Most of the NWSL community has been waiting for the start of the 2022 season since the Washington Spirit walked away with the 2021 trophy on Nov. 20. For San Diego Wave FC forward Kelsey Turnbow, the countdown began last January when the Chicago Red Stars selected her No. 18 overall in the 2021 college draft.

Instead of playing for the Red Stars last year, Turnbow opted to return to Santa Clara for the spring 2021 season, rescheduled from 2020, and stay with the team last fall for her final NCAA season.

Toward the very end of that season, Turnbow learned she wouldn’t suit up for the Red Stars after all. The day before her last game with the Broncos, a shootout loss to BYU in the College Cup semifinals, Chicago traded her rights to San Diego, along with those of Katie Johnson and Makenzy Doniak, in exchange for immunity in the 2022 expansion draft and allocation money.

At that point, Turnbow was ready. The 23-year-old had two goals she wanted to reach before turning pro: earn her MBA and win a national championship. By the end of her college career, she had both. And for good measure, she finished the 2021 fall season as a MAC Hermann Trophy finalist, First Team All-West Region honoree, All-WCC for the fifth time and a First Team All-American.

“It just felt right for me to stay another year,” the former Broncos captain told Just Women’s Sports. “I am a goal-setter and I like to challenge myself and I felt like I hadn’t done what I came there to do yet,  that was really motivating. … I just felt like I wanted to be a part of something special for as long as I could, and that year gave me that.”

Santa Clara won the 2020 NCAA title in a shootout against No. 1 Florida State last May, thanks Turnbow’s equalizer in the final seven minutes of regulation that sent the match to overtime. The attacker also converted her penalty kick to seal the upset victory.

“To win a national championship with my best friends, I will never forget that moment and I will always cherish the friendships I’ve made with those girls,” she said. “Those are my friends for life.”

The thought of capping her college career on the high note of a national championship was tempting, but with an MBA to complete and surrounded by friends she’d become even closer to after the title-winning season, Turnbow made the natural decision to stay for the fall.

The lessons she picked up during her last year at Santa Clara have served her in well in her first NWSL training camp. With San Diego, Turnbow has focused on contributing to a strong team culture, checking in on her teammates and picking them up when they’re down.

“Literally my teammates are my family and I’ve always considered them as such,” she said. “So however I can contribute to make this environment a winning culture and a really healthy environment for people to grow, I want to do that.”

Get to know #6, @KelseyTurnbow ⚽️🙌🏻 pic.twitter.com/T5SBbVuZF4

— San Diego Wave FC (@sandiegowavefc) February 17, 2022

In their first month and a half as a team, the Wave have created a culture built on authenticity, transparency and vulnerability, values that resonate deeply with Turnbow.

“It’s an environment where I feel like I can be myself and I can thrive and they expect so much out of me,” she said. “I love goal-setting and I like challenging myself, and I feel like this is a place where I can do that and I can really grow and be my best self both on and off the field.”

A naturally social person, Turnbow lived in a house with 13 teammates for one year at Santa Clara. So far with the Wave, she has found her relationships to be fulfilling.

Turnbow and roommate Naomi Girma, the Wave’s first overall pick in the 2022 college draft, live in the same apartment building as other San Diego teammates. They spend much of their downtime sitting by the pool of the complex or relaxing at the beach. Turnbow has enjoyed her conversations with the coaches and veterans about both soccer and life experiences.

“I just feel like they hand-picked such a great group of people and I could not be more blessed to have this experience because the people matter,” Turnbow said. “You can be somewhere so cool in the world, but if you’re not with the right people, it’s not going to be as memorable. And I just feel so grateful that the people here are awesome. It’s really contributing to my growth here.”

The team-building efforts have made preseason pass by in a flash, as Turnbow described it, but they’ve also set the Wave up to come out strong in their Challenge Cup opener Saturday against Angel City FC.

“I’ve just been thinking about this game — like, it’s my very first professional game — for so long,” she said. “To finally be here, it’s so surreal, it’s exciting, it’s a little bit nerve-wracking in all the best ways. But I feel blessed to be in this position, to where I have the opportunity to play with so many incredible players. To just step on the pitch as a professional for the first time, it’s going to be really special day.”

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.