In a season packed with parity, the NWSL enters its 10th weekend of the 2025 season with just seven points separating No. 2 San Diego from No. 12 Houston on the table — meaning a single win or loss could dramatically shift the standings.
The slate is a bit lighter this weekend with No. 4 Portland and No. 8 Gotham's trip to the 2024/25 Concacaf W Champions Cup knockouts, where the Bats will face Liga MX side Tigres UANL tournament final shortly after Portland's third-place match against Club América on Saturday (Paramount+).
Their absence leaves room for other NWSL clubs to leapfrog the Thorns and Gotham on the league table, with only No. 1 Kansas City's position secure given the Current's four-point lead over the Wave.
What to watch in the 10th weekend of the 2025 NWSL season
No. 6 Seattle Reign vs. No. 5 Washington Spirit, 10:00 PM ET on Friday (Prime): The Reign hosts a Spirit side with a 4-0-0 road record on the season and a high-octane offense that's scoring nine goals in their last three matches. Meanwhile, Seattle's 2025 campaign has featured only eight total goals across their nine matches.
No. 14 Chicago Stars vs. No. 1 Kansas City Current, 7:30 PM ET on Saturday (ION): While the league-leading Current is safe atop the NWSL table this weekend, their match is still full of question marks as Kansas City is without several key players, including MVP frontrunner Debinha, after a spat of injuries last weekend.
No. 2 San Diego Wave vs. No. 9 North Carolina Courage, 10:00 PM ET on Sunday (CBS Sports): The Wave are riding the league's best record (4-0-1) over the last five games, but the Courage is also on the rise, coming to Seattle on a 3-0-1 stretch and achingly close to a lift above the playoff line.
With San Diego's 17-year-old midfielder Kimmi Ascanio blasting three goals in the last four games and North Carolina attacker Jaedyn Shaw — the Wave's original teen scoring phenom — returning for the first time to face her former club, Sunday's closing NWSL match could be rife with youth firepower.
Kansas City, Orlando, and Washington are back on top of the NWSL table, restoring their dominance with key weekend results after a series of shaky matchdays.
Anchored by a brace from Debinha, the No. 1 Current halted a two-game losing streak with a 4-1 drubbing of Bay FC on Sunday. Meanwhile, the No. 3 Spirit stopped their two-match skid with a 3-2 Saturday win over No. 14 Chicago.
The No. 2 Pride narrowly avoided their own second straight loss on Saturday, securing a 1-1 draw with No. 11 North Carolina behind Prisca Chilufya's last-gasp second-half stoppage time goal.
No. 5 Angel City's 2-0 win over No. 13 Utah captured the weekend's headlines, however, after the Friday match played to completion despite 20-year-old LA defender Savy King collapsing on the pitch in the 85th minute.
"Savy left the field in stable condition, and currently remains stable and will be undergoing further evaluation," the NWSL posted after the match.
In response to criticism about the game resuming at all, the NWSL added that the match followed "league protocols...from both a medical and game operations perspective."
"I'm not sure if we should have continued the game," Royals head coach Jimmy Coenraets told reporters after the match. "Not only [Angel City's athletes], but also our players were just scared, and I think that's not the right position, not the right situation to be in."
While the on-pitch NWSL results this weekend appeared to steady upheaval in the standings, the spotlight shown brightest on concerns over league policy clashing with player safety.
As the NWSL enters the 2025 season's eighth match weekend, two teams at the top of the table are in unfamiliar territory: the loss column.
No. 1 Kansas City and No. 2 Orlando are both coming off upset losses, while No. 3 San Diego, No. 4 Gotham, and No. 5 Portland are rocketing up the ranks behind them.
This weekend, last year's top teams will either get back on track, or loosen their grip on this season's race to the Shield.
- No. 14 Chicago Stars vs. No. 6 Washington Spirit, Saturday at 12:50 PM ET (ABC): The Spirit have stumbled with two straight losses, leaving Washington looking to gain ground against a last-place Chicago side still reeling from head coach Lorne Donaldson's recent departure.
- No. 9 North Carolina Courage vs. No. 2 Orlando Pride, Saturday at 7:30 PM ET (ION): North Carolina is surging on a two-game winning streak, and will test their new success against a surprisingly fallible Orlando team with two losses in their last three games.
- No. 3 San Diego Wave vs. No. 5 Portland Thorns, Saturday at 10 PM ET (ION): The Wave and the Thorns have locked in over the last couple weeks, with a win for either club bolstering their case as a legitimate Shield contender.
- No. 1 Kansas City Current vs. No. 10 Bay FC, Sunday at 12:50 PM ET (ESPN): Kansas City has stalled after a blistering start, with the Current looking for their first win in three games against a Bay FC squad fighting to rise back above the playoff line.
League-wide parity has its benefits in the early days of the 2025 NWSL campaign, but season-long survival is on the line this weekend — with only so much room at the top.
The NWSL Disciplinary Committee issued new rulings on Monday, extending existing suspensions after further reviewing violations of the league's rulebook.
Racing Louisville midfielder Ary Borges earned an additional three-game suspension to her original April 27th red card offense for postgame dissent, with the committee finding that Borges "pushed the center official," per an NWSL release.
The league also handed Washington Spirit head coach Jonatan Giráldez an extra one-game suspension for his April 26th red card incident, determining that Giráldez "failed to exit the field as required by the NWSL following ejection from a match."
While the members of the NWSL Disciplinary Committee are anonymous, they're responsible for monitoring conduct that warrants review beyond punishments given on the pitch.
Borges previously apologized for her behavior during the Louisville's chippy draw against Portland, saying she let the "the emotional side of the moment" get to her amid officiating concerns.
"I'm not much of talking about referees because they are things that are beyond our control but what happened today in the match was a shame," she added.
Originally penalized for entering the opposing side's technical area in the final minutes of the Spirit's 3-0 loss to Gotham, Giráldez did not comment on his suspension.
At the time, assistant coach Adrián González told reporters, "Sometimes you have a lot of things that you cannot control… He was just trying to protect our players or coaching staff, but nothing else."
Due to the extended NWSL suspensions, Borges will sit out Louisville's next three regular-season matches — May 9th's game against Gotham, May 16th's clash with Seattle, and May 24th's visit to Angel City — while Giráldez will miss Washington's May 10th match against Chicago.
English soccer club London City earned both a trophy and promotion from the UK's second-tier Women's Championship league this weekend, lifting the Michele Kang-owned Lionesses into the top-flight Women's Super League (WSL) next season.
With a 2-2 draw against second-place Birmingham City in Sunday's 2024/25 season finale, London City sealed the single point they needed to claim the second-flight league title and secure their ticket to the 2025/26 WSL campaign.
Originally affiliated with second-tier Millwall FC, the Lionesses separated from the men's side in 2019, and will become the only independent club in the WSL when they join next season.
London City is 'only going up' thanks to Kang
London City's rise is major success story for owner Michele Kang and her multi-team organization Kynisca — which also owns the NWSL's Washington Spirit and French club Lyon — as the Lionesses reach the UK's top-flight just two seasons after Kang's 2023 purchase of the club.
Next fall, London City will take the WSL spot of last season's promoted team, Crystal Palace, who were relegated from the top-tier league last month and currently hold a dismal 2-15-4 record.
Crystal Palace's struggles to compete after leveling up are nothing new, with many promoted clubs often stumbling into relegation after a single season.
That's a pattern Kang aims to break, with the women's sports mogul planning to see the Lionesses rise up the WSL and, later, into Champions League play.
"We have been building a team to be at a minimum, on day one, mid-tier WSL," Kang told the BBC.
"When I first came here a lot of people were concerned for me," Kang explained. "How can an independent women's team survive if you don't have the male team that can provide the brand and resources? Here we are. We made it."
"This is proof, we are only going up."
The 2025 NWSL season saw parity take center-pitch over the weekend, flipping the script yet again as the league's top teams hunted redemption — but came away winless.
Despite still sitting at No. 1 in the NWSL standings, the Kansas City Current find themselves on a two-game losing streak after falling to No. 7 Seattle on Friday, suffering the 1-0 stumble thanks to star Lynn Biyendolo's first goal in a Reign shirt.
More upsets followed, with the now-No. 6 Washington Spirit falling 4-3 to No. 8 Angel City on Friday before No. 5 Portland handed No. 2 Orlando a 1-0 Saturday loss.
The lone Top 4 team entering the weekend to escape without a loss was No. 4 Gotham, who eked out a single point after playing the struggling last-place Chicago Stars to a 0-0 stalemate on Sunday.
As squads compete for a foothold in a league where any team can win any match, two California clubs are continuing to carve out their own 2025 success stories.
Under new head coach Jonas Eidevall, San Diego has rocketed up the NWSL table to No. 3 behind Sunday's 2-1 victory over No. 10 Bay FC — putting the Wave on a three-game winning streak.
Similarly, Angel City managed to snap a two-game losing streak with their Friday win over a skidding Washington — a match that saw USWNT vet Christen Press earn her first assist of the season while Gisele and Alyssa Thompson made NWSL history with the league's first-ever sister-to-sister goal.
Overall, the seventh matchday delivered on parity, with the 2025 NWSL season swapping the dominance of the few for week-to-week chaos — challenging every club to stay on their toes.
This weekend's NWSL action features top-table battles, Cinderella hopefuls, and a whole slew of teams hunting redemption wins to open May's league play.
Perched at the top of the NWSL standings, the Kansas City Current sits tied for points with the second-place Orlando Pride, while just four points separate the remaining six teams currently above the postseason cutoff line.
With last week's rollercoaster results setting up redemption arcs for this weekend's slate, the 2025 NWSL season's seventh matchday is full of bounce-back opportunities, a tight race to the top, and a California clash:
- No. 3 Washington Spirit vs. No. 9 Angel City FC, Friday at 8 PM ET (Prime): Both the Spirit and Angel City are coming off disappointing losses, with once-unbeaten LA slipping out of the Top-8 on a two-match skid. Can either contender regain their early season form?
- No. 7 Seattle Reign FC vs. No. 1 Kansas City Current, Friday at 10:30 PM ET (Paramount+): The Reign are hanging tough after two weeks of adding points, but they'll face a redemption-hunting Current squad determined to rebound from their first season loss last weekend.
- No. 6 Portland Thorns vs. No. 2 Orlando Pride, Saturday at 7:30 PM ET (ION): The Thorns have gained points in five of their last six games, and Portland will need all that resilience against a challenging Pride side that's more than capable of mounting their own comebacks.
- No. 5 San Diego Wave vs. No. 8 Bay FC, Sunday at 8 PM ET (Paramount+): The weekend's marquee matchup pits the Wave — quietly finding their identity under new coach Jonas Eidevall — against Bay FC in a California clash where neither team can afford to lose much ground.
The North Carolina Courage earned their first winning results of the 2025 NWSL season in high-scoring style, when a last-gasp goal by attacker Ashley Sanchez handed the previously undefeated Kansas City Current their first loss on Saturday.
The Courage trailed Kansas City 2-1 just before the end of regulation, after goals from Haley Hopkins and Bia Zaneratto put the Current in the lead.
Center back Kaleigh Kurtz's 90th-minute equalizer flipped the script for the Courage, before Sanchez buried the closer three minutes later in second-half stoppage time.
The comeback victory boosted the formerly last-place Courage to No. 11 in the standings, while the league-leading Current's grip on No. 1 is loosening as they pull level in points with No. 2 Orlando.
Gotham caps roller-coaster week with win over Washington
Elsewhere on Saturday, No. 4 Gotham downed East Coast rivals No. 3 Washington 3-0, solidifying their spot in the NWSL's top five.
The victory was buoyed by a brace from Golden Boot-leader Esther González, whose seven season goals have all come in the last four matches — tying the NWSL record for most goals scored in a four-game span.
Still at the start of her third season with the NJ/NY side, the 32-year-old has already become the team's second all-time leading scorer, passing both Carli Lloyd and Midge Purce with her 18th Gotham goal on Saturday.
That weekend win capped off a crowded three-match week for the Bats. Before securing their multi-goal victory over DC, Gotham first beat Angel City 4-0 the previous Friday, then fell 4-1 to Portland last Tuesday.
"This was one of the proudest moments for us as a team and as a club," Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amorós said after Saturday's match. "I couldn't be prouder of the players. I think they've been outstanding the whole week."
As for injury-ridden Washington, their performance wasn't a total loss, as 2024 Rookie of the Year Croix Bethune returned to the pitch for the first time since tearing her meniscus shortly after winning Olympic gold with the USWNT last summer.
"I do feel like I'm about 90%," Bethune told reporters after the match. "I had a hip/quad situation — I feel like that gave me a little bit more time to get stronger for my knee and just make sure I'm overall 100%."
While the Spirit continue dealing with an onslaught of injuries, Gotham — now just one point behind Washington in the standings — is steadily creeping in on the 2024 NWSL Championship runners-up's third-place spot.
Sixth NWSL matchday fueled by high-scoring results
Saturday's high-scoring tally fit right in with the rest of the NWSL, with the league's weekend slate delivering a high-octane 24 goals across its seven matches.
Defending champion Orlando secured a three-point result with a 3-2 comeback win over the visiting No. 9 Angel City, while the last-place Chicago Stars suffered a 3-0 home defeat at the hands of No. 5 San Diego.
However, it was No. 6 Portland and No. 12 Louisville that produced the most dramatic scoreline of the season's sixth matchday, settling for a 3-3 Sunday draw after the Thorns converted two penalty kicks.
"This is just another example of how good this league is, and how you literally cannot relax even for a second regardless of who you play and where you play them," said Current head coach Vlatko Andonovski, summing up a strong showing across the NWSL.
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.