After a season of turmoil, the NWSL playoffs have finally arrived.

Taking the pitch in Sunday’s quarterfinal games are the Chicago Red Stars against NJ/NY Gotham and the North Carolina Courage against the Washington Spirit. The Portland Thorns and OL Reign have earned byes to the semifinals on Nov. 14.

That the NWSL season has been a long and challenging road to this point is an understatement. The regular season has been overshadowed by off-field issues including allegations of abusive coaches, staff firings, COVID-19 outbreaks and ownership concerns. In addition to training and competing, players across the NWSL have spent endless amounts of energy fighting for change within the league.

At some point, for the sake of players’ well-being, things must return to normalcy, enough for the athletes to enjoy the game of soccer again. The playoffs seem like a good place to start.

“There’s so much that’s been up in the air off the field, and it’s tough to put any more energy towards that now at this time of the year,” said Washington defender Sam Staab. “I think we’ve all just kind of taken a step back from there and just been like, ‘Let’s focus on us, let’s focus on us as players’ … We’ve had a pretty tough year, so we’re just going for it.”

On that note, bring on the quarterfinals.

The stage is set.

The first round of the @NWSL playoffs kick off this Sunday. pic.twitter.com/OyZDRXJC8A

— Just Women’s Sports (@justwsports) November 1, 2021

No. 4 Chicago Red Stars vs. No. 5 NJ/NY Gotham FC

First and foremost, Gotham coach Scott Parkinson is going to hit the restaurants when Gotham’s plane lands in Chicago. Priorities.

“I know all the food places around there, so that would be good to get some food,” Parkinson said when asked about returning to Chicago, where he was assistant coach for the Red Stars until Gotham hired him in August.

“I am obviously comfortable with that environment,” he said of the Red Stars. “I know the team. The Red Stars are always in the playoffs, so if you want to win this thing, you probably have to find a way of going through them or a team that already has.”

Chicago is making its sixth straight playoff appearance, coming off of an 11-8-5 record in the regular season, while Gotham has been ruler of the draws at 8-5-11. The teams’ three meetings this year resulted in two ties and a Gotham victory.

What makes this matchup intriguing is that both teams are on a serious roll. The Red Stars have lost only one game in their past nine matches, and Gotham went unbeaten in their last eight games. They also have two players each on the NWSL October Team of the Month: forward Midge Purce (NJ/NY), midfielder Morgan Gautrat (CHI), and defenders Caprice Dydasco (NJ/NY) and Sarah Gorden (CHI).

🌟 October's Own 🌟

Your October Team of the Month 👏

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) November 4, 2021

Gotham’s backline will be tested against Mallory Pugh and Kealia Watt, who are each in the NWSL’s top five for shots and shots on goal. They should present the biggest challenge to NJ/NY goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan, who is third in the league with 76 saves and was named to the Goalkeeper of the Year shortlist on Friday.

Then there’s Gotham forward Carli Lloyd, who could be playing in her final game as a professional, though she’s not looking at it that way.

“I think you’ve just seen in every NWSL game, anything happens,” Lloyd said. “So we’re going to have to go there, we’re going to play really well, and we’re going to have to fight to the end.”

The teams will kick off on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.

No. 3 Washington Spirit vs. No. 6 North Carolina Courage

Just last Sunday, the Courage were pulling for the Spirit in their game against the Houston Dash, knowing that a Spirit win would send them to the playoffs. Washington delivered, and now the teams will go head-to-head Sunday as opponents once more.

Unlike Gotham and the Red Stars, the Spirit and the Courage are coming into the quarterfinals on two very different pages.

Washington soared through the final months of the regular season. North Carolina … did not. Five of the Courage’s nine losses came in their last seven matches. They don’t have any players on NWSL’s October Team of the Month, while Washington has four: goalkeeper Aubrey Bledsoe, defender Sam Staab, and forwards Trinity Rodman and Ashley Hatch, who won the 2021 Golden Boot for the first time in her career with 10 goals.

With 10 goals in 20 games @ash_hatch33 was the @NWSL's top scorer for the 2021 regular season.

Read more: https://t.co/D80dQiBYj6 pic.twitter.com/ECx6FWFTNM

— Just Women’s Sports (@justwsports) November 2, 2021

Washington also has the upper hand from their regular-season matchups, having defeated the Courage twice and tied once. Their most recent meeting on Oct. 13 resulted in a 2-1 win for the Spirit.

“Performance-wise, everyone battled, everyone competed,” North Carolina defender Kaleigh Kurtz said of the game. “There were a lot of really good takeaways. The two goals were really unfortunate; a poor mis-clearance by me on the first one, and then Casey was screened on the second one, so that’s really unfortunate.”

Kurtz is part of a strong Courage backline. In fact, the whole team has been efficient on defense. Despite being the last-place playoff team, they conceded fewer goals during the regular season (23) than the Spirit (26), who are the top team playing this weekend.

But even defense might not be an advantage for North Carolina. The Spirit have been working on their team shape over the past couple of months, and by the sounds of it, they’ve made progress.

“We’ve all gotten on the same page now of how we’re going to press, how we’re going to defend, and if we get beat, what positioning we want to get back into,” said Staab.

Given the way the teams have been trending, Washington appears to be in a better position to advance to semifinals. But, like Lloyd said, anything can happen in the NWSL.

Find out Sunday at 5:30 p.m. ET on Twitch and Paramount+.

Jessa Braun is an editorial intern for Just Women’s Sports. She is also the Head of North American Content for the Women’s Sports Alliance. You can find her on Twitter @jessabraun.

The Women's Super League (WSL) is growing, with the UK league's top two flights deciding in a Monday expansion vote to enlarge its top tier from 12 to 14 teams ahead of the 2026/27 season.

The number of matches played each season will also balloon from 22 to 26 games to accommodate the incoming clubs, as will established cup competitions.

Monday also saw the WSL vote down a prior proposal to temporarily suspend the relegation and promotion process to accommodate this expansion, deciding instead to adopt a "two up, one down" model for the second-tier WSL2 next season.

As such, the top two finishers of the 2025/26 WSL2 season will automatically join the higher-tier WSL, while the WSL's last-place team will battle the WSL2's third-place club in "a high-profile, high stakes match" for the final spot in the top flight.

After reaching 14 teams, both leagues will return to relegating the last-place WSL finisher while promoting the WSL2's top team for the following season.

Along with the increased investment in club infrastructure, a 14-team WSL keeps pace with the global women's game — most notably, the NWSL, which will become a 16-team league in 2026.

"Our priority was to find a route that would benefit the whole women's game pyramid, and we believe this next evolution of women's professional football will raise minimum standards, create distinction, and incentivize investment across the board," said WSL Football CEO Nikki Doucet.

With EuroBasket set to tip off on Wednesday and injuries mounting league-wide, WNBA teams are filling out dwindling rosters with more short-term contracts — and calling back some familiar faces along the way.

While some European standouts withdrew from EuroBasket consideration — including Phoenix's Satou Sabally and Seattle's Gabby Williams — others, like New York's Leonie Fiebich and Golden State's Temi Fagbenle, will join their national teams for the regional FIBA tournament through the end of June.

Due to these planned absences, WNBA teams temporarily suspend their EuroBasket players' contracts, allowing squads to add others to their rosters.

Players signed due to temporary absences are technically on rest-of-season deals, though the agreements can end whenever the missing athletes return.

In contrast, the league requires that teams release any hardship signings due to injury once squads tally enough healthy original players to satisfy the WNBA's 10-athlete roster minimum.

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Featuring a lineup stacked with international talent, Golden State made the most transactions this week, temporarily suspending four regular contracts as 2025 EuroBasket stars departed for the annual competition.

To bolster their depleted bench, the Valkyries brought back 2025 WNBA Draft Cinderella pick Kaitlyn Chen and recent training camp participant Laeticia Amihere on short-term contracts, in addition to guard Aerial Powers and forward Chloe Bibby.

Elsewhere, after losing forward Maddy Siegrist to injury and temporarily suspending the contracts of centers Teaira McCowan and Luisa Geiselsöder, Dallas acquired center Li Yueru from Seattle — with the Wings possibly needing additional hardship signings in the coming days.

The Storm snagged two future draft picks in the Saturday deal — a second-round selection in 2026 and a third-round pick in 2027.

Ultimately, teams are striving to find a balance between stocking up and maintaining consistency, all while operating under the WNBA's roster constraints — with further league expansion fast approaching.

The 2025 WNBA Commissioner's Cup will wrap up its conference play on Tuesday, as both Eastern and Western teams battle for a ticket to the in-season competition's championship game — and a cut of the $500,000 prize pool.

With 12 of the league's 13 teams facing off across Tuesday's WNBA courts, the results will set the stage by minting the two squads who will battle in the July 1st final showdown.

Reigning Commissioner's Cup champs Minnesota have the West's easiest path, as a win over the Las Vegas Aces will send the Lynx to a second straight final.

Should the Lynx fall to the Aces, however, Seattle can grab the Western Conference berth by beating the Los Angeles Sparks.

Meanwhile in the East, a surging Atlanta could land a trip to the final by topping New York, while the Liberty need both a win over the Dream plus a loss by the Indiana Fever to clinch their own return ticket to the Cup's grand finale.

If New York does take down Atlanta, the Fever could advance to the team's first-ever Commissioner's Cup final by beating the struggling Connecticut Sun.

How to watch Tuesday's 2025 WNBA Commissioner's Cup games

All of Tuesday's six WNBA games count toward the 2025 Commissioner's Cup tally.

The action begins with the Atlanta Dream tipping off against the New York Liberty while the Indiana Fever battles the Connecticut Sun at 7 PM ET, live on WNBA League Pass.

Chicago Sky star Angel Reese made headlines this week, with the second-year WNBA forward announcing that she has trademarked word "mebounds" — a slang term opposing fans use to describe Reese rebounding her own missed shots.

"Whoever came up with the 'mebounds' thing, y’all ate that up, because mebounds, rebounds, keybounds...anything that comes off that board, it's mine," Reese said in a TikTok video on Saturday.

"And a brand? That's six figures right there," she continued, referencing her trademark application. "The trolling — I love when y'all do it because the ideas be good!"

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Currently averaging 11.9 boards per matchup, Reese is leading the WNBA in rebounds for the second straight season.

Her rookie campaign saw Reese average 13.1 boards per game, a rate that set a single-season league record. She also blasted through the WNBA's consecutive double-double record last season, claiming it with 10 straight before extending it to an impressive 15 games.

Along with the average rebounds record, Reese also broke the single-season total rebounds record previously held by retired Minnesota Lynx legend Sylvia Fowles — a mark that was later surpassed by 2024 MVP A'ja Wilson following Reese's season-ending wrist injury.

"Statistically, all the rebounds that I get aren't always just mine," Reese added in her Saturday social media post. "They're the defense's, too, or somebody else on my team."