Just Women’s Sports’ NWSL power rankings are back after a two-week break, and while we went on pause, the league chaos definitely did not.

As the Red Stars drop down the standings and OL Reign balance on the edge of losing their playoff position, teams continue to prove that anything can happen in the remaining six and a half weeks of the regular season. The NWSL’s East Coast teams have consistently been at the bottom of the standings. This past week, however, the last-place North Carolina Courage tied the No. 1 Portland Thorns, and the No. 8 Orlando Pride beat the third-place San Diego Wave. If that trend continues, the rankings might not be divided into “West Coast, best coast” and “East Coast, least coast” for long.

Only three teams remain in the same spot from the last power rankings on Aug. 3. Here is where the league’s 12 teams stand at this point in the season:

12. NJ/NY Gotham FC (4-9-0) -1

Gotham is in a period of transition. After the club parted ways with head coach Scott Parkinson last week, Beverly Goebel Yanez filled in until interim coach Hue Menzies arrived in time for their 4-1 loss to the Reign on Sunday. The team has struggled to find results since making a number of high-profile acquisitions in the offseason, and moving on from a coach who was well-liked by the players will require an adjustment period.

11. North Carolina Courage (2-6-4) -1

The Courage are the best/worst team this league has ever seen. Offensively, anyway. Despite sitting in last place in the standings, they continue to lead the league in possession, they have scored 23 goals in 12 games, and they tied the first-place Thorns last week. Against the Kansas City Current on Saturday, however, they lost 4-3, again conceding goals at the same rate that they scored them. The Courage have now given up three or more goals in each of their last three games.

🌟 NEW RECORD! 🌟@diana0rdonez's eighth goal of the season is a new record for a rookie in the #NWSL!#NCvKC | @TheNCCourage pic.twitter.com/lKU4mRtb02

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) August 14, 2022

10. Washington Spirit (1-6-9) -1

There isn’t much left to say about the Spirit. It’s the same narrative every time. They’re a dominant team that can often out-possess, out-shoot and pass with more accuracy than their opponents, like they did against the No. 1 Thorns on Wednesday. Where they come up short is in getting that finishing touch to hit the back of the net. The reigning champions need to fix it fast, because with only eight games left, the playoffs are about to be out of reach.

9. Racing Louisville FC (2-6-8) +3

Jumping three spots in the power rankings after two draws would seem laughable, and it wouldn’t have happened if Gotham, Washington and North Carolina hadn’t moved down. There is something to be said about Racing Louisville tying the No. 2 Houston Dash on Friday while playing down a player for 48 minutes. Thanks to hard work and discipline, Louisville controlled much of the second half. They carried the momentum over from their previous game, a draw with the Spirit, in which Louisville could have just as easily walked away with three points.

8. Orlando Pride (4-5-6) –

Undefeated across six games since the beginning of July and inching closer to playoff positioning, it’s becoming harder to remember that this is supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Orlando Pride. Most impressively, Orlando claimed a 1-0 win on Saturday over the San Diego Wave, who were in first place for most of the season. The win snapped the Pride’s three-draw streak and would have pushed them up the standings if there was a team ahead that deserved to drop.

A Pride PK to start the scoring!@ORLPride | #PrideOfOrlando pic.twitter.com/C4nq2tlixh

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) August 14, 2022

7. Angel City FC (6-5-3) –

A draw and a win in the last two weeks kept Angel City at seventh in the league standings, but it won’t be long until they move into a playoff spot. Much like the Pride, they would also have risen in the power rankings if a top-six team deserved to move to seventh. Against the Red Stars on Sunday, they dominated for 65 minutes and held onto the 1-0 lead until the end. Savannah McCaskill, who scored the lone goal, called the performance a testament to their growth.

6. OL Reign (6-4-6) -1

The Reign have continued to quietly stick around. They evened out their 2-1 loss to Houston with a 4-1 win over Gotham on Sunday, scoring the most goals in a match all season. There was a little more hype at Lumen Field that day with OL Reign’s sister club, Olympique Lyonnais, visiting from France. The Reign will need to maintain that momentum because they are getting dangerously close to losing their grip on a playoff spot.

5. Chicago Red Stars (6-4-5) -1

The Red Stars have been off their rhythm throughout the last month, winning just one of their last four games. Teams in the lower half of the standings are starting to get desperate to secure a playoff spot, as Angel City showed in their 1-0 win over Chicago on Sunday. Especially at this point in the season, Chicago can’t take any opponent lightly.

4. San Diego Wave FC (7-5-4) -2

The first two weeks of August haven’t gone in the Wave’s favor. A poor defensive performance cost them against the Current in a 2-1 loss on Aug. 7. They improved against the Orlando Pride a week later, but were unable to find the back of the net and suffered another defeat, 1-0. With just one match left at the University of San Diego’s Torero Stadium, they might get a boost when they move into their brand-new Snapdragon Stadium. Until then, they’ll have to find their way out of fourth place in the power rankings.

3. Kansas City Current (7-4-4) +3

For the first time in franchise history, the Current have cracked into second place in points. With two wins in the last two weeks against San Diego and North Carolina, Kansas City earned the biggest jump in this week’s power rankings. In a 4-3 victory over the typically high-scoring Courage for their fourth straight road win, the Current showed they can take over a match in crunch time.

.@ClaireLavogez with a 𝙎𝙏𝙐𝙉𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙂 run and strike to put @TheKCCurrent ahead late on! 🚀#NCvKC | #TealRising pic.twitter.com/0w8JjGVUDu

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) August 14, 2022

2. Houston Dash (7-4-4) +1

Houston has no more problems. A couple of hiccups in early July sent them back a bit, but they’ve been on the rise ever since, defeating the Reign 2-1 and drawing with Louisville 0-0 in their most recent games. It’s not ideal that for the rest of the season they’ll be without star player Rachel Daly, who left for Aston Villa, but the team has already gotten accustomed to life after Daly. When she was away all of July for the Euros, the Dash scored nine goals and picked up two wins. The addition of Ebony Salmon has been key to the team’s potent offense.

1. Portland Thorns FC (7-1-7) –

Portland is the obvious choice for first in these rankings. They’re the only team with a single loss — three fewer than the next-closest team — and the only team with a goal differential in the double digits at +21. In the last two weeks, they beat Washington 2-1 and tied with North Carolina 3-3 to extend their unbeaten streak to 11 games.

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.