NWSL execs never consulted Emma Hayes, Longs put their weight behind Armas, and more.

Emma Hayes added some color to the High Impact Player discussion that has dominated the conversation around the NWSL this offseason. As a refresher, the Spirit offered Trinity Rodman a multi-year deal that the league vetoed, claiming it violated the spirit of the rules. The NWSLPA filed a grievance on Rodman’s behalf, claiming that the league infringed on her Free Agency rights.

That grievance is still pending. In the meantime, the league attempted to institute a High Impact Player mechanism that would allow clubs to spend up to $1 million outside the cap on one player as long as that player qualified based on an arbitrary list that included, among other things, being featured in the top 40 of ESPNFC’s annual 50 players list – a list that polls figures across global football including multiple current NWSL Front Office execs – or finishing any of the past two seasons in the top 11 of USWNT minutes for an outfield player.

Emma Hayes was asked about that specific wrinkle during Thursday’s USWNT press conference following the January roster reveal. A roster that featured an unattached Trinity Rodman, and excluded a potentially Manchester City bound Sam Coffey. 

“First of all no, I didn't know about it.” Hayes stated. “I know that the NWSLPA and the league are trying to work through that criteria. I'd say it's between them to try and do that. But when it comes to whether that influences playing time or should affect that, nothing will change with me and the way that I'm doing things, regardless of any ruling that's put in place. To be honest with you, it's probably going to be a little bit longer until they resolve what that criteria is. Whether it ends up being that or something else, you'd have to ask them. But from my perspective, nothing changes with regards to how I will operate.”

Rightfully so, Hayes won’t change her approach to callups based on potential HIP criteria, but the league deciding to include her in the criteria without including her in the conversation is another sign that the league has not explored the repercussions of this mechanism as deeply as they should have ahead of announcing it to the public. 

The league is in crisis, and the collective ownership has failed to recognize the danger.

The HIP mechanism won’t save its status as the best league in the world despite the assurances of commissioner Berman. Since the end of 2024, the league has lost former MVP Kerolin to Manchester City, 2x NWSL Defender of the Year Naomi Girma to Chelsea, Alyssa Thompson to Chelsea, Sam Coffey to Manchester City pending finalization, and potentially Trinity Rodman to any of the three WSL clubs pursuing her if they continue to bungle her contract situation. 

The WSL is picking off top NWSL players every season, and while the global talent pool is rich enough to clot the bleeding by adding players like Barbra Banda, Temwa Chawinga, and Rose Kouassi, and the NCAA pool is deep enough that there will always be a crop of young stars entering the league… but, can the NWSL continue to call itself the best league in the world if it is powerless the moment a WSL club comes calling for one of its stars? 

Absolutely not, and until the salary cap is either substantially raised or completely abolished, NWSL clubs will have to accept that any ambitious WSL club can come grab its star player at any moment. Owners have to wake up or else risk falling further behind. 

NWSLPA vs the League Office.

Meanwhile, this battle continues to brew between the league and the NWSLPA. The 2025 season eroded much of the goodwill that existed between the league office and the Players’ Association following the recent CBA ratification. The PA took offense after league officials weren’t on call to end the match following Savy King’s medical intervention in Los Angeles. Then, the league quietly changed the wording surrounding heat advisory weather delays before berating owners in Kansas City attempting to meet a 3 PM National TV window. 

Meghann Burke has been ready to take the league to task for its mistakes, but recently, the fight renewed following Berman’s veto of the agreed contract between Trinity Rodman and the Washington Spirit. 

The PA’s stance on the HIP mechanism should be common sense. 

If the owners are willing to spend upwards of $1 million over the cap already, why introduce a convoluted mechanism instead of simply escalating the cap further ahead of the next CBA?

“The general consensus [of the PA board] is that [the HIP rule] is not a wise decision. We're not supportive of the High Impact Player Rule for a number of reasons.” NWSLPA Executive Director Meghann Burke told The Athletic’s Full Time podcast. 

“We have, I think, articulated some of those, but chief among them is that we don't think it achieves the league's intended purpose. [...] We think the criteria are deeply flawed. It takes the discrecion out of the hands of teams and general managers whos job is to construct rosters and make decisions about assessing fair market value. It inserts the league into a place they don't belong, especailly in a free agency world by stipulating certain criteria that some players must meet in order to access this additional pool of funds that has no relationship to roster builiding by the way, this is all about compensation and commercial interest. 

We fundamentally disagree with that premise, which is why its hard for us to even propose criteria that would work, because we think the framework itself is flawed.”

This battle won’t end before the season starts. Rodman’s contract is still in the air, and while the HIP mechanism has been scheduled, the PA’s opposition could put a quick stop to its implementation. 

The players sense the urgency. It’s a global market, and NWSL’s less ambitious owners will pull the league down like an albatross around its neck. 

Players are fed up. 

Long time supporters feel like their voices aren’t being heard. 

All while Jessica Berman is flying to Dubai to participate in the World Sports Summit, personally overseen by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. A move that has further alienated the league’s LGBTQ supporters. 

It reads as a commissioner completely out of touch – maybe willingly out of touch? – with the league she is governing. Berman is a mouthpiece for the owners, but her own initiatives continue to land like lead balloons. 

It’s a league that continues to succeed despite itself.

Did the Current take the right risk in hiring Chris Armas?

For my money, the Kansas City Current hiring Chris Armas to take over following Vlatko Andonovski’s move up the ladder was the biggest “what are they doing?” of the offseason. 

Armas did not paint himself in glory through three separate MLS tenures but there is a reason why he continues to be on the top of so many managerial searches. Jesse Marsch personally advocated for him to the Long’s as they initiated the managerial search and that input appears to have vaulted Armas over other candidates for, what should be, one of women’s soccer most prestigious jobs. 

Chris Armas’s first stint in New Jersey started well enough. It was there that he inherited the NYRB job after his mentor Jesse Marsch left midseason to move up the Red Bull ladder. Armas inherited a team in great position and continued on to win the Supporters’ Shield before eventually losing to Atlanta in the Eastern Conference Finals that season. 

However, he failed to replicate that initial success, finishing 6th in the East in 2019 and failing to finish the 2020 season when it looked apparent that RBNY would lose their MLS Playoff streak. 

Following his stint in Harrison, Toronto FC decided to hand him the tough task of refreshing TFC following a golden era under Greg Vanney. A job that has some parallels to his role in KC… but It did not go well.

Armas only lasted until July and was fired following a 7-0 loss to DC United, an embarrassment for a club that saw itself amongst the most ambitious in MLS at the time. 

That catastrophic tenure did not affect his CV too much, he quickly landed on the coaching staff of Ralf Rangnik’s Manchester United staff thanks to his Red Bull connections. He continued to impress as an assistant, earning a spot on the Leeds United staff under Marsch, and was even named co-interim manager following Marsch’s firing in January of 2023. Successfully rehabbing his image, Armas was brought in to replace Robin Frasier in Colorado, before mutually agreeing to part ways this past offseason following an 11th place finish in the Western Conference. 

There are some promising moments in Armas’s coaching resume, the Shield in 2018 and producing a top performance with a Colorado Rapids squad that had no business producing the second-highest expected goals tally in the league in 2024.

However, there are far too many failures to feel optimistic about his move to the women’s game. The quality of coaching in the NWSL is improving dramatically year over year, and Armas’s hiring comes following years of managers failing to adjust to the women’s game after long tenures in men’s soccer. 

Furthermore, if Current fans were hoping for a robust managerial search headed by the NWSL pioneer that just stepped into the Sporting Director role… well, they’re going to be disappointed.

Instead of leaning on Vlatko Andonovski to run what should be one of the most competitive managerial searches in global woso, Chris and Angie Long bragged about their relationship with CanMNT manager Jesse Marsch and his recommendations for the role. Among other names, Marsch went to bat for Armas, influencing the Long’s decision. 

“We started off, one of the first conversations was, 'Chris Armas is your guy,' and he never left the top of the list.” Chris Long said. “It was crystal clear early on, but I feel like it became a no-brainer for us to make that decision."

The Longs don’t have a great track record of hiring managers outside of the first season of Matt Potter and offering Vlatko Andonovski a landing spot post-USWNT tenure. The decision to hire Huw Williams as the club’s inaugural manager was a disaster that ended in claims of retaliatory behavior following a players only meeting with the Longs in August addressing Williams’s “unprofessional and demeaning” communication style. Club officials repeatedly backed Williams until the release of the NWSL/NWSLPA joint report forced their hand, according to the report:

“Before the next season, certain players who had participated in the meeting or raised concerns about Williams were traded, waived, or not re-signed. Multiple players reported that there was an overlap between these players and those who had been vocal at the meeting. One player recalled that six players spoke during the meeting; only one returned for the next season.” 

The Longs appear to have learned some lessons from that initial process, players have talked positively about the current environment following the addition of Andonovski, but it’s worth wondering if they should be the ones heading this search. 

Now, Armas has some – albeit at the D2 NCAA level – experience in women’s soccer, and the Longs are betting on his ability to continue evolving the Current’s attacking philosophy. Armas wants his teams to attack and defend in a similar way to the Current’s most recent MO under Andonovski. He simply has to execute the gameplan with some of the best players that women’s soccer has to offer.

The question then becomes, can he execute the vision?

It’s possible that the Current are too talented to fail, it’s still a very good roster featuring the human cheat code that is Temwa Chawinga, but in an NWSL where anyone can beat the top seed on any given matchday, this feels like far too much of a gamble for a club that should have been able to call their shots in a global coaching search. 

How did a manager who has never finished a tenure averaging over 1.5 points per match become the most qualified to manage a top 10 woso club in the world? By getting along with the owners? That’s not the hiring process of a World Class club.

It’s an unnecessary gamble on a manager that has completely failed to build on a few single season successes in the past.

The Current will be fine but it’s hard to imagine they’ll reach their full potential under Armas, and there are bigger questions as to why the Longs meddled so much in the process.

Thanks for reading, if you like what I do then consider subscribing if you haven't already. I'll touch on some of my favorite signings this offseason along with a breakdown of both Denver and Boston rosters in the next edition of Talkin' NWSL. It'll be a little more positive, I swear.