The NWSL is just over halfway through the regular season as they head into a two-week break. Teams played yet another week with multiple replacement players as international tournaments continued.

For the first time in a long while, the JWS power rankings feature movement from every team (find last week’s power rankings here). The Portland Thorns jump back into first, Kansas City move into a season-best fourth, and the bottom five teams are a jumble. Adding to the chaos is the fact that two of the top four teams from last week’s NWSL standings suffered losses, and one game was postponed.

Here are this week’s power rankings.

12. North Carolina Courage (2-5-2) -1

The Courage did not play this week. Their match against Angel City FC on Friday was postponed until Sept. 14 due to COVID-19 protocols. Their drop in the power rankings is a result of other teams moving ahead of them.

11. Racing Louisville FC (2-5-5) +1

There is something about playing the No. 1 San Diego Wave that lights a fire under Racing Louisville. They could have easily overtaken the Wave for a second time this year in what ended up as a 0-0 draw on Friday. The thrilling match of penalty shot saves and goal-line clearances was in Louisville’s favor as they controlled 53 percent of the possession and dominated in the second half especially.

10. NJ/NY Gotham FC (4-6-0) -1

With a 5-0 loss to the Portland Thorns on Saturday, Gotham FC now has the most losses (six) in the league despite having played the second fewest games. Somehow they had more possession at 53 percent and finished with a 79 percent passing accuracy, and still they were unable to create any dangerous scoring chances.

9. Washington Spirit (1-5-7) -1

“Washington caused a lot of problems,” Orlando Pride acting head coach Seb Hines said after their 0-0 draw Sunday. Despite Washington’s disappointing record, the statement is on brand for the Spirit, who give opponents some of the toughest competition they’ve faced this year. The Spirit controlled most of Sunday’s match in the attacking third and created plenty of chances that they weren’t able to put away. The lack of a finishing touch has been detrimental for them this season and is holding them back in these power rankings.

8. Orlando Pride (3-5-4) +2

Despite an otherwise disappointing season for the Pride, July hasn’t been a bad month for them. In their last three games, they’ve gone 1-0-2, most recently tying the Washington Spirit 0-0. Despite being outshot 17-4, Orlando should have had a couple of goals by halftime, especially on Darian Jenkins’ breakaway. In the second half, they worked together as a unit to read Washington’s plays. It’s clear this team has been growing over the past few games.

7. Angel City FC (5-4-2) -2

Like the Courage, Angel City didn’t play this week and has been surpassed by other teams as a result.

6. Houston Dash (5-4-3) +1

The biggest takeaways from the past week are that the Dash are the most dramatic team in the NWSL when it comes to score lines. and that acquiring Ebony Salmon was a darn good trade. Formerly with Louisville, Salmon scored a hat trick for her side in their 4-1 win over the Chicago Red Stars, who were No. 2 at the time of the match. The outcome was probably the least expected of the week, but not necessarily surprising. Since the beginning of June, the Dash have also recorded a 5-0 win, a 4-0 loss and a 4-3 win, making them one of the most unpredictable clubs in the league. For now, the decisive win bumps them up a spot in the power rankings.

5. OL Reign (4-3-5) -1

Tobin Heath’s short but much-anticipated debut with the Reign wasn’t enough to secure any points on Sunday. The team’s 1-0 loss to Kansas City was an even game, however, with the lone goal coming from a penalty shot. The Reign put a lot of pressure on the Current’s defense, and their own defense registered five blocks and 13 interceptions. They weren’t able to produce as many good scoring chances, with their forwards not controlling the attacking third in the way they’re capable of.

4. Kansas City Current (5-4-3) +2

The Current’s hashtag, #TealRising, couldn’t tell the story any better. A 1-0 win over the OL Reign on Sunday extended their winning streak to three and unbeaten streak to seven, vaulting them even further up the standings. Lo’eau Labonta’s penalty kick was the deciding goal, but the Current showed offensive flair throughout the game and goalkeeper AD Franch made a couple of big saves to keep Kansas City on the front foot.

THAT'S. OUR. KEEPER.

📽 the highlight reel you've all been waiting for: @ADizzle23 pic.twitter.com/EVOhyrReR8

— KC Current (@thekccurrent) July 19, 2022

3. San Diego Wave FC (6-3-4) +1

The Wave played the most exciting draw the league has seen all season against Racing Louisville on Friday. The points could have easily gone either way after the high-tempo affair. Although the stats leaned in Louisville’s favor, San Diego was the stronger side in the first half. They lost their grip in the second, but goalkeeper Carly Telford kept her team in the game, making six big saves across the 90 minutes.

2. Chicago Red Stars (5-2-5) -1

A 4-1 defeat to the Dash wasn’t expected when the Red Stars went into the game tied for the fewest losses in the league. When forward Mallory Pugh was sidelined with an injury during the Challenge Cup, the Red Stars had a tough time finding the back of the net, and the problem resurfaced with Pugh away at the Concacaf W Championship. Chicago had 21 shots against Houston but couldn’t find the back of the net.

1. Portland Thorns FC (5-1-6) +1

The Thorns are becoming the rulers of blowout victories. Even with players out on international duty, they’ve demonstrated an undeniable amount of depth, with five different players scoring in Saturday’s 5-0 shutout of Gotham FC. The Thorns join the Reign with the most shutouts in the league (six) as they move to second in the standings. Setting the new league record on Saturday for the three fastest goals scored after kickoff (10:13), they also top the NWSL with 29 goals and are the only team with a double-digit goal differential of plus-19.

Jessa Braun is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering the NWSL and USWNT. Follow her on Twitter @jessabraun.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.