The 2023 NWSL is shaping up to be one of the most competitive yet, as a new wave of talent enters the league. With the 2023 World Cup taking place in the middle of the NWSL season, expect top internationals to step up their game prior to the tournament and underrated teammates to emerge in their absence.

Let’s take a look at who seems poised for a career year in 2023, as availability ebbs and flows around the international calendar. These are my predictions for the top team and individual awards this NWSL season.

Rookie of the Year: Alyssa Thompson, Angel City FC

Competition for this award will be fierce, with the first two 2023 draft picks — Thompson and Kansas City’s Michelle Cooper — likely to see a fair amount of playing time and a number of late-round gems looking strong in preseason. This award went to a defender last year in San Diego’s Naomi Girma, so I anticipate it swinging back around to an attacker in 2023.

Thompson is the easy choice due to her high-profile entry into the NWSL. The No. 1 pick should have the opportunity to produce as a bigger part of Angel City’s attack due to the injuries they’re carrying along their frontline.

Dark-horse candidate: Messiah Bright, Orlando Pride

Defender of the Year: Sarah Gorden, Angel City FC

Sarah Gorden’s return to an NWSL defense is going to feel like a breath of fresh air after a season lost to an ACL tear. The center back plays her position with a freedom of spacing thanks to her blistering speed, which allows her to push forward in distribution while also making key recovery runs. Angel City might need positional flexibility from Gorden as they settle on their defensive personnel at center and outside back, and she’ll take the opportunity and run with it.

Dark-horse candidate: Tierna Davidson, Chicago Red Stars (if she doesn’t make the USWNT roster)

Goalkeeper of the Year: Bella Bixby, Portland Thorns

Kailen Sheridan deservedly won this award last year, but with the Canadian goalkeeper likely absent during the World Cup period, other top performers could rise to the occasion. Bixby has been a consistent presence for the reigning champion Thorns, but sometimes gets overlooked due to the excellence of her backline. If the Thorns make another run at the NWSL Shield, Bixby could finally get some of the individual attention befitting her performances.

Dark-horse candidate: Abby Smith, Gotham FC

Coach of the Year: Casey Stoney, San Diego Wave

Stoney won Coach of the Year in 2022, and there’s very little reason to think she’d give up the title in 2023. The Wave have constructed their roster to be able to withstand pressure from opponents and take the next step toward controlling tempo and evolving their style of play in Year 2. Stoney also has the challenge of dealing with World Cup absences. If the Wave can both produce top internationals and stay close in the Shield race, expect Stoney to have this one locked up.

Dark-horse candidate: Seb Hines, Orlando Pride

Golden Boot: Mallory Swanson, Chicago Red Stars

Swanson will likely miss a number of games for the World Cup, but with the way she is playing so far this year, it might not matter in the Golden Boot race. Swanson has had the task of being Chicago’s primary goal-scorer and playmaker in recent seasons, notching 11 goals and eight assists in 2022. This season, the Red Stars will rely on her once again as their attacking engine. If she can stay healthy, the clinical finishing she’s been showcasing with the U.S. women’s national team could put her on top.

Dark-horse candidate: Ebony Salmon, Houston Dash

MVP: Sam Coffey, Portland Thorns

A defensive midfielder has never won NWSL MVP, but if there was ever a year to break the mold, it would be 2023. Coffey has found herself on the outside of the USWNT midfield bubble for this summer’s World Cup, and players who have just missed out on an international opportunity have thrived in the past. In fact, if the U.S. struggles in the midfield on the international stage, Coffey’s excellence at the league level might be thrown into sharp contrast, garnering the attention her position sometimes lacks.

Dark-horse candidate: Midge Purce, Gotham FC

Challenge Cup champion: Orlando Pride

The winner of the Challenge Cup should be a squad best set up to withstand World Cup absences, and the Pride might just fit that bill. Orlando has been in a strategic rebuild over the last few offseasons, and the team’s up-and-coming talent should have significant playing time under their belts by the middle of the regular season. While NWSL Shield contenders have to manage more rotations, teams with their core intact might be able to snag the first Cup of the year.

Dark-horse candidate: Angel City FC

NWSL Shield: OL Reign

The Reign play some of the most intricate soccer in the NWSL, and they suffered no real loss of talent over the offseason. The 2022 Shield winners still have room to grow as a squad, including integrating their frontline into the smothering possession-based style of their midfield. They’ll also have to be versatile in handling international absences mid-season, but the Shield rewards consistency, and the Reign are the most consistent club in the league under coach Laura Harvey.

Dark-horse candidate: San Diego Wave

NWSL Champion: Kansas City Current

Unlike the NWSL Shield, winning the NWSL Championship is about peaking at the right time. It might take the Current a few months to begin to gel after an offseason of intense roster reshuffling, but if they can ride the wave of World Cup returners into their best run of form, they’ll be difficult to break down in the postseason. Head coach Matt Potter now has NWSL final experience and should have the tactical ability to keep his group versatile enough to solve any problem.

Dark-horse candidate: Portland Thorns

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

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.