Ashley Sanchez's growing USWNT credentials.

The NWSL is entering the homestretch of the 2026 season with just 8 matches remaining for most of the league and just a few days remaining in the summer transfer window. There are still a few obvious holes that need to be plugged around the league: a CDM here, a goalkeeper there, etc. For now, teams have to keep their heads down and decide: do we go for it now? Or do we wait until the winter? 

It’s an easier answer for some clubs than others. 

There’s a lot to talk about this week; let’s dive in.

Emma, can you hear me?

Ashley Sanchez entered 2026 as a long shot for Emma Hayes’s final roster ahead of next summer’s World Cup in Brazil. Absent from the USWNT since 2024, Sanchez was also fresh off her worst season on the stat sheet since her rookie season.

That was until her role evolved out of Sean Nahas’s defensive system and into a key figure of Mak Lind’s rebuild Courage attack.

North Carolina has already outscored their 2025 season total and has morphed from a bottom-five scoring squad to leading the league in goals scored through 21 matches.

Sanchez has reaped the benefits; after scoring 8 goals and 6 assists over 2024 and 2025 combined, Sanchez is up to 15 goals on the season after this Wednesday’s brace against Angel City.

Aggressive down the left wing, Sanchez isn’t just scoring by abandoning the defensive work. Lind’s system is at its best when the attack is active, and when they spring the press to win the ball higher up the pitch, Sanchez’s 9 interceptions and 29 tackles are also an improvement on 2025’s season totals. Sanchez is losing the ball more often, but that’s a direct consequence of where she is receiving the ball and battling with defenders more often.

It’s been a historic run; Temwa Chawinga’s 21-goal tally in 2024 seemed untouchable, but Sanchez can get there on her current form of 8 goals in the 10 matches since the season restart. At that rate, with 9 matches left in the season, Sanchez could challenge that record. It’s a testament to what Mak Lind saw in the tapes: Sanchez has already reached a career high in shot attempts among nearly every statistical category. Sanchez's transformation from an attacking midfielder who happens to play in the wide spaces to a winger has been complete. 

All of that said, there’s still a scenario where Emma Hayes doesn’t pick up the phone. The USWNT is spoiled for left-sided attackers. Along with Sanchez, Trinity Rodman is having a career year — even as Hayes likes her on the right — the younger Pietra Tordin has 15 goal contributions of her own, and Mallory Swanson is starting to heat up in Chicago, all while competing with a still very good Emma Sears, Alyssa Thompson, and Jaedyn Shaw. There is a world where Hayes is happy with the current group, as much as the manager has previously insisted that club form matters.

Does it?

This is where we’ll truly put that theory to the test.

Orlando’s rebuild starts now.

I’ve pondered at times this season if Orlando needed to embrace the dreaded retool this winter after a season and a half of stale play. When Caitlin Carducci stepped in this January, it made sense to see her taking her time to take stock while making a few tweaks along the way; however, Carducci decided to start the show this week. 

Step one: Make the biggest change a Sporting Director can make without ripping up contracts: fire Seb Hines and name assistant manager Yolanda Thomas as interim for the rest of the season. 

Step two: Move on from Anna Moorhouse.

Step three: Bring in more complimentary scoring, shore up the backline, etc.

It’s a cold sport, and while Hines is due a metric ton of credit for the 2024 double, he’s been hesitant to change this season, and with Haley Carter leaving for the Spirit this offseason, the historic partnership needed some adjusting. The reality is that the Pride are locked into some aging contracts, and the complementary pieces that were built through 2023 ahead of signing Barbra Banda are mostly gone from the project at this point.  The Orlando timetable really did take a special partnership to build the base of the roster in Hines's image. 

This is the lineup from the final match of the 2023 season, plus a step forward from Ally Brazier(neé Watt) and the addition of Banda, and it was off to the races in 2024.

The succession planning was poor; Orlando was stuck with some contracts, lost Adrianna, Brazier, and Sams, hasn't had a ton of success in signings since 2024, along with the regression of Moorhouse... and here we are.

It's always easiest to change a manager, and Orlando are not getting production from complementary pieces for two seasons now. 

That, plus Hines’s reluctance to move away from Anna Moorhouse, made the change more likely. Moorhouse is having one of the worst goalkeeping seasons in recent history; only Alyssa Naeher (2023) and Erin McLeod (2022) have had worse seasons in the 2020s… not good. 

“As we evaluated the health of the club this season and beyond, we determined it was a good time for a change.” Caitlin Carducci said during Wednesday’s press conference, “Our expectations for the club are to compete for championships day in and day out; the investment is there and it has to match our ambition to become the best soccer club in the world.”

Carducci was hired on January 13th and has not had much wiggle room to make moves since then. It's essentially re-sign and loan Seven Castain, sign Gabi Nunes, sign Sanne Lekven.

Several deals are up at the end of the season, and they potentially have 5 intl spots to maneuver, and look to be interested in permanently moving on from Moorhouse after loaning her to Manchester City for the upcoming WSL season. 

The Pride currently sit 5 points out of the final playoff spot. 

Gotham’s Loosening Grip.

Gotham had a chance to all but seal the shield with a win over Portland on Saturday. Instead, they once again failed to find a 2nd goal against a Portland Thorns side that has been open for business this season. Gotham’s tight defensive structure has become a pair of golden handcuffs as a side featuring Sam Kerr and some of the World’s best midfielders was reliant on another Jaedyn Shaw golazo to save a share of the points.

It’s hard to shake the feeling that Gotham’s decision to double down on its world-class veterans hasn’t opened itself up to this, with both Lilly Reale and Sarah Schupansky being dealt to Boston this month. Some of that is out of their control; how do you prepare for Ester citing the need to return home to Spain before signing in Saudi Arabia weeks later?

That transfer fee may have helped their fraught cap situation, but for now the defending champs will have to stay perfect before that meeting with the Spirit in October, 5 points clear at the top of the table.

San Diego has more or less been the toast of the league, but it's a cruel sport, and the team with the most game-winners on both sides of the ball is currently trying to hold onto its grip atop the table. Sometimes it's more about who can control the moments than who can create the most moments; Gotham has a clear lead in the former.

Chris Armas won the match with his setup, then nearly lost it with his adjustment.

The Current’s win over the red-hot Courage this weekend all but sealed their spot in the playoffs, a low bar for this group, but not an unfair question given the state of things under Chris Armas this year. In general, the Current have been more unlucky than bad, and with Temwa Chawinga returning – although she will miss Friday’s match with Bay due to illness – the 3-2 win displayed both extremes of the Current experience in 2026. 

The Current came out in more of a 4-2-2-2, which set them up well to cut out the Courage’s play into the wide spaces. It’s been the key factor this season; when the Current can’t dictate play out wide, they lose. The Current successfully flattened the Courage’s formation and broke the link between the Courage’s defenders and the wide spaces.

However, after going up 3-0, Evelyn Ijeh found a goal in stoppage time. The Current then lost some intensity and fluidity in the second half; the Courage grabbed momentum by the horns and came inches from drawing level following Riley Jackson’s penalty in the 77th minute. 

Armas still hasn’t had his full deck of cards for long periods this season, and the Current are one or two pieces short along the backline – somewhat answered by signing Cameroon’s Myriam Maëva Nyadjou this week. 

If Nyadjou can arrive in time to be integrated leading into the playoffs, there is still a question of who winds up as the best option at RB following Ellie Bravo-Young’s maternity announcement. Something in the roster makeup is still broken, and the mutual termination of Malia Brewer’s contract is concerning given that the 17-year-old seemed ready for NWSL minutes after leaving UCLA early to turn pro with her hometown club. Katie Scott finding minutes at RB isn’t the worst idea, but it still highlights that the youth pathway has hit a skid this season as Armas attempts to bring the whole picture together. The lack of general signings during this transfer window is a worry, but one that can be fixed with a hint of a plan moving forward. Right now, it feels like a club that is trying to plug the holes as they come and not doing a great job at it. 

Anyways, Croix Bethune for MVP and all of that. 

Chicago’s Cosmic Karma 

It’s another week where the NWSL’s foundational club in Chicago is making headlines for all of the wrong reasons after a 6-1 loss to the expansion Denver Summit. 

It is, quite frankly, unacceptable that a club that should be one of the league’s model franchises has been lapped by a club who were just starting to assemble its roster at this time last year. 

2025 was a disaster for the Stars, but they hit a high note under Ella Masar and carried that into a decent finish under their 4th manager of the year, Martin Sjögren’s future assistant manager Anders Jacobson. It was a bad season, but at least it will be worth it when Mal Swanson returns in 2026

…about that.

Here’s a fun stat.

American Soccer Analysis’s database keeps historical NWSL data back to the 2013 season. The Stars own the two worst expected goal differentials of all time for their performances in the 2023 and 2026 seasons. Only to be outdone by officially moving past the 2016 Boston Breakers to own the worst goal differential in league history at -34 through 22 matches. The Breakers are still worse on a per-match basis, but folks, there is still time for the Stars to hit that mark as they try to find a path forward.

What is the future of this team?

Since Laura Riketts bought the franchise from Arnim Whisler, there has been a poorly received rebrand, multiple stadium dilemmas, multiple worst-season-in-NWSL-history contenders, and a clear lack of direction, with Lorne Donaldson returning as the kind of, sort of, soccer czar, “overseeing all technical and analytical aspects” in his return. 

No matter how badly Laura Ricketts’s hands-off approach is to the Stars’ place in the league, she will always be a better owner than the guy who turned a blind eye and enabled years of Rory Dames’s abuse, but this isn’t good either. 

The NWSL is only as strong as its worst club, and the Stars are really pushing the league downward in that respect.

It has to get better; there has to be a minimum expectation here, and it has to be more than “well, we have Mal Swanson!” 

Hopefully the future of the Stars involves some sort of plan, or else this is never going to improve. 

There are some big games this weekend, some big moments for ACFC (I can’t buy for a 3rd time this season, but it has looked good lately), and a potentially strong follow-up for a Bay FC who have been one of the more tactically intriguing clubs despite the 1-0 loss in DC last weekend. 

We’ll talk soon.