At the 2024 Paris Olympics, we saw some of the biggest stars in women’s soccer compete to take home gold, showcasing their passion, skills and personalities for a global audience, igniting everything that makes soccer the most engaging sport on earth.
If you’re excited to continue watching the biggest stars of women’s soccer on their home turf, we’ve got some great news: the NWSL season is heating up. Here are seven things to watch as we hit the home-stretch of regular season action.
Barbra Banda Can’t Stop Scoring
The sun shines, the wind blows, the rivers at every corner of the world pour water into the sea, and Barbra Banda scores goals. It’s natural. Perpetual. Inevitable.
The Orlando Pride forward has averaged almost a goal per game on four different continents. Spain, China, Zambia, Florida, it doesn’t matter. I’d be surprised if she doesn’t score a header on Mars before it’s all said and done.
She showed up in Orlando this spring with loads of talent and Championship hopes, for a team that hasn’t seen the playoffs since 2017. Of course, it takes time to settle in when you move to a new club halfway around the world, right?
Not for Banda.
It took her only 22 minutes to register an assist in her first NWSL start for the Orlando Pride, and 55 minutes to find her first goal. She hasn’t looked back, pouring in 12 goals in her first 12 NWSL games, putting her at the top of the NWSL goal-scoring leaderboard with KC Current’s Temwa Chawinga.
After netting 4 goals in 3 games in the Olympics for her country, the lethal Zambian returns for the home stretch of the NWSL season, ready to send her team to new heights that Pride supporters haven’t seen in quite some time.
Angel City Press Their Luck
It’s been a wild ride for Angel City FC since they joined the NWSL in 2022.
After an eighth-place finish in their opening season, Angel City made the playoffs in 2023, eventually falling to the Seattle Reign (formally OL Reign) in the quarter-final round. Despite some mixed results on the field, Angel City fans have remained steady in their support, averaging over 19,000 fans at each home game in their first three seasons.
2024 has been a difficult season so far for ACFC, having won only 4 of their first 16 matches. But hope is not lost, they remain only 3 points out of a playoff position.
And the best news for Angel City fans? Help is on the way.
USWNT legend Christen Press has recently returned to the lineup for Angel City, after knee injuries kept her out of the game for over two years. Press took the Olympic break to get ready for her comeback and reconnect with her teammates, bringing her much-needed finishing expertise to a team averaging only one goal per game in NWSL play this season.
Angel City is also strengthening their midfield, bringing in English star, Kaite Zelem from Manchester United, a dynamic player who has made big plays in big games all over Europe.
With Press and Zelem at her disposal, Angel City coach Becki Tweed has the firepower she needs to lead her team back into the playoff picture and to turn ACFC into a deadly opponent, for any team they face for the rest of the season.
Can Naomi Girma Ascend the Throne
It was a statement dripping with equal parts praise and pressure, “Look, she’s the best defender I’ve ever seen.”
That was a direct quote from U.S. Women’s National Team coach Emma Hayes, who took time in her Olympic interview to introduce Naomi Girma as a major force on the world stage.
But NWSL fans needed no introduction.
For the last two and a half years, we’ve all seen what Emma Hayes sees; Naomi Girma is one of the most titanic defenders, period.
She won the league’s best defender title as a rookie, and then again in her second year. A player whose skill, intelligence, and leadership led the San Diego Wave to an NWSL Shield trophy and Team USA to a gold medal, leading a backline that only allowed two goals in six Olympic matches.
You’d have a better chance of dribbling a ribeye steak past a pack of hungry tigers.
But with performances like that, comes greater expectations. Following the Shield win in 2023, it would be fair to say that the 2024 season for San Diego has (to this point) been a disappointing follow up.
Wave FC have only collected 15 points from their first 16 matches, and currently sit outside of the playoff picture, joining their SoCal rivals, Angel City, at three points behind Bay FC for the eighth and final playoff spot.
As Girma’s legend has continued to grow, it seems her confidence has grown too. Interim Wave coach Landon Donovan will lean on Girma’s skills to propel San Diego Wave FC back towards the top of the NWSL. With some solid team performances and some playoff magic, Girma has the chance to launch herself into the pantheon of great NWSL and Team USA defenders, despite only being 3 months past her 24th birthday.
The Front Three - From Sea to Shining Sea
After grabbing gold medals in Paris, the USA’s famous “Triple Espresso” front three return home as rivals, chasing a NWSL Championship that, this time, only one of them can collect.
Trinity Rodman returns to Washington, D.C., to slot into an electric attack flanked by Ouleymata Sarr and emerging star Croix Bethune. Her Washington Spirit team currently sit in third place and, with new, iconic coach Jonatan Giráldez, they are poised for their first playoff appearance since 2021.
Head 700 miles west to Chicago and you’ll find her USWNT teammate Mallory Swanson, who leads her Chicago Red Stars team in both goals and assists. Swanson is more of a jack-of-all-trades for her club side, often dropping deeper into midfield to collect the ball and spark an attack. Her dynamism has helped put Chicago into a playoff position, in only her first season back following an patellar tendon tear in 2023.
The final shot of espresso takes us to the Pacific Northwest, where Sophia Smith’s Portland Thorns are in a solid 5th place position. Smith, the 2022 NWSL MVP, is hoping to bring the Thorns to Kansas City in November and possibly make Portland the first NWSL team to win four NWSL Championships.
Marta’s on a Mission
Anyone who paid attention to the media chatter surrounding the Gold Medal match at the Olympics understands the place that Marta occupies in women’s soccer. She is an icon, a giant, a legend. You could fill pages with adjectives to describe the way she plays, carries herself, and represents the game she loves and it wouldn’t be enough.
She is one of the best we have, have ever had, and ever will have. A trail blazer. She is part of the reason we get to watch the magic of players like Debinha and Kerolin in the NWSL week in and week out.
But as her illustrious career comes to a close, there is time for one final storybook moment.
After the Olympic final, the sun set on Marta’s career with the Brazilian National Team, without a World Cup win or an Olympic gold medal to her name. But she returns to Orlando with hope in her heart and at the top of the table, charging toward something magical, in a city where magic makes its home.
If you’re superstitious, you almost hesitate to think it or say it out loud. But this is Marta we’re talking about. The player who, for the last quarter century, has made dancing around some of the best players in the world look like a day at the park. Superstition can’t contain her.
A trophy this season will not define Marta’s legacy in women’s soccer, that truth was cemented long ago. But seeing Marta lift that trophy on the top step in November, would echo for generations. A truly magical moment for a player who has given the game more than it could ever give her back.
And if moments like those aren’t what we’re in it for, what are we even doing here?
Bonus Points
An Elusive Championship River Goal?
On her podcast, The Athletic’s Meg Linehan presented the idea that we could have a river goal in this year’s final, and we can’t stop thinking about it.
Golden Boot Race
The NWSL Golden Boot race is heating up, with Barbra Banda and Temwa Chawinga tied at the top of the leaderboard with 12 goals each. Can Sophia Smith (10 goals) catch up to the leaders? Can anyone hit 19 goals and break Sam Kerr’s all-time single season record?
And Finally..
As the NWSL season heads toward its conclusion, the action, the suspense, and the unforgettable moments are only just beginning. From emerging stars trying to make their mark on the league, to veterans trying to put one last flourish on their legendary careers, the final ten weekends of this NWSL season offer a front-row seat to the past, present and future of soccer in America.
Whether you're a longtime fan or new to the game, there has never been a better time to dive into the world of NWSL soccer. The end of this season is sure to be a celebration of the world’s greatest sport and the remarkable athletes who are leading the way.
So grab your popcorn, your remote, and all of your friends, because the race to the NWSL Championship starts now!