2023 NWSL Season Previews: Portland Thorns, Racing Louisville, Angel City FC
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2022 NWSL Season Previews: Chicago Red Stars, Portland Thorns FC, Washington Spirit
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The 2022 NWSL season is nearly upon us! We’ll be publishing three team previews every weekday until the NWSL regular season opens on Friday, April 29, 2022. Previews will be released in reverse order of how each team finished in the 2022 Challenge Cup’s group stage. You can find all of them here!
Read MoreBeckie with the Good Stats
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Janine Beckie Transfers to Portlanada
At the theoretical height of her powers, Janine Beckie, former 8th-overall pick in the NWSL draft, is back Stateside with a point to prove. With her contract with Manchester City ending at the end of this year, Beckie made the move to join the very Maple Leaf-centric Portland Thorns, a move no doubt aided by the obvious Canadian throughlines of Rhian Wilkinson, Karina LeBlanc, and her strike partner-in-crime Christine Sinclair. I’ll save the Thorns tactical breakdown for our preseason previews post Challenge Cup (keep your eyes peeled), but who exactly are the Thorns getting?
Read MoreHow Sophia Smith Turns Good Passes Into Great Ones
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Ask any data analyst about the utility of statistics and you’ll get any number of answers, from the ability to measure shot quality to the potential to build all-in-one impact measurements, such as American Soccer Analysis’ goals added, or g+ for short.
However, the most fundamental utility of data is not found in the answers it provides, but in how it empowers us to ask questions.
For example, while pouring through ASA’s numbers on Sophia Smith in anticipation of a piece on her and the Portland Thorns, I noticed something curious. Despite dominating the NWSL in xG, she came off looking far more mediocre in Receiving g+, ranking only 26th among her peers (xG and g+ data accurate as of October 30th).
Read MoreThe Most Interesting Teams in the NWSL Challenge Cup So Far
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The preliminary rounds of the Challenge Cup are wrapped up. The seeds are set.
While the first few games saw teams experiment with styles of play and roster rotation (at least for some teams), teams now have to put the pieces together as the knockout rounds begin. We looked at the performances of a couple teams to see where they’re succeeding, and more importantly, what they need to improve upon to be successful in their knockout matches. Here's a look at four of the teams we found most interesting thus far.
Read MoreNWSL Mini-Previews: OL Reign, Portland Thorns, and Utah Royals FC
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In the time since the first round of mini-previews, the 2020 NWSL season has taken the form of a short tournament called The Challenge Cup, which is to be played from the end of June until the end of July. Many questions remain about how the competition will shape up, including which players will ultimately choose to participate. In this edition of mini-previews, we travel out west to preview OL Reign, Portland Thorns, and Utah Royals FC. From name changes to significant roster overhauls to new coaching staff, each of these teams has something new in store for the upcoming season.
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