Christine Nairn’s face was full of emotion in the 78th minute of the Houston Dash’s friendly against Tigres Feminil on Sunday. Teammates hugged her and fans gave her a standing ovation as she made her way across the field to where Maegan Rosa was waiting to sub in.

Nairn was stepping off the field as an NWSL player for the very last time. Her career as a firefighter would begin less than 12 hours after the final whistle.

Nairn, one of the NWSL’s original players, helped the Dash to a 5-1 win in her send-off at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston. Having played soccer since the age of four, Nairn, now 30, is ready for a new chapter.

“It’s been an emotional week,” the Maryland native said. “I’ve cried more than I think I ever have in my life. I think it just goes to show that I still love this sport, you know, getting teary-eyed again. I love this sport so much, I love this team so much and it’s a hard decision, but I’m excited about the next step, selfishly for myself.

“It was the perfect night for me, to have my parents in the stands and to be able to see them and to walk away with such a ceremony and walking away with my head held high with a win and my teammates hugging me as I come off the field. So for me, it was a perfect ending to my career.”

For the final time. Thank you #10. pic.twitter.com/HLqBgsOWia

— Houston Dash (@HoustonDash) September 20, 2021

The midfielder is one of just seven players in the league to record 20 goals and 20 assists, and she ranks fourth for most matches played with 168. In October 2019, she became the first NWSL player to reach 150 appearances. The following season, Nairn and the Dash won the Challenge Cup for their first league title.

Nairn’s teammates describe her as a legend.

“I came in and immediately kind of gravitated toward her because she is such a smart player,” Dash midfielder Makamae Gomera-Stevens said. “She knows a lot about the game. For me, I made sure to ask her a lot of questions during my little time that I have been here. She impacted me and I know she impacted the team a lot.”

Dash head coach James Clarkson remembers signing Nairn when he first took the job late in 2018.

“I couldn’t talk, I was crying,” Clarkson said after Sunday’s match. “That was pretty tough. I wanted to make sure she could come off and get the standing ovation that she deserves, and it’s been a very emotional week for her. I thought she played great and it was a lovely send-off for her.”

Following a short career with the U.S. women’s national team, in which she scored the winning goal against Canada in a 2009 friendly, Nairn entered the NWSL as the seventh overall pick of Seattle Reign FC in the inaugural 2013 draft. She has played for Seattle (now OL Reign), the Washington Spirit, Orlando Pride and Houston Dash over nine seasons.

Clarkson believes Nairn deserves more credit as a pioneer in the league.

“I think it’s very important, when we talk about the growth of this game, recognizing the players that were at the forefront of this,” he said. “The start of the league, sacrificing everything and for the players coming through [now]. She does it for the love of the game, not for money, and she has kept this league afloat.”

After the match against Tigres, Nairn said her teammates had placed a basket of flowers, cookies and cards for her in the locker room. In fact, since she announced her retirement on Instagram last Thursday, Nairn’s week was filled with supportive texts and conversations.

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Nairn will still be around to watch the Dash from the stands; she plans to remain in Houston for her new career as a first responder.

“She’s going to be a fantastic firefighter,” Clarkson said. “That’s all I can say, because everything she puts her mind to she is successful at.”

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.