Editor’s note: After this story was published, Julie Allemand was placed on the Fever’s suspension list for the 2021 season because of commitments with the Belgian national team this summer.

With the 25th anniversary season of the WNBA set to tip off Friday, Just Women’s Sports has been previewing everything you need to know.

There has been plenty of talk about the league’s stars. Candace Parker faces high expectations in her first season with the Chicago Sky. The Seattle Storm are looking to repeat behind Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart and Jewell Loyd. Sabrina Ionescu is primed to build upon her injury-shortened rookie season, while rookie Charli Collier will begin to cement her legacy.

But what about the players who are waiting in the wings, ready to make an impact? The ones you don’t hear about in the headlines? After all, teams need their role players to step up in order to succeed. We’ve delivered our preseason power rankings and laid out our five storylines that will define the season.

Now we’re back, with the five players who have the most breakout potential this season.

Bridget Carleton

The Canadian national teamer has had quite the journey to the WNBA. After being drafted 21st overall by the Connecticut Sun in the 2019 WNBA Draft, she was released after just four games. The Minnesota Lynx then signed her to a seven-day contract which turned into a season-long commitment.

Starting out as a fringe player for the Lynx, Carleton quickly gained the trust of the coaching staff during the bubble season. In her first WNBA start, the 6-foot-1 guard went 11-for-16 from the floor and made all 3-pointers she took, scoring 25 points. She became just the third player in WNBA history with at least 25 points and five rebounds in their first league start.

The others? Carleton’s teammate Napheesa Collier and five-time WNBA All-Star Candace Parker.

Through the rest of the 2020 season, Carleton hit 52 percent of her shots from the field and 45.7 percent of her 3-pointers, averaging 6.6 points and 3.5 rebounds per game.

Carleton should see even more time at guard this season for Minnesota, especially as Kayla McBride works her way back from overseas play. Carleton no longer has to prove that she belongs in the WNBA, which should take some pressure off as she looks to build on her impressive 2020 campaign.

Ezi Magbegor

The Storm will be looking to get even more out of their young center this season. Magbegor, who was considered for the All-Rookie team last season, averaged 6.5 points and 2.5 rebounds and shot 56.9 percent from the floor as a reserve. While she averaged just 13.3 minutes per game last year, that number should increase after the Storm lost two starters — Natasha Howard and Alysha Clark — in the offseason.

Seattle is also waiting on several players to join them from overseas play. Breanna Stewart reported to training camp Tuesday, but head coach Dan Hughes doesn’t expect guard Epiphanny Prince, center Mercedes Russell or forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan to be available to play in the opener Saturday against Las Vegas.

Magbegor has room to improve defensively after averaging 2.5 rebounds and 0.7 blocks per game last season. The 6-4 Australian has also been working on her 3-point shot in the offseason, averaging 41.7 percent with the Melbourne Boomers late in 2020. Since then, she’s had an additional four months to improve her game and come into her second WNBA season ready to make an impact for the reigning champions.

T’ea Cooper

T’ea Cooper’s WNBA story is similar to Carleton’s. Taken with the 18th pick in the 2020 draft, the Mercury cut her before the season to meet roster expectations. The Los Angeles Sparks then picked Cooper up after point guard Kristi Toliver opted out of the 2020 season.

The point guard averaged 7.3 points and 2.0 assists per game in the bubble, finishing the season seventh in points per game and eighth in assists per game among all rookies. If Cooper can become a more consistent shooter from 3, after ranking 29th among guards with at least 30 attempts last season, coach Derek Fisher will have even more reason to keep her on the floor.

The Sparks lost three of their top five players in total minutes this past offseason and are embarking on a new era without Candace Parker. That turnover creates an opportunity for Cooper to expand her role with the team. If Cooper continues to improve her game, the ceiling is high for the energetic player.

Julie Allemand

The Indiana Fever finished the 2020 season in second-to-last place, helping them land No. 4 overall pick Kysre Gondrezick. While many eyes will be on Gondrezick, the Fever will run through second-year guard Julie Allemand.

It’s hard to imagine now that Allemand was the 33rd pick in the 2016 WNBA draft and didn’t play in the league until last year, but the Belgian has quickly filled the role of high-level playmaker for a team that lacked one. She finished second in the league in assists per game last season at 5.8 while averaging 8.5 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. She also shot 47.8 percent from beyond the arc, which ranked third in the league.

While Gondrezick should help lighten Allemand’s load, look for them to play off each other and maximize Allemand’s potential.

Brionna Jones

The Connecticut Sun center is on the rise. In 2020, Jones improved her career-best scoring average from 7.7 points per game to 11.2, as well as her rebounding average from 2.2 rebounds per game to 5.6. Jones also shot a ridiculous 60.5 percent from the field. Prior to the 2020 season, Jones never exceeded nine minutes per game. In the Wubble, that number increased to 26.1.

She also went off in the Sun’s final preseason game this month, scoring a game-high 22 points and grabbing nine rebounds to lead the team. That type of performance suggests Jones’ ceiling is only getting higher as time goes on.

For a team that lacks depth, Jones will be pivotal alongside Jonquel Jones and DeWanna Bonner. With star forward Alyssa Thomas likely out for the season with a torn Achilles, the expectations for Jones only increase.

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.