What The Heart Wants

NWSL Season Preview (Part I)

The Philadelphia Hearts gathered at the Russell House Tavern in Cambridge for Friday night's NWSL Season Preview show on Lifetime. Karina's piece from Philadelphia was supposed to be in the first half of the show, after the Eastern Conference segment. Kristie, Savannah, and Emily were all snapping pictures of their teammates to post on Instagram.

Narrator: Women's professional soccer in the US has been littered with stories of on-field successes that couldn't be sustained due to off-field problems. Prior to now, no league had made it into a fourth season nor had more than nine teams at any one time. 2018 marks Season Six for the NWSL and its first double expansion, bringing the number of teams in the league to twelve. Only three teams have managed to stand atop the podium in its first five seasons. Will a fourth one join them, or will a previous champion be crowned again?

Dalen Cuff: Welcome to Lifetime's preview of the 2018 NWSL season. I'm Dalen Cuff and we're coming to you live from BC Place in Vancouver, the site of the league's first game this year, tomorrow afternoon between the defending NWSL champion Portland Thorns and the expansion Legacy. The match can be seen live on Lifetime beginning with the pre-game show at 3:30pm Eastern. It will also host the final game of 2018, the NWSL Final on October 13th. I am surrounded by a veritable stable of soccer talent. On my far right, Lifetime's lead play-by-play announcer, Jenn Hildreth. Next to her is the ever loud-and-proud former Canadian National Team goalkeeper and Olympic bronze medalist Karina Leblanc. On my left is former US National Team midfielder Aly Wagner. We are joined via satellite by former US National Team midfielder Lori Lindsey and Olympic gold medalist and World Cup champion Kate Markgraf. Ladies, this off-season saw two new teams stock their first rosters as well as a lot of player movement. Between the expansion draft and its aftermath, a three-team deal at the end of November involving five members of the US National Team player pool, the dismissals of US National Team head coach Jill Ellis and USSF President Sunil Gulati, draft day trades involving at least half of the teams in the league, and a host of moves over the past five weeks, fans will definitely need a scorecard to keep up with who's playing for their favorite teams. What was the most surprising move from this off-season for each of you?

Jenn: I would say the go-for-broke trade that Philadelphia pulled off on March 14th, bringing Lindsey Horan and Emily Sonnett to the City of Brotherly Love for four players plus next year's first-round draft pick.

Karina: The player movement dictated by outside forces attempting to intimidate members of the US National Team, starting with the trade Dalen brought up in the introduction which sent Sam Mewis and Abby Dahlkemper to the Red Stars, Danny Colaprico to Sky Blue, and Morgan Brian and Kelley O'Hara to North Carolina. Last week's trade of Jaelene Hinkle to the Spirit for Sam Johnson was the direct result of her being a bit too vocal about her current and former teammates' off-field business and another instance of backlash directed at them for being open about their private lives.

Aly: I'm going to say Brian Ching being fleeced by Wendy Gebauer Palladino on the floor of the Pennsylvania Convention Center during the first round of the NWSL draft. She chose Andi Sullivan with the number one pick and then used the Dash's overt desire to bring her to Houston to extract from them two opening-day defensive starters and their first-round draft pick, which they used to select the most pro-ready player in the draft, Canadian National Team midfielder/defender Becca Quinn.

Kate: The most impactful set of moves to me was the decimation of the Thorns' roster over the course of the past few months, beginning with Nadia Nadim and Amandine Henry moving onto European teams. The loss of Christine Sinclair and Savannah Jordan in the expansion draft and Ashleigh Sykes to retirement were major blows, ones that eventually led to Gavin Wilkinson and Mark Parsons seeking quantity over quality in two trades during the preseason, including the one Jenn mentioned.