The U.S. women’s national team is back in camp this week, playing two friendlies against Colombia as they continue to navigate the post-World Cup era without a permanent head coach. Perhaps ironically, some of the biggest names in American soccer in 2023 — Megan Rapinoe and Ali Krieger — won’t be taking part in those games, not due to injury but because they’ve moved on from national duty.

For a long time, contract structures and consistency of competition dictated that players usually ended their careers with international play in mind. They typically considered themselves USWNT players first and club players second.

But the ongoing pursuit of a final NWSL trophy for retiring stars indicates just how far the world of women’s soccer has come from that attitude. Both Rapinoe (OL Reign) and Krieger (Gotham FC) will want to ride out their NWSL postseasons as long as they possibly can.

New space to grow

Rapinoe got to control the narrative surrounding her USWNT exit. The legendary forward announced she’d be retiring from both club and country at the end of 2023 after former USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski made it clear she was in his plans for this year’s World Cup. Teammate Julie Ertz followed a similar trajectory but chose not to finish out the NWSL season with Angel City, the club she joined on a one-year contract after a long hiatus from professional soccer.

Krieger had a less ceremonious final few years with the national team, returning from a strangely imposed exile by Jill Ellis to help the U.S. secure a fourth World Cup in 2019. She also faded away during the Andonovski era, playing in her final match with the team in January 2021. The defender nonetheless continued progressing as a player in the NWSL, from which she plans to retire at the end of this season.

Krieger’s move from Orlando to Gotham for a fresh start in 2022 also didn’t go quite as planned, with the team struggling to score and sliding to last place in the NWSL standings by the end of the season. But one of the bright spots of an otherwise difficult season was Krieger’s increased comfort at center back. Later into her career, the 39-year-old has shifted centrally to maintain a steady pace of play.

Positioning in the central defense is something that takes time to develop, and Krieger’s penchant for the position emerged in slow motion. But her success in 2023 has her on the shortlist for NWSL Defender of the Year, giving brand-new life to a career that is nearing its end.

In a way, Krieger’s moment in the spotlight at the end of 2023 is a sign to players who don’t get to write their own USWNT ending that there is still meaning to retiring at the league level. Other players with similar stories who greatly impacted their team’s seasons were Angel City’s Sydney Leroux and Houston’s Jane Campbell. Also notable for next year will be the final club season of Canadian legend Christine Sinclair, who plans to retire from international play at the end of this year.

Changing tides

This mindset shift has a lot to do with the way player contracts with U.S. Soccer have drastically changed in recent years. The USWNT ratified their historic CBA in 2022, earning the exact same wages and benefits as their male counterparts for the same amount of work.

But the CBA change also moved the team away from the safety net of longer-term contracts, which the team had operated under for over a decade. Players theoretically now find themselves less entrenched in the USWNT system, making far more money per appearance than they were in the past, but no longer tying their long-term salaries to their place on the national team. This means less job security at the international level, which shifts a player’s home base to their club.

This has fortunately coincided with rising wages in the women’s club game, both in the NWSL and abroad. Players can now envision themselves having long careers in domestic play, as opposed to primarily on the national team. Playing for the USWNT is a dream for many players, but if that pinnacle is never reached or not held for very long, it doesn’t have to spell the end of a fulfilling, winning soccer career.

Even players who are still with the U.S. can feel the shift and tone. San Diego Wave superstar Alex Morgan made it clear earlier this year that she wanted to miss as few games as possible for her club, a mission that ultimately led the team to the NWSL Shield in 2023. That sentiment was echoed throughout the USWNT player pool, most recently by Lynn Williams in defense of the Challenge Cup. Players understand the balance necessary to compete at both levels, but a renewed intensity by the best players in the league paid dividends in the most competitive season in NWSL history.

Keep the story going

There might be a pause in the NWSL postseason during this international break, but Rapinoe and Krieger should feel pretty good about their chances to go all the way. Quarterfinalists tend to do well in the league’s expanded postseason format, with three of the last four finalists entering the playoffs as quarterfinalists.

Both Rapinoe’s OL Reign and Krieger’s Gotham FC looked ready for the cagey chess matches that make up knockout soccer in their quarterfinal wins. Rapinoe and Krieger were also instrumental in their teams reaching the postseason itself, with Rapinoe scoring a brace and Krieger making a goal-line save on Decision Day.

In addition to tactics, they benefit from the galvanizing force that overcomes a team when they want to send an esteemed colleague out on a high. Much has been made of Rapinoe’s attempts to win her first NWSL Championship — the Reign made the finals in 2014 and 2015 before enduring a long road of futility that resulted in their first playoff win in eight years in the 2023 quarterfinals. Krieger has been similarly close, losing the 2016 championship by the the closest margin in soccer, a penalty shootout.

Rapinoe and Krieger have the opportunity to go head-to-head to finish their respective careers with a storybook ending, but they have one more game to get through first. For now, they’ll wait while teammates handle international duty and return refreshed with the finish line in sight.

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.