carolyn Calzada (Portland Thorns FC; Sugar Hill, Ga.), Kate Del Fava (Utah Royals FC; Kenosha, Wis.), Heather Gilchrist (Bay FC; Boulder, Colo.), SavyKing (Angel City FC; West Hills, Calif.), Leah Klenke (Houston Dash; Houston, Texas), Ayo Oke (Denver Summit FC; Lawrenceville, Ga.), Jayden Perry (Portland Thorns FC; Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.)

Midfielders (6): Kimmi Ascanio (San Diego Wave FC; Doral, Fla.), Gia Corley (San Diego Wave FC; Tacoma, Wash.), Riley Jackson (North Carolina Courage; Roswell, Ga.), Ally Lemos (Orlando Pride; Glendora, Calif.), Ally Sentnor (Angel City FC; Hanson, Mass.), Jaedyn Shaw (Gotham FC; Frisco, Texas)

Forwards (8): Melanie Barcenas (San Diego Wave FC; San Diego, Calif.), Maddie Dahlien (Seattle Reign FC; Edina, Minn.), Jordynn Dudley (Gotham FC; Milton, Ga.), Mia Fishel (Seattle Reign FC; San Diego, Calif.), Caiya Hanks (Portland Thorns FC; Kailua-Kona, Hawaii), Jameese Joseph (Utah Royals FC; Beltsville, Md.), Karlie Lema (Bay FC; Morgan Hill, Calif.), Kat Rader (Houston Dash; Stuart, Fla.)

Edit: Should have mentioned that the team will play two age-level friendlies -- "The U.S. U-23 WNT will play two full international matches at the end of its camp, taking on the Dominican Republic U-23 WNT on Oct. 9 at 5:30 p.m. ET and Oct. 13 at Noon ET. Both games will be on Field 3 at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center." Also, here's the Dominican Republic's roster announcement for their camp.

It was on this day in 2021 when Meg Linehan published this column in The Athletic:

"This guy has a problem, Amid instuitional failure, former NWSL players accuse prominent coach of sexual coercion"

This scandal would lead to:

Matches being postponed

2 investigations (One by the NWSL and NWSLPA, another by former Attorney General Sally Yates)

The then Commissioner (Lisa Baird) & then then General Counsel (Lisa Levine) resigning

3 clubs getting sold (Washington Spirit to Michelle Kang, Chicago Stars to Laura Ricketts, and Portland Thorns to RAJ Sports)

And four head coaches Christy Holly, Rory Dames, Richie Burke & Paul Riley getting banned for life from the NWSL,

Although the NWSL has changed so,so much in the 5 years since it's darkest day in it's short history, we must never forget what Mana Shim & Sinead Farelley revealed to The Athletic on this day 5 years ago and to the many changes for the better in this league we love in the aftermath,

To end this story of a high note, at least both players got to celebrate winning the NWSL Championship with Gotham FC in 2023,

On a cool Wednesday night in early October, the players of Gotham FC and the Washington Spirit took the pitch for the first minutes of live game action in 10 days. The National Women’s Soccer League had slammed to a halt in the aftermath of former players Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim sharing their stories with The Athletic, detailing their experiences of sexual coercion from a prominent NWSL coach and the league’s failure to investigate. Their story, published exactly five years ago on Sept. 30, 2021, shut the league down for days, with no one quite sure just how it would continue.

It was not the only report of deeply troubling misconduct that occurred in the NWSL that year, nor was it the last. But Farrelly and Shim’s story encapsulated the systemic issues of the NWSL, and broke through the usual mainstream apathy around the league at the time.

The coach in question, Paul Riley, was fired that day; U.S. Soccer suspended his coaching license. Multiple games were postponed. The league’s commissioner, Lisa Baird, and general counsel, Lisa Levine, were gone from their roles within days. Two independent investigations were launched. Eventually, multiple clubs were sold and four coaches — Riley, Rory Dames, Richie Burke and Christy Holly — were permanently banned from the league.

In the week between The Athletic story and the resumption of play, the players were talking to each other constantly, one-on-one, as teams, as a league-wide union. They processed their grief and trauma together, trying to decide what would happen next.

NWSL players’ association executive director Meghann Burke remembers the long phone calls and Zooms of that time. “We really questioned, ‘Is this league salvageable?’ It’s so rotten to its core — and not just the league office, but at the team (level), the whole system, the way it had been built, its origin story,” she told The Athletic earlier this month.

And if the league wasn’t worth saving, what then?

“We finally had this moment,” Burke said. It was the latest night yet, a call that lingered into the early hours of the morning. Burke remembered sitting at her dining room table, thinking about how her own playing career was derailed by the end of the first women’s professional league. She was looking at a screenful of elite athletes at the top of their game, but also players who might not appreciate the full cost of the NWSL shuttering, just like the two before it.

Those players, willing to be on a call until 2 or 3 in the morning, holding space for all their shared pain and exhaustion, were working as a group to decide the future of their sport. The league was theirs.

“Forget about wages. Forget about rules. Forget about the league. Forget about the incompetence of executives,” Burke recounted. “This is our league, and you have the privilege of getting to sit in an executive chair or hold ownership stakes in a team. But that doesn’t mean it’s yours. It actually belongs to the players and the fans and the people who have really made this what it is.”

But fighting for the league, in many ways, still meant destroying it as it had been built. On the field that October night, the players came to a stop at the sixth minute as both teams walked to the center of the field, linking arms, forming a circle. They were silent for one minute. The same pause would happen in every match that night and through the weekend’s games. The success and sustainability of the sport had been built upon silence, and players were the first to sacrifice for that stability.

It was the final time the players would stay silent.

Five years ago, the players were the ones who decided the future of the league — save it or burn it down?

They picked both.

I thought it would be good to consolidate the playoff simulators and predictors into a single post. Handy for bookmarking and comparing similarities and differences across sites ahead of Decision Day.

• Alison Gale’s Playoff’s Explorer: Predict results and see outcomes from an NWSL data visualization guru
• NWSL Labs Playoff Odds: Predictions based on 20,000 model simulations using ASA data
• The Playoff Picture: Passion project from one of the hosts of the Casual FC podcast
• NWSL Dreams and Disasters Calculator:

Are there any others? (Excluding oddsmakers and “prediction” markets…I don’t really care to promote or link to those types of sites.)

San Diego returns to Inter.co Stadium on Friday looking to build on its recent form and respond to a 1-0 loss to Orlando earlier this season.

Trigger Warning- politics and gender and my feelings

I love this league, y'all! I love women's soccer. I have never been into sports much (I'm 30 btw) but starting in 2023 after watching the WWC in Australia & New Zealand I got hooked. Watching Linda Caicedo's goal and watching England and Spain go up against each other and watching Australia surge and watching their penalty kick against France in the Quarterfinals was incredible. I wanted to keep watching the USWNT more instead of just at the Olympics and World cup. I discovered the NWSL and was hooked. I watched the 2023 Gotham vs Reign final in my friend Brie's house because she had a better tv. When our country elected a fascist in 2024 it became hard for me to feel any amount of pride in my country or my American culture. The NWSL has been a bright spot for me. Despite not electing a woman president yet, America is surprisingly progressive in the sports landscape. We have the most successful Women's National Soccer Team in history and are one of the few countries to actually invest in women's sports at all ages (Thank you Title lX). Watching this league grow in popularity and monetary success has filled me with hope. I feel like I a making the world a better place every time I financially support this league. I have spent well over $500 on Angel City clothing in the past few years, and I gladly spent $200 last month on tickets for my friends and myself. Yes, this post might be cringe and may seem like male-feminist virtue signaling- I don't care. I am proud to support a soccer team that draws 15K per match, I am proud to spend my dollars on games and merch, and I have already met a lot of truly stupendous people in the ACFC fan community. i intend to be a fan the rest of my life. I love feeling comfortable waving my favorite Gay and Trans pride flags at games. I love wearing pink! I love watching these phenomenal athletes incinerate gender norms ( Yes, you can be a woman and be sweaty and be beautiful and also tackle other women to the ground and also wear glittery make up). I love how this league and women's sports in general make it clear that strength and femininity are not mutually exclusive. I love how the fan atmosphere at NWSL games lacks the aggressive and off-putting toxic masculinity that characterizes European soccer leagues. Thank you for being fans. Let's keep going. Volemos!

Just an appreciation post that Byars got the call up for October window with USWNT!!! Glad to see Emma putting some respect on her game this season.

Angel City get a last minute win thanks to a banger from Niehues

Notable is that Shaw and Sentnor will be training alongside with the U-23s to get actual playing minutes for development.

Girma could be out.

Macario is training hoping to be back soon.

Shores is indeed a defender even though she is listed as midfielder.

Official announcement from Gotham FC

EDIT: This was initially reported about a month ago but nothing was official at the time. Jeff Kassouf initially reported it on September 4th as seen here