New era of
NWSL begins
with 2022
campaign
After a torrid 2021, the US women’s
league must have been tempted to
rebrandasNWSL2.0forthenew
season.
It could have been justified too, with
significant change taking place during
the winter. There are two new teams,
one of them with a ground-breaking
ownership philosophy, expanding the
league into California and taking the
competition to a record12 clubs. Two
sides have moved into new stadia, while
Kansas City Current (previously known
as Kansas City NWSL) have renamed.
Champions Washington Spirit are under
new ownership after a bitter takeover
fight. As for the structure of the league,
every team will play each other twice,
the first balanced schedule since 2014.
For the first time there is a collective
bargaining agreement with the players’
union, establishing significant pay
increases at the lower end. There
is also a new commissioner,Jessica
Berman, hired from lacrosse with
previous experience in NHL ice hockey.
Most significant of all, only one
coach,James Clarkson of Houston
Dash, remains from the ten who
started last season.
NWSL has traditionally been
a safe space for coaches, the lack
of relegation pressure leading to a
low turnover compared to European
leagues. However, it became clear in
2021 NWSL was not a safe space for
players. A sexual misconduct scandal,
which broke around the hugely
successful North Carolina Courage
coach Paul Riley – who denies the
allegations – broadened into wider
revelations of a toxic coaching
culture across the league.
When the dust settled five coaches
had been forced from their jobs along
with commissioner Lisa Baird.
Of the rest, Mark Parsons (Portland
Thorns) and Marc Skinner (Orlando
Pride) left for jobs with the Netherlands
and Manchester United respectively,
Freya Coombe crossed the States
swapping NJ/NY Gotham FC for Los
Angeles-based newcomers Angel City,
and Huw Williams moved to a backroom
role at Kansas after an unsuccessfulyear in the dugout as head coach.
The new coaching cohort includes
five women, a new high for the league
which only had one as recently as 2020.
The cultural cringe towards English
coaches persists, with six of the12,
though most of those have been
coaching in the US for several years.Of the new faces the most interesting
are former England international Casey
Stoney, Canadian Rhian Wilkinson and
Swede Kim Bjorkegren. Stoney was
recruited from Manchester United
to set up the new San Diego Wave
franchise. Wilkinson, formerly Canada’s
Under-20s coach, who had a brief
spell on the England and Team GB
staff, replaces Parsons at Thorns.
Bjorkegren has won titles in Sweden
and Cyprus and worked in China.Stoney, in an interview withThe
Athletic, has already been critical of
the US coaching style, which tends to
be very command-orientated, and the
youth structure which is result-focused
and often expensive for parents.
“I had a meeting with the college
rookies, just to say: ‘Listen, this is your
first professional environment, how are
you feeling?’ And the fear – there’s
fear, there’s genuine fear of making
mistakes and the consequences and
the repercussions. It horrifies me,”
Stoney said.
She added she was told American
players want to be told what to do. She
rejects that, arguing that’s merely what
they are used to; she wants players
who can problem-solve, not look to
the bench at the first sign of difficultly.
If it is this new approach that makes
Wave’s season so fascinating – as wellGlenn MooreWomen’s Football
New arrivals...
fans of new club
Angel City FCIn short, unlike the European leagues, the National
Women’s Soccer League has returned to being wide open
There is plenty of change
in this season’s National
Women’s Soccer League