With every team now without their USWNT players, the second part of the season officially gets underway this week. No more of this “who’s played three games/who hasn’t played three games” nonsense. Now it’s just the snubbed and the old standbys, rookies and amateur players, along with people who are very good at soccer but come from countries where apparently no one else is that great at soccer.
NWSL Week 5 preview: Chapter two, sans USWNT players
Kansas City visits Western NY, Seattle takes in the sights in Jersey, Boston and Chicago do an MLS/NWSL double-header in the Windy City, and Washington heads to Portland.
Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports
We got a taste of it last week, with Becky Edwards turning in a Player of the Week performance, a bunch of rookie goals and Paul Riley finding a new thing to get upset about. But now the real fun starts, when we will: figure out who all these people are; complain about how someone should be going to the World Cup but isn’t because Jill Ellis is mean; lament or celebrate (depending on your feelings about Seattle) the fact that Team Great Britain was only a thing for the Olympics part of the season. We get to do this for a month. Enjoy it.
Friday, May 8
Western New York Flash vs. FC Kansas City
Sahlen's Stadium, 7 p.m. ET
The Flash finally found a cure for their miserable start to the season last weekend, defeating Boston 3-1 in Rochester. It was Western NY's first win of 2015, but that wasn't the only good news at Sahlen's Stadium; Sydney Leroux finally registered her first goal as a member of the Flash. Of course, Leroux won't be available this weekend -- or for the foreseeable future -- as she and Whitney Engen have joined the USWNT ahead of the World Cup.
With the mass offseason exodus of basically everyone who’d ever scored a goal for the Flash, where Western NY would find offense this season was -- and remains -- a big question. But it turns out Western NY is hardly the only team struggling offensively. The Flash’s total of four goals scored is actually more than one team (poor Sky Blue FC), and is the same amount that FC Kansas City has managed (and the Blues have played one more game).
Two of Kansas City's four goals this season are thanks Amy Rodriguez and Heather O'Reilly, two players among FCKC's World Cup contingent who won't be available due to USWNT duties.
Saturday, May 9
Chicago Red Stars vs. Boston Breakers
Toyota Park, 5 p.m. ET
Certainly no one could have known when they decided to make this game the second half of a MLS/NWSL double-header, that anyone who actually stuck around to check out what this whole “women playing soccer thing” was all about would end up watching the Red Stars take on the league’s worst team, right? I mean, they couldn’t have known. It’s not like the Breakers are historically not very good, or that Chicago not only went 3-0 against Boston last season but also outscored the Breakers 9-2 in those games.
Then again, the Breakers found themselves in a similar spotlight game last year as part of NWSL’s ESPN debut, and gave us the gift of a totally bananas 6-3 loss to Portland. So maybe the scheduling was completely on purpose.
Heading into Saturday, the Red Stars are tied for the top spot and still unbeaten, while the Breakers are again sitting at the bottom of the table.
Chicago and Boston were among the three teams that still had their USWNT players last weekend, but that fun little ride is over now. The Red Stars lose a good chunk of their team, including Lori Chalupny, Shannon Boxx, Julie Johnston and leading scorer Christen Press, while Boston will be without Alyssa Naeher. That should be fun for a team that was hardly the picture of defensive stability to begin with.
Sky Blue FC vs. Seattle Reign FC
Yurcak Field, 7 p.m. ET
So far, the Put All The Goal Scoring Eggs in Nadia Nadim's Basket plan hasn't worked out that well for Sky Blue FC. It actually hasn't worked at all. Nadim has scored just once for a Sky Blue FC side that's tallied only three goals all season, and spent most of its four games so far losing the ball in the midfield and struggling to get anything going that even remotely resembled a cohesive attack. Which is exactly when you'd want when facing a team that features a midfield that includes Kim Little, Jess Fishlock and Keelin Winters, has a player who's scored the same amount of goals as your entire team in Beverly Yanez, and is coming off a 3-1 win last weekend while you haven't won since opening day.
Portland Thorns FC vs. Washington Spirit
Providence Park, 10 p.m. ET
Washington was really excited, granted in kind of a “we don’t mean to dance on your grave” way, that Crystal Dunn didn’t make the World Cup roster. It was a bummer for Dunn, but it also meant the Spirit got to keep a player who could run circles around a good chunk of what was left of the league after the World Cup call-ups left rosters decimated. But as Jill Ellis giveth, Jill Ellis taketh away. While Dunn is officially available this weekend for Washington, she’s also been away training with the USWNT all week, serving as something of a stand-in for the injured Tobin Heath.
Wait, Tobin Heath? Who happens to be a member of the first-place and still unbeaten Portland Thorns? Who happen to be the very team the Spirit is playing this weekend? I see you, Paul Riley. I see you.
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