On the evening of May 4, 2021 Goalkeeper of the Year Aubrey Kingsbury stood on the goal line for the Washington Spirit, spreading her arms out above her head and tapping her toes on the grass in front of an excited home crowd at Audi Field. Setting up for the last kick of the 2022 Challenge Cup penalty shootout was 2021 MVP Jess Fishlock.

The whistle blew. Fishlock exhaled and shot to her left. Kingsbury chose right and threw her left hand high to make a single-armed save.

The defending NWSL champions had just earned a ticket to their second straight championship game.

Kingsbury sprinted up the field and into the arms of her screaming teammates, in front of a world-wide audience that had watched the Spirit go undefeated throughout the Challenge Cup tournament. For a moment, it seemed like Washington was going to remain the team to beat in 2022.

For a moment.

The 2022 Challenge Cup finalists have not won a game since that day.

Three months into the regular season, they’re 11th — second to last — in the league standings, with a record of 1-5-8.

Washington has faced a series of unfortunate events since the week of that semifinal game. During May and June they dealt with a tight schedule that packed in five games a month, many of the matches just three or four days apart. The officiating was questionable. Injuries happened.

As misfortunes eased off slightly in July, it was defensive errors and the lack of finishing their chances that kept the Spirit from climbing the table. Otherwise, they dominated their competition, finally had games seven days apart and were given a week off to rejuvenate.

These days, a win feels right around the corner.

“I think we’re close,” said defender Kelley O’Hara. “I hope we’re close. We need to be close. Because we don’t have that many games left. And we’ve got to start getting wins if we want to be in playoff contention.”

The second-best team in the league at possession, Washington has controlled the ball more than their opponents for five straight games, recording an average of 80.25 percent passing accuracy across their four matches in July.

They outshot their opponents in their last three games, too, going 17-4 against Orlando Pride, 13-9 over the Kansas City Current and 19-13 against the North Carolina Courage. Overall, they’re ranked fifth in the league when it comes to shots on target.

Despite all the shots, they didn’t get a goal in the other two matches, but on Friday, they found their finishing abilities against the Courage, where the Spirit scored three times.

The players also showed their ability to adapt to a new, attack-heavy formation of 3-4-2-1 after having just four days to prepare. They conceded one goal from systematic issues. The other two goals against in the 3-3 draw were from a bad pass and a questionable call by the referee that resulted in a penalty kick.

Who else but @trinity_rodman to give the Spirit back the lead?@WashSpirit | #OneSpirit pic.twitter.com/1OFNBTGS3i

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) July 30, 2022

The Spirit’s next match is Friday against Racing Louisville FC, with whom they tied 2-2 earlier this season. Racing are in a similar situation coming into the game, having not won since May 22.

In their first meeting on June 17, the Spirit dominated the game in the first half but, even with a 2-0 lead, shut down midway through the second after captain Andi Sullivan stepped out with an injury. Their efforts were still enough to finish the game with 53.2 percent of the possession and 26 shots, eight of those on goal.

“There were a lot of positives from the last time that we played them,” head coach Kris Ward said. “We want to continue to build on those. I think that we’ve solidified a lot of the places where we broke down in the last game against them. And so, you know, we’re looking forward to it.”

A couple of injuries still linger as Emily Sonnett and Julia Roddar remain out for Friday’s game. Last year’s Golden Boot winner Ashley Hatch is available to play again for the first time since sustaining a muscle strain during the Concacaf W Championship at the beginning of July.

“I will say that I don’t think that we’re necessarily at full strength,” O’Hara said after the 3-3 draw against North Carolina. “But that’s no excuse because we have a really deep and strong team.”

Even when seven of the Spirit’s players are gone on international duty with the U.S. women’s national team, including O’Hara, they have players like Sam Staab, who is one of the best passers in the league with 85 percent accuracy and is able to consistently set up scoring opportunities just with her passing and long balls out of the back.

On Friday, Washington will be looking to add more patience to their game. Against the Courage, the Spirit engaged in the highly transitional, attack-minded game, sometimes leaving their defenders exposed. Ward felt there was a need “to be a little bit more controlled and not be willing to take so many punches on the defensive side.”

“Made some mistakes that I wish I could get back, but live and learn,” said O’Hara.

Her words are an example of the team’s mentality — a characteristic that has impressed Ward the most about his team so far this season, and one that put them on a 12-game undefeated streak last year to win the championship after being closer to the bottom of the standings midseason.

“All of our players come in, they want to work hard and they want to get better. And they know what they need to improve on,” Ward said on Thursday. “Being just very honest about it. It’s not getting too high or too low. It’s just looking at it and saying, ‘Okay, yep, I messed this one up,’ or ‘We could have communicated more and done better here.’ Whatever it is, they’ve been extremely professional about it.”

One of the Spirit players told Ward this week she had been on teams where if the match results had been like Washington’s, training would be an unpleasant time.

The coach had an unenjoyable experience of his own in 2013, the inaugural NWSL season, when Washington hadn’t won a game in a few months.

“That was bad,” said Ward, who was an assistant coach at the time. “That was not fun to be a part of. You saw some of the lowest parts of humanity during that run. And that’s just not the case here. Everyone has been just united and really together and just like, ‘This is what we’re doing. We’re going forward. This is what we want to achieve, and that doesn’t change.’

“The team knows how dangerous they are. It’s just getting into the playoffs and then making a run, and they know that we are certainly capable from that standpoint.”

It was around this time last year that the Spirit began their run to the 2021 final. Technically, hope isn’t lost. If they want to finish this season the way they started it — qualifying for a consecutive championship, where they would play once again in front of that excited Audi Field crowd like in the 2022 Challenge Cup semifinal — the time to start winning is right now.

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

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.

With recent transfers Talia von Oelhoffen and Kiki Iriafen joining first-team All-American JuJu Watkins and the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class at USC next season, the Trojans look to transition from an up-and-coming squad to a legitimate title contender. 

Former Oregon State graduate student von Oelhoffen is the latest collegiate talent to commit to the program, announcing her transfer Monday via ESPN. She follows ex-Stanford leading-scorer Iriafen in the jump to the pair’s one-time Pac-12 rival.

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The 5-foot-11 Washington native was a two-time All-Pac-12 guard during her time at Oregon State. But after the recent dissolution of the Pac-12, the Corvallis side found themselves without a permanent home conference going forward. Many big name players opted to take their skill elsewhere as a result, with von Oelhoffen’s fellow ex-Beaver Raegan Beers announcing her own departure to Oklahoma on Monday.

According to DraftKings, USC is now tied with UConn for the second-best betting odds to win the 2025 NCAA women’s tournament. Dawn Staley’s tested South Carolina side, poised for a repeat performance, holds down the number one spot.

Last year, LSU loaded up in the transfer portal after beating Iowa to win the 2023 national championship. The Tigers were clear favorites coming into the 2023-24 season, but were bounced in the Elite Eight by Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes. Shortly thereafter, star transfer Hailey Van Lith opted to transfer a second time, this time signing with TCU. 

Yet while history proves that an excess of star power doesn’t always translate to on-court chemistry, on paper, USC sure looks ready to hold their own — in 2025 and beyond.

The United States and Mexico have withdrawn their joint bid to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup, per a Monday afternoon release from U.S. Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation.

According to the statement, they will instead focus on developing a "more equitable" bid for the 2031 tournament, with the ultimate goal of "eliminating investment disparities" between the men’s and women’s tournaments.

The federations went on to cite the upcoming 2026 Men’s World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as an opportunity to build support for local infrastructure, improve audience engagement, and scale up media and partnership deals in preparation to "host a record-breaking tournament in 2031."

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"Hosting a World Cup tournament is a huge undertaking — and having additional time to prepare allows us to maximize its impact across the globe," said U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone. "Shifting our bid will enable us to host a record-breaking Women’s World Cup in 2031 that will help to grow and raise the level of the women’s game both here at home as well as across the globe."

The decision leaves just Brazil and a joint bid from Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands in the running for the 2027 host spot. Brazil — the rumored frontrunner — has never hosted a Women’s World Cup, while Germany hosted the 2011 tournament as a solo venture. 

Furthermore, this postponement doesn’t mean the U.S. is a shoo-in for 2031, as it's been previously reported that 2022 UEFA Women's EURO host England is considering their own Women's World Cup bid. FIFA is scheduled to confirm the winning bid after the FIFA Congress votes on May 17th.