In this week's episode of The Late Sub, host Claire Watkins breaks down the newly reported indefinite absence of NWSL star Trinity Rodman from the Washington Spirit, with the 22-year-old attacker rehabbing an ongoing back injury that could reshape the prospects of both the Spirit and the USWNT.
Calling her "the face of the NWSL," Watkins details the Spirit star's long-term back injury, which has led Rodman to seek treatment with a team doctor in London — all while acknowledging that she doesn't think her "back will ever be 100%."
Watkins digs into the potential contributing factors to Rodman's current injury status, including the USWNT's heavy use of the forward during the 2024 Olympic gold medal-winning run in Paris — and whether the team will make different decisions going forward due to the fallout on players like Rodman.
"I'm really curious if [USWNT manager Emma] Hayes and her coaching staff will adjust the way they approach strikers in the future, or forwards in the future, or rotation — or if this is just one of those many stories of a player giving it all for the United States and living with the consequences," says Watkins.
As for Washington, Watkins note that — in the wake of copious injuries — the Spirit is still finding ways to win, with club owner Michele Kang and the coaching staff shrewdly managing the depleted roster.
"I think they would be a juggernaut if they were healthy, but they can win pretty, they can win ugly," notes Watkins.
'An NWSL breaking point'
Watkins also points out that she thinks Rodman's choice to seek treatment in London could be significant, as the forward is currently in a contract year.
With multiple NWSL standouts recently defecting to European clubs, Watkins argues that the US league is hitting a "breaking point" when it comes to retaining top players.
"I am just really, really curious if, by the end of this season, this situation has led Rodman back to the Spirit or if this is the beginning of a player having to progress forward in a different environment," Watkins sums up.
About 'The Late Sub' with Claire Watkins
The Late Sub with Claire Watkins brings you the latest news and freshest takes on the USWNT, NWSL, and all things women's soccer. Special guest appearances featuring the biggest names in women’s sports make TLS a must-listen for every soccer fan.
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There's a traffic jam in the middle of the NWSL standings, with this weekend's slate bound to create some distance among mid-table teams jockeying to break free from the pack.
Between rising underdogs and top-dog rivalries, expect the 2025 NWSL season's sixth matchday to leave it all on the field:
- No. 2 Orlando Pride vs. No. 6 Angel City, Friday at 8 PM ET (Prime): With both teams coming off demoralizing losses last weekend, the 2024 NWSL champs will fight to bounce back against the LA upstarts in Friday's marquee matchup.
- No. 10 Houston Dash vs. No. 11 Utah Royals, Friday at 8 PM ET (NWSL+): Tied up at four points apiece, the pair of struggling teams just below playoff contention on the NWSL table will battle for a boost above the cutoff line as the recently sold Royals take a trip to Texas on Friday.
- No. 3 Washington Spirit vs. No. 4 Gotham FC, Saturday at 1 PM ET (CBS): This week's top-table showdown features two injury-struck East Coast rivals getting rowdy at Audi — can Gotham turn things around or will Washington keep persevering?
- No. 9 Bay FC vs. No. 8 Seattle Reign, Saturday at 10 PM ET (ION): Seattle holds a slim tie-break over Bay FC as both teams hug the playoff line, with the Reign looking to build on last week’s Cascadia Clash victory over Portland.
This weekend has the potential to divide the contenders from the pretenders, while the league's top three clubs continue to hold court over the rest of the field.
Saturday's soccer lineup underlines a brewing East Coast rivalry, as the Washington Spirit hosts Gotham FC for the first time since knocking the Bats out of the 2024 NWSL semifinals.
"Just playing against them, you feel that fire," Spirit forward Makenna Morris told JWS this week, with Washington's Audi Field anticipating a large crowd for Saturday's match.
Both clubs know each other well, with 2021 NWSL champions Washington and 2023 trophy-winners Gotham seeing a number of big-name players migrating between New York and DC in recent years.
After finishing 2024 in the league's top four, both teams continue to lurk near the top of NWSL table this season, cementing the idea that the best rivalries blossom between winning sides.
"The [team] that poses the most challenge to you, it just makes you want to beat them so bad," said Washington midfielder Gabby Carle.
"You hate to play them because they're good, but you also love it because it's so competitive," echoed Morris.
Ultimately, familiarity is breeding healthy resentment between two of the NWSL's winningest sides, providing a little extra incentive to secure all three points in this weekend’s matchup.
How to watch NWSL rivals Washington vs. Gotham this weekend
The Spirit will host East Coast rival Gotham at 1 PM ET on Saturday, with live coverage of the 2024 NWSL semifinals rematch airing on CBS.
As the 2024/25 UEFA Women's Champions League (UWCL) wraps up its two-leg semifinals on Sunday, the English teams still in the running find themselves on the brink of elimination from Europe's most prestigious club competition.
Facing a 4-1 deficit against reigning champs Barcelona, Chelsea will aim to close the gap — and keep their historic quadruple hopes alive — at home this weekend.
Meanwhile, Arsenal will try to overcome a more manageable 2-1 deficit against eight-time Champions League winners Lyon, traveling to France to keep their UWCL campaign alive.
An English side hasn't won the UWCL since 2007, when Arsenal took home the WSL's lone European championship trophy.
"Huge respect for their history and what they have been doing and producing in the Champions League, in Europe," Arsenal manager Renée Slegers said of Lyon. "I think they're still a very strong side."
"Subconsciously, you always have that thing when you fall short, like last year," said Lyon midfielder and USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps, reflecting back on last season’s title loss to Barcelona. "You lose a game, you lose a tournament – the feeling is there until you're back in the the games that can fix that feeling."
How to watch the 2024/25 Champions League semifinals
Sunday's second leg of the 2024/25 Champions League semifinals kicks off with Chelsea vs. Barcelona at 9 AM ET, before Arsenal faces Lyon at 12 PM ET.
Both matches will air live on DAZN.
World Sevens Football (W7F) confirmed the first four clubs competing in its inaugural tournament on Thursday, with Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Ajax, and Benfica joining the upstart's first competition this May.
Fashioned after tennis' Grand Slams, W7F is a series of tournaments, bringing together top clubs in major cities worldwide.
The debut three-day tournament will take place in the immediate lead-up to the May 24th 2025 UEFA Women's Champions League final, allowing the W7F launch to strategically capitalize on the excitement surrounding one of the sport's annual tentpole events.
World Sevens eyes multi-continent tournament lineup
W7F is the sport's latest 7v7 venture, with the US-based The Soccer Tournament spearheading the rise of the abbreviated game with its annual $1 million competition.
Like all future W7F contests, May's inaugural tournament will include a total of eight 7v7 clubs. Additionally, teams will compete in matches with two 15-minute halves, all on a field half the size of a full-team regulation soccer pitch.
In each W7F tournament, teams will vie for a share of a $5 million prize pool, with $2.5 million going to the champion while the runner-up banks $1 million.
As for the other four clubs joining the just-announced quartet in May, W7F is still negotiating with various teams, with the possibility of participation from non-European clubs still on the table.
A North American tournament is in the works for this fall, and W7F is also currently mapping out a four-year run-up to create five annual competitions across different continents.
RAJ Sports, owners of the NWSL's Portland Thorns and Portland's incoming 2026 WNBA expansion franchise, broke ground on their historic dual-sport training center on Wednesday, as the 12-acre $150 million facility begins to take shape.
The performance center will support both Portland squads, becoming the first-ever training complex to house a professional women's soccer club and a pro women's basketball team under singular ownership.
Led by Lisa Bhathal Merage as well as her brother, Alex Bhathal, RAJ Sports is the sports investment arm of the Bhathal family, who shifted into team ownership on the heels of their longtime family swimwear business.
Bhathal Merage, in particular, is taking charge in ensuring the new facility is pushing the needle for women's sports.
"We don't look at our investments as philanthropy at all," said Bhathal Merage. "It's about moving things forward."
"I've been involved in hand selecting every finish, carpet, tile to make it through the female lens of how we interact, how we look at things, what we want to see," she explained.
"I think this performance center will be changing the dynamic for women's sports for generations to come," added Bhathal Merage. "Our view is to collaborate, involve the community and really lift up everybody by that collaboration."
The Bhathal family are also eager to reveal their incoming WNBA team's name, telling reporters that they’ve "literally compiled every single comment from every single person into a massive spreadsheet and rank them in order of how popular they were."
"We're waiting for final league approval," said Bhathal Merage. "Hopefully within the next two, maximum three months, we'll be able to unveil everything."
NWSL teams continue to attract big-name investors, with a few new ownership shake-ups making headlines in recent weeks.
Former USWNT World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist Lauren Holiday and her husband, two-time NBA champ Jrue Holiday, bought into the North Carolina Courage this week, becoming NWSL investors via the couple's Holiday Family Trust.
Retiring from pro soccer in 2015, Holiday will be an active owner with the Courage, serving as an advisor, ambassador, and consultant on the operations side.
"I'm an investor in North Carolina, but I think I have invaluable insight being as I was part of the league when it was in its inaugural season," the two-time NWSL champion and 2013 league MVP told ESPN.
NWSL draws more investors as league grows
As club valuations skyrocket, money has flowed into the NWSL through high-profile investments — and even outright sales.
Earlier this month, former Utah Jazz owners the Miller family purchased the Utah Royals, as well as MLS club Real Salt Lake, from short-term owner David Blitzer in a deal weighing in at a reported $600 million.
Last September, Angel City sold for a record $250 million, while the expansion fee for Denver's incoming NWSL team reportedly tops $110 million.
With further expansion looming and NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman recently saying she sees the league growing to as many as 32 teams, expect transactions to keep building as more investors look to buy into the game.
The NWSL is heading back to the ballpark, with 2024 expansion side Bay FC announcing Tuesday that the club will take on the Washington Spirit inside Oracle Park, the home of MLB's San Francisco Giants.
Shifting the August 23rd match to the baseball diamond isn't just a spectacle — the move builds on Bay FC's continuous ambitions to claim the top NWSL attendance record by filling the Bay Area ballpark's 40,260 seats.
Though the 25-year-old Oracle Park has previously hosted men's contests, August's NWSL match will be the first professional women's soccer game in the venue's history.
Similarly, while this will be the first NWSL competition in San Francisco's baseball venue, it's not the first league match in an MLB stadium.
Last summer, the Chicago Stars hosted Bay FC at Wrigley Field, packing an NWSL-record 35,038 soccer fans into the MLB home of the Chicago Cubs.
That June 8th, 2024, attendance surpassed the previous league-record crowd of 34,130 that attended USWNT icon Megan Rapinoe's final Seattle home game in 2023.
How to attend Bay FC vs. Washington at Oracle Park
To be a part of the potentially record-breaking August 23rd crowd, tickets will be available for general purchase beginning at 12 PM ET on May 6th.
Fans interested in securing pre-sale tickets can add their names to the online list.
In Tuesday night's NWSL action, Portland upset a rising Gotham side 4-1 behind three debut goals from the Thorns' promising rookie class.
The rare midweek match came courtesy of next month's Concacaf W Champions Cup. Both Gotham and Portland advanced to the international club event's semifinals last October, forcing them to pull double-duty and add this week's extra regular-season NWSL game to accommodate the tournament's schedule.
The tight turnaround certainly didn't rattle the Thorns.
Portland newcomers Marie-Yasmine "Mimi" Alidou, Caiya Hanks, and Jayden Perry all earned their first NWSL goals in the match, before offseason signee Deyna Castellanos reinforced the victory with an 80th-minute chip.
As for Gotham, 32-year-old star forward Esther provided a bright spot for the NJ/NY squad, notching her fifth goal of the young season to boost herself to the top of the league's early Golden Boot race.
Despite the loss, Friday's strong outing against Angel City has Gotham still holding steady at No. 4 in the standings. However, both No. 5 Portland and No. 6 ACFC are close on the Bats' heels, with all three teams currently tied at eight points apiece.
"What I told the team is that we lost the battle tonight, but this is a long war," said Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amoros following the match. "We're there together on this."
How to watch Gotham, Portland this weekend
Gotham will take the pitch once again on Saturday, when they'll face East Coast rivals Washington at 1 PM ET. Live coverage will air on CBS.
Meanwhile, Portland will close out the NWSL's sixth matchday by hosting Racing Louisville at 4 PM ET on Sunday, streaming live on Paramount+.
The Soccer Tournament (TST) presented by RBC Wealth Management revealed its 2025 women's bracket on Tuesday, with 16 7v7 teams gearing up to compete for the $1 million winner-take-all grand prize this June.
The US Women's Team is back to defend their 2024 title, fueled by World Cup-winning USWNT vets Heather O'Reilly, Carli Lloyd, and Ali Krieger, plus retired Scotland national and Bay FC defender Jen Beattie.
Additional teams participating in the competition include 7v7 offshoots of NWSL clubs Angel City, KC Current, and 2024 runners-up NC Courage, as well as former USWNT goalkeeper Hope Solo's Solo FC.
Returning to Cary, North Carolina, for its third year, TST doubled the size of its women's bracket after a successful eight-team debut in 2024.
"Our inaugural women's championship game viewership performed exceptionally well, as we grew our audience 452% from the beginning of the game until the moment the game-winning goal was scored," TST founder and CEO Jon Mugar told The Athletic.
"TST soccer is electrifying," Mugar added. "Our goal is to become the preeminent soccer festival in the world. Judging by the number of returning fans and teams, we are well on our way."
How to attend, watch the 2025 TST 7v7 contest
TST's 7v7 women's competition kicks off on June 5th and runs through the $1 million championship game on June 9th.
Tickets to attend are currently available online.
All matches will air live on either YouTube or ESPN platforms.