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The longest NWSL season in history — up to 30 games this year — is halfway done, which means it is time for ESPN’s midseason report cards.
Our last report cards in April were mindful of the small sample size, so there were no failing grades. Like any good teacher, we wanted to encourage growth and remain optimistic that everyone was doing their homework.
Now, however, every team has played enough games that we can reward those who have aced their tests and pull out the red ink for teams that are failing.
Here’s where things stand for all 16 teams in the NWSL:
Angel City desperately needed on-field success and consistency this season. They can still try to achieve the first, at least.
Firing coach Alexander Straus halfway through the season, after he arrived halfway through last season, killed the idea of consistency and stability again in 2026. This has been mentioned before and recently, but the next head coaching hire is make-or-break and needs to be someone who lasts. That entire situation informs our midseason grade.
That mentioned, Angel City still sits in eighth place, narrowly above the playoff line. Making it to the postseason would mark progress, so there is still room for growth this season. Still, that 3-0-0 start atop the table feels like a long time ago.
Was the three-game winning streak after the men’s World Cup break just another interim coach bounce? The team looked tepid in Sunday’s home loss to last-place Racing Louisville. How will it respond in a busy six-game month of August?
Bay FC’s reality is that they are at the start of a multiyear project, which means we are grading on a curve here. (Cue the frustration that a 2024 expansion team is already rebuilding.)
The offseason arrival of U.S. women’s national team midfielder Claire Hutton gave Bay a strong building block up the spine of their team, and the midseason acquisition of Kennedy Fuller provided further optimism for the future. Add in forwards Alex Pfeiffer and Karlie Lema, plus rising USWNT prospect and goalkeeper Jordan Silkowitz, and there are signs of potential.
Coach Emma Coates is still putting the pieces together in her first season. Bay has been inconsistent, but understandably so.
Things are starting to look up in Rhode Island — err, Boston.
The Legacy lost the first five games of their existence, but they are 3-1-1 since the World Cup break and they look like a different, more competitive team. Boston defeated the Kansas City Current and Orlando Pride in that stretch, and it kept things relatively close in a 2-1 loss to the Washington Spirit.
The recent turn of fortunes has coincided with a system change. Coach Filipa Patão stuck with a three-back defensive system that didn’t always suit her personnel in the first half of the season, but Boston has played more conventional 4-4-2/4-2-3-1 structures since the break, and success has followed.
Forward Aïssata Traoré leads the way with five goals. Will the team’s big signing, Amanda Gutierres, settle into the league to dominate it as many expect? After a brutal start, Boston has shown clear signs of progress.
Chicago finished in last place last year, and though there have been blips of early-season positivity, there isn’t nearly enough improvement. The Stars have already eclipsed last year’s measly wins total (three), but they have also already lost as many games (12) as they did all last year. (They are the only team in the NWSL without a draw in their record.)
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So, the bar for improvement was low, and the Stars are not clearing it. They have scored only eight goals in 22 games and boast a league-worst minus-23 goal difference.
Richard Feuz was fired as general manager in May, and a replacement has yet to be named. Whoever that will be needs more resources and spending power from ownership to turn things around. The return of forward Mallory Swanson has injected talent and positive vibes into the team, at least.
The biggest problem in Chicago is that the questions are the same as they have been for the past few years: What is the plan to improve the on-field product? Will the team spend more aggressively to make that happen? Who will help Swanson? And where will this team play home games next year? There is too much déjà vu.
Denver sits level on points with fellow expansion side Boston, but the Summit have played two fewer games to date and have a higher ceiling.
Denver has been inconsistent at times this season even within matches, but it has been plenty competitive thanks to a veteran roster. The July arrival of USWNT midfielder Lindsey Heaps (captain for club and country) instantly added further sophistication to the midfield. Heaps tallied the winning assist in her debut — a win over her old team, Portland — and nearly helped Denver earn a point in Washington, D.C.
That win over the Portland Thorns, followed by the narrow 1-0 loss to the Washington Spirit in a tactical chess match, were further proof of concept. Denver has a decent shot at making the playoffs in Year 1. Denver has all the momentum, and, off the field, just opened the sold-out opener at Centennial Stadium. What more could it ask for?
The defending NWSL champions are in the NWSL Shield race (which is more than can be mentioned about last season, when they were the No. 8 seed in the playoffs) and just defeated the Washington Spirit at Citi Field to soft launch their Queens era before an epic late comeback over the Seattle Reign.
They just brought forward Sam Kerr back to the team after she spent six successful years at Chelsea, meaning the rich got richer.
Still, things have not been perfect for Gotham. The standards are high, sure, but there have been some inconsistencies along the way, including a dreadful showing in Mexico in May at the Concacaf W Champions Cup that doesn’t formally count toward our assessment of the regular season (or the standings, luckily for them) but also cannot be forgotten.
In the past week, leading scorer Esther González abruptly departed via mutual contract termination and defender Emily Sonnett appears to have suffered a serious knee injury. Those absences won’t go unnoticed.
Results have been all over the place for a Houston team that started off the season looking like a playoff contender. (Sample sizes, you strike again!) The Dash have struggled defensively at times and oscillated between plucky and drab performances, but they are still only three points off the playoff line.
Call it very cautious optimism, but there are reasons to believe there could be a foundation for the future here with a talented young core. Rookie Kat Rader has six goals, outpacing plenty of veterans, and fellow rookie Linda Ullmark has added three assists. Add in promise from fellow first-year pro forward Kate Faasse, plus production from Kiki Van Zanten.
The question that is familiar to Houston and consistent with the movement in this league is: Will everyone stick around for the future to come to fruition?
Kansas City has just begun another stretch without forward Temwa Chawinga for international duty, and this is a different team with and without the two-time reigning NWSL MVP.
The Current are also far too inconsistent based on the venue of the game. They have extended their record home unbeaten streak, making CPKC Stadium a fortress, but they have lost seven games since — more than the past two years combined. Every loss has been on the road. That isn’t good enough to win a Shield or a championship.
Kansas City’s Claire Hutton-sized hole remains in midfield, and at this stage it looks like bringing in a new long-term No. 6 might not happen until the winter.
Vibes and results have absolutely improved from the Current’s disastrous start to the season, but this is a championship-or-bust team that wants to be the best club in the world. Our grades reflect those expectations and ambitions.
Ashley Sanchez is having a career year with nine goals, tied for second in the NWSL. That alone at least partly fulfills the prophecy about an “obsession” with scoring that new head coach Mak Lind proclaimed upon his hiring.
North Carolina is not yet markedly improved in the standings from last year, and the rest of the season just got a lot more difficult with the MVP-sized hole in midfield following the departure of Manaka Matsukubo to Chelsea. She was responsible for five goals and four assists in just nine games before her summer transfer.
Forward Evelyn Ijeh and midfielder Shinomi Koyama must continue to develop to collectively fill some of that void and turn the Courage into a contender. Last week’s 4-1 loss to the Utah Royals showed the gap in progress between two playoff outsiders from last year.
Orlando has looked … fine … ish? This Pride team has been hard to judge, and fair or not, it is still assessed in the shadow of that all-time 2024 double-winning team.
Results have been all over the board recently, from a 3-0 win over Kansas City to a 1-0 home loss to Boston. Sure, that’s the NWSL in a nutshell, but the Pride have enough talent and experience to be in a better place than clinging to a playoff spot.
Barbra Banda leads the NWSL with 12 goals, and there is a similar dependency as Kansas City has with Chawinga. The rest of the team has a combined 10 goals. Marta isn’t as automatic these days, and we are still yet to see the best of Lizbeth Ovalle, especially in front of goal.
Expectations for this Thorns team weren’t all that high in early March. Coach Robert Vilahamn joined the team only about a day before the season opener after a bizarrely long search process, and captain Sam Coffey had departed in the offseason to leave a massive midfield void.
Portland has been in the Shield hunt from the start, however, right from that opening-day away win over the Washington Spirit. (Credit to assistant Sarah Lowdon for guiding the ship all winter.) While that is always the standard in Portland, it didn’t look like it would be reality this year.
Forward Sophia Wilson’s return from maternity leave has plenty to do with that; she is as dangerous as ever. Olivia Moultrie has been among the best attacking midfielders in the league again this season, and forward Pietra Tordin is an emerging starter who complements the attack.
Racing Louisville is, by far, the biggest disappointment of the season. The team that was perpetually stuck in ninth place every year of its existence finally made the playoffs last year. Coach Bev Yanez instilled a gritty identity into Racing Louisville and made them difficult to beat. They counterattacked and frustrated teams. They punched above their weight.
Now, they sit in last place with virtually zero chance to make the playoffs. Their star player, USWNT forward Emma Sears, has requested a trade, and that collective bite from last year seems to be gone. They’ve dropped points late, just as they did at times last year, but seven of 11 losses have been by one goal. They got embarrassed in a 5-1 loss to Kansas City on Wednesday.
Off the field, there are legitimate questions about the team’s future in the NWSL and in Louisville as the ownership group seeks new investment. Last year’s positivity wasn’t built upon, and it already feels like a distant memory.
It has been a frustrating season of inconsistency for the Reign. The lows have been really low: An early-season 2-0 loss at Portland, while playing with a two-player advantage, was one of the worst regular-season losses on record given the circumstances. Then there was the 2-0 lead they had away to Gotham in the 80th minute, only to lose 3-2, the first time that happened in NWSL history.
Seattle has persevered, however. The Reign followed that loss to Portland with a 3-0 win over Kansas City as part of an unbeaten homestand in Spokane. There have also been individual bright spots such as forward Maddie Mercado, who has five goals this season.
The Reign are still in fighting position for a return to the playoffs, which was about the expectation for a team that overperformed last year. To unlock a new level, they need more from players carrying big expectations, such as forward Mia Fishel.
San Diego started off the season playing beautiful, entertaining soccer (stop us if you’ve heard that before) thanks to the deep French-Brazilian connections in the Wave’s attack. But winger Dudinha was the catalyst of that early success and her season is over after she sustained a knee injury with Brazil in June.
Forward Trinity Byars has picked up the scoring load. Fullback Mimi Van Zanten has added width to the Wave’s attack, and Melanie Barcenas is one of several examples of players who are taking on larger roles.
San Diego’s biggest question is in net. The Wave have played four different goalkeepers in 17 games. Leah Freeman (six starts) has left the club, and 19-year-old Luisa Agudelo briefly took the reins before the arrival of Spanish veteran Sandra Paños, who had a difficult debut. No other true contender has goalkeeper uncertainty outside of injuries.
Since returning from the World Cup break, the Wave have beaten Gotham, drawn Kansas City and lost to Seattle and Angel City. Would the real San Diego please stand up?
Utah continues to live the dream. The first half of the Royals’ season felt a little bit like watching Leicester City win the Premier League a decade ago: Everyone was just waiting for them to crash back down to reality. Utah lost to lowly Chicago and then defending champion Gotham after the summer break but immediately turned around and defeated Orlando and North Carolina.
A legitimate team effort has carried the Royals to success, and their defense has been especially resolute. The Royals stymied NWSL Golden Boot leader Barbra Banda in the recent win over Orlando, holding the Pride to 0.00 xG in the first half on the way to a shutout. Utah scored three goals off corner kicks and another from the penalty spot in a 4-1 win over the Courage.
The Royals are still in the Shield race and played Washington tight in Wednesday’s 1-0 loss. Barring the most epic collapse possible to push them out of the playoffs come November, this will be a successful season for a Utah team that has exceeded expectations.
The Shield favorites have done just about everything right and have 11 wins in their last 13 games. It took a few matches for the Spirit to find a rhythm, and they were disappointing at the Concacaf W Champions Cup in Mexico in May. But after the slow start, they popped off on a run of 10 wins in 12 games, with only road losses to fellow contenders San Diego and Gotham (in the weird smoky baseball field game with four hydration breaks) in that stretch.
It is difficult to deliver on being the favorites, especially following the pressure of back-to-back losses in the final and a winter that saw the team help rewrite the rulebook to sign forward Trinity Rodman to a record contract. Rodman has carried the weight of that pressure with ease, scoring eight goals to stay in the Golden Boot race and secure points for Washington.
The Spirit keep showing off their depth as they rotate through the grueling NWSL summer (and deal with the most absences in the league due to the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations). Whether it’s wholesale rotation to beat Boston on short rest or bringing star Leicy Santos off the bench to unlock the Denver Summit, the Spirit are the deepest, best and most consistent team in the NWSL right now.
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