It is interesting to me that the term “chalk” is still used to describe a bracket playing out with all of the teams favored to win actually winning, since chalk has basically been phased out of schools and now seems to just randomly show up for kids to play with on playgrounds or sidewalks and to ensure that their hands, faces, and clothes will require deep cleaning immediately afterwards, to the great exasperation of their parents. I have two young children, so I am familiar with this exasperation. Very, very, very familiar. I never know where the chalk came from, but I know that it will always end up in my bathtub later that day.

Going chalk may be an anachronistic phrase, but it does accurately describe the results from the first round of the 2024 NWSL playoffs, as the teams seeded one through four are all still alive after their opening games. During the early NWSL years, the final four was always made up of the top four seeds, as only four teams made the playoffs. However, starting in 2021, the league expanded to six teams in the playoffs, and then this year the NWSL expanded again to an eight-team field.

During the years when there were six teams in the playoffs, the top two teams received byes to the semifinals (a.k.a. the final four, written in lower case to avoid the NCAA’s trademark lawyers), and seed No. 3 played No. six and seed No. 4 played No. 5, with the winners advancing to the final four. In 2021, the final four ended up with seeds one, two, three, and four, but in 2022, it was one, two, three, and five. Then, last season, it was one, two, four, and six. This year returned to the way it used to be, with the top four teams all advancing, which is great for soccer fans but not as great for the Pride, since the top four teams during the 2024 NWSL season were all great.

How great were they? Well, allow me to show you every team and every season in NWSL history on the chart below, stack ranked by their average points earned per game for the full season, with the top four teams in 2024 all inside the red circle (I did not include the 2020 season since it was not a standard league season):

It is a little difficult to see, but there are four dots represented inside the red circle, and those four average points earned per game are 2.31, 2.15, 2.15, and 2.12. As a quick reminder, the best possible average would be 3.00. The four seasons inside that circle are not just the top four seasons of 2024 but they are also four of the five best seasons in NWSL history — only surpassed by the 2018 North Carolina Courage’s average of 2.38. One might say that North Carolina raised up that year, if one were familiar with the work of Petey Pablo.

I did not just take my shirt off, twist it around my hand, and spin it like a helicopter, but I thought about it for far longer than was necessary.

So, four of the five best regular-season records in NWSL history all happened this year, but it is not just in points earned per game that these four teams ranked among the best in NWSL history. The next chart shows a scatterplot of points earned per game and goal differential per game, with the the same four 2024 teams included in the red circle. The color coding is a little difficult to see, but the Pride are the purple circle farthest to the right, the Current are the red circle farthest to the left and the Spirit in the black circle are slightly above Gotham in the light blue in the middle.

The teams in the upper right area of a scatterplot like this are winning most of their games and winning them handily. As I know all of you remember from algebra class, a scatterplot shows the coordinates on a Cartesian coordinate system (nerd alert), sometimes referred to as the xy plane, and the 2024 Pride’s point is shown at (2.31,1.00). The 2.31 points earned per game ranks second all-time in NWSL history and the 1.00 goal differential ranks fourth. The problem for the Pride is that not only are the three other teams remaining in the playoffs teams that won a lot of games, they also won a lot of games by a healthy margin as well (goal differentials of 1.00 for the Current (tied for fourth all-time), 0.88 for the Spirit (fifth all-time) and 0.81 for Gotham (sixth all-time)).

While the 2024 regular season may not have been competitive from top to bottom, the top four teams were bunched together at the top, and those teams all had seasons that rank among the best in league history. For some context, all four teams averaged at least 2.12 points earned per game, which has now been done five times across 86 total team-seasons in NWSL history, meaning that prior to this season it had been done once in 72 team seasons. Over on the Major League Soccer side, only four teams have ever earned at least 2.12 points per game in a season, and that is across 503 team-seasons. Teams are rarely this successful in soccer, let alone four teams being this successful in the same season, as happened in the NWSL this season.

To win the title, the Pride do not have to defeat all three teams. They only need to defeat two of them, starting with the Kansas City Current. They defeated the Current in Kansas City and drew with them in Orlando. And in an odd series of events, Orlando will need to defeat Kansas City in Orlando to get to go back to Kansas City to defeat another team besides Kansas City if Orlando wants to win the NWSL Championship.

No matter who wins the final, they will have had to survive the best final four in league history, and when the final whistle blows on Nov. 23, I hope it will be the Pride who emerge victorious and have their name engraved on the NWSL Championship Trophy.

It will look so much better in gold and silver than it would have in chalk.

The Orlando Pride continue their quest for a second trophy in 2024 against the Kansas City Current Sunday at 3 p.m. in the friendly confines of Inter&Co Stadium. The Pride are coming off a dominating 4-1 victory over the Chicago Red Stars, but their next opponent will be much tougher to beat.

What do the Pride need to do to defeat Kansas City and move on to the NWSL Championship?

Step on the Golden Boot

The Current scored a league-high 57 goals during the regular season. What you might not realize is that 37 of those goals came in the first half of the season. The Current only scored 20 in the second half of the season. That’s not to say they aren’t still a formidable offensive team.

Temwa Chawinga won the Golden Boot by scoring 21 of those for her club, including one against the Pride back in July in Kansas City. Obviously, she is one of the most dangerous attackers in the league. That being said, the Pride’s defense kept her to one goal at Kansas City, and shut her — and her teammates — out in the 0-0 draw at home in September.

The Pride tied with NJ/NY Gotham FC for the best defense in the league, allowing only 20 goals all season. Orlando will need to bring its best defense if the Pride are to once again shut down Chawinga. The back line needs to stay alert and limit mistakes. That goes for goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse as well.

Board the Banda Train

It had been a long time since Barbra Banda scored a goal with her feet. She finally broke out for a brace against the Chicago Red Stars on Friday, and honestly, she could have doubled that. I’ve been saying for a long time that she just needed that first goal (with her foot) to open the scoring floodgates. Orlando needs Banda to keep that up against the Current.

Kansas City has scored a ton of goals this year, but the Current also allowed 31 goals — the most allowed by the remaining teams in the playoffs, although the club has made huge strides in that area over the last couple of months. If the Pride attack can generate even half of the opportunities garnered in the match against Chicago, it could be a good day for the home side. I expect Seb Hines to to keep the 4-4-2 formation he’s employed recently, with Ally Watt getting the start next to Banda. Watt’s mere presence will free up space for Banda to work her magic.

Pack the Fortress

The Pride were 10-0-3 in the regular season at Inter&Co Stadium. It really doesn’t get much better than that. Attendance at Pride matches has averaged 8,340 this season with a Pride stadium record attendance of 17,087 against the Houston Dash. There is no reason that number can’t be beaten this Sunday in an NWSL semifinal match.

We recently interviewed Watt on SkoPurp Soccer: An Orlando Pride PawedCast. She told us how important the fans have been this season. She also mentioned that the bigger, louder crowds make it more difficult to talk to her teammates, but she said she’s happy to have that be the case. It stands to reason that over 17,000 fans would make it difficult for the Current to talk to each other as well. I will be there lending my voice, and I hope you will do the same.

That is what I will be looking for Sunday, though this time from the stands. I hope to see plenty of you there. Please feel free to say hello. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Vamos Orlando!

Friday night the Orlando Pride defeated the Chicago Red Stars 4-1 to advance to the semifinals of the NWSL playoffs. The scoreline only partially reflected the comprehensiveness of the victory, as the Pride led 3-0 at half, were denied by the woodwork twice, and only conceded on a goalkeeper error after the match was out of reach. The Pride did everything right in this match and reminded the league why they won the NWSL Shield, despite looking vulnerable to close the regular season.

In the end, the formula was simple, though easier said than done; Orlando’s best players showed why they’re NWSL awards finalists, the whole roster pitched in with goal contributions and solid play, and the fans made Inter&Co Stadium an intimidating environment all night. For the Orlando Pride to beat the Kansas City Current this weekend and reach the championship game, they will want to repeat this blueprint.

Often one of the most important parts of a team’s deep playoff run is relying on its best players, and the Pride showed their star power against the Red Stars in attack and defense. In this match, Barbra Banda scored her 14th and 15th goals of the season, and Marta scored her 10th of the season on a penalty before narrowly missing out on her second of the game by hitting the crossbar on a direct free kick. For their impressive individual seasons, both players in this duo were named finalists for NWSL MVP.

Banda’s goals came in typical fashion, outrunning the defense and beating goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher on two occasions. These weren’t her only chances of the match, however, and Banda might have had a hat trick against most goalkeepers that don’t start for the U.S. Women’s National Team. After a relatively dry spell to end the regular season, “Getting Barbara [Banda] going is massive for us,” said midfielder Haley McCutcheon, who was a goal scorer in this match herself. 

In the Red Stars match, Orlando’s entire back line defended superbly. Emily Sams and Kylie Strom, both NWSL Defender of the Year nominees, were lively and proactive in defense, keeping play in front of them, intercepting long balls, and breaking up plays before they could get started. In the midfield, Orlando possessed the ball comfortably and avoided unforced errors and dangerous turnovers. The result was that the Red Stars did not attempt a shot until the score was already 4-0 and out of reach. Chicago went on to pick up a lone goal by pressuring Anna Moorhouse on a back pass, leading to her error while taking an extra touch she didn’t have time to take. Moorhouse has largely cut these mistakes from her game and earned a nomination for NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year this week due to her shot-stopping prowess.

The Red Stars did not produce any other moments of danger the rest of the game, and a 4-1 scoreline did not flatter the Pride, who could have won by four or five goals. 

Against Chicago, it wasn’t just the award-nominated players who made a difference, and the Pride continued a two-game trend of getting goal contributions from unexpected places. In this match, McCutcheon started the scoring with her first goal in more than a year and a half. The goal was created off a dangerous ball into the box from Summer Yates and a blocked Angelina shot, before Ally Watt sent a misdirected shot towards McCutcheon. The prior week against Seattle, it was Kerry Abello who scored her first of the year after chaos in the box — once again with a critical touch coming from Watt. This mini trend of defender goal contributions has also included assists from Sams. In back-to-back matches she has played progressive passes through the lines, assisting Marta against Seattle and then Banda against Chicago. In total, four contributions from defenders in two matches has been a big part of the scoring output, and it makes the team much harder to defend against. 

While it’s not quite unexpected for an attacker to be among the goals, Watt has stepped up in a big way the last two matches. She has been a big part of the Pride’s offensive output, and one goal and two assists in two matches justifies her recent inclusion in the starting lineup. Watt’s goal against Seattle showed exactly what she is on the pitch to do. She made a fast, well-timed run behind the defense, received an excellent ball from Summer Yates, and scored clinically. Against Chicago, Watt turned provider twice, with her contribution to the McCutcheon goal and a well-played through ball to Banda for her second of the match. 

Watt’s play is also a positive development for the playoff semifinals. The last time the Kansas City Current visited Orlando, the teams played to a 0-0 draw. Temwa Chawinga, who has scored 21 goals on the season, may be in her best form all year. She has now scored in seven consecutive matches — each game since the draw with Orlando — and it seems that the Pride may have to score multiple goals to win. After the Current revamped their defense midseason, their talented fullbacks shut down Orlando’s wide attack, including Yates and Adriana. Watt could provide a different look than last time out, serving as the x-factor needed to unlock goal-scoring chances for the Pride.

Fan support was a final piece to the puzzle Friday against the Chicago Red Stars. After averaging 8,340 fans in attendance in the regular season, 11,496 fans attended the playoff match. The weather was beautiful for the match and it was obvious fans were energized for an elimination game. Seb Hines, who was nominated for NWSL Coach of the Year, said he was appreciative of the support and the atmosphere as well.

“It was great to see so many fans come out and support the players. You could really hear them,” he said after the match. “It’s probably the loudest it’s been since we’ve been in this stadium, and we’re going to need them to come back next week in the semifinal.”

While this attendance was among the highest attendance numbers in Inter&Co Stadium to watch the Pride, it was fewer than the 17,089 fans that watched Orlando defeat the Houston Dash earlier this season. Attendance for the Pride may have been lowered by the fact that Orlando City played a playoff match in the same stadium just one day later and a busy schedule of large events downtown, but that will not be the case this weekend for the match against the Current.

A competitive semifinal match at 3 p.m. on a Sunday seems like the perfect opportunity to try to set a new attendance record for the club. Regardless of the final numbers of fans in the stands, everyone is sure to be excited and loud in an effort to push their favorite team to new heights.