Orlando Pride
Pride Ready to Make a Run for the 2025 Title with a Core from 2024
Comparing and analyzing the percentage of returning minutes and goals for the Pride to those of previous NWSL playoff champions.
During my son’s soccer practice earlier this week I was walking around the park and came upon a basketball court where there was a game going on. One team made a basket to win the game, and a player from the losing team immediately yelled out a phrase that is familiar to anyone who has ever played pickup. “Run that back,” the player said, indicating that they wanted to play another game right away with the same players. The winning team acquiesced, and off they went. Off I went as well, as I did not want to make it awkward by standing there continuing to watch 10 people I did not even know playing pickup hoops in Winter Park.
It was probably already awkward. Oh well.
It was fitting, however, that those players were talking about running it back while I was around a soccer practice, because just a few miles away — in Sylvan Lake Park — the Orlando Pride are preparing for their 2025 NWSL season. And now that Marta has re-signed with the club for two more seasons, the Pride are bringing back nearly every player from the 2024 season. It is not everyone, but the Pride are bringing back a cool 98% of all the minutes played during the 2024 NWSL regular season.
Only four players who played any minutes during that season have departed — Carrie Lawrence (288 minutes), Evelina Duljan (174), Celia (74), and Mariana Larroquette (52), though she is only on loan and is scheduled to be back in the summer, taking their combined five starts and 593 minutes with them — but that leaves more than 25,000 of the 2024 minutes played returning to the Pride for 2025.
Throughout the 2024 season we received indications that the front office really liked the makeup of the group already on hand, as during the year they signed McKinley Crone, Julie Doyle, Cori Dyke, Morgan Gautrat, Brianna Martinez, Viviana Villacorta, Ally Watt, and Summer Yates to new contracts. Most of these were completed in the early to middle part of the season, so even before the team had clinched the regular-reason title and entered the playoffs it was clear that the club felt like it had a good mix of players for the present and the future.
All of these players already being under contract through at least 2025 have made for a very quiet off-season for the Pride so far, and then when Marta made her announcement last week, it cemented the incredibly high percentage of returning minutes. “How high,” you ask in your best Redman or Method Man voice? I already mentioned it was 98%, but of all the NWSL teams who have ever won a championship, that 98% ranks first for returning minutes and represents one of only two seasons when the champion brought back more than 90% of the team’s minutes played from its championship season.
Because the Pride brought back nearly all of their minutes played, it should not be a surprise that they also brought back nearly all of the goals they scored. Except they did not bring back nearly all of the goals they scored, they brought back all 43 of the goals (excluding own goals) they scored during the 2024 season. All of them! The Pride are the first playoff champion in NWSL history to return 100% of the goals scored during their championship season, as you can see from this chart below, which details each playoff champion and the percentage of minutes and goals that returned for the subsequent season. It also shows what place the team finished during the subsequent regular season and playoffs:
The 2018 Courage are clearly the closest proxy to the 2024 Pride, and I like what I see when I look off to the right in that chart, because that team brought back almost all of its minutes and goals and then went ahead and finished first during the subsequent regular season and won it all during the playoffs. I am not saying that the Pride will do the same in 2025, but I am not not saying it either. Give me a few weeks to get my preseason predictions in order and I may actually say it loudly and (being that they are the Pride) proudly.
There are counterexamples as well, as the 2016 Western New York Flash (who became the North Carolina Courage in 2017), 2021 Washington Spirit, and 2022 Portland Thorns all brought back more than 80% of their minutes and 90% of their goals and did not win the playoffs, but both teams were highly successful during the subsequent regular season and won playoff games, though they did not repeat as champions.
One of the more interesting things about the 2025 Pride will be that they will have tremendous continuity with all of their returning minutes and goals, but they will also have continuity with four players who were with the club in 2024 but did not play or barely played due to injury/illness. Neither Simone Charley nor Grace Chanda suited up for the Pride at all last season, but both are experienced players who had been expected to contribute to the team before their injuries. Luana and Viviana Villacorta both did play a little bit — Luana in the beginning of the season and Villacorta at the end. Luana had been starting before her diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma ended her 2024 season, and Villacorta played more than 1,000 minutes during each of the 2022 and 2023 seasons before an injury kept her out for most of 2024.
All four of these players are currently listed on the 2025 roster, and as they return to full fitness it will almost be like four brand new signings of players who are clearly NWSL quality players, providing not only depth but also pushing the starters to stay sharp, lest they lose their role to someone challenging for their minutes. Brand new signings often take time to settle in, but these four will be familiar with the club, the coaches, and their teammates, which a huge advantage for the Pride.
Former NBA coach and current front office executive Pat Riley coined the phrase “the disease of more” to reflect what often happens to championship teams during the year after they win their title, as players want more for themselves, be it credit, media coverage, playing time, money, status, etc. Riley said that “success is often the first step toward disaster,” and while I quibble with the word “often” in that quote, I do think it can be true in sports. The Pride will get everyone’s best shot (figuratively, and sometimes literally) in 2025, and to repeat as champions they will have to do a lot of what they did in 2024 while also evolving some as well.
Bringing back nearly all of the same players helps with the repeating of last season’s excellent form, and “adding” those injured players who did not play last season, plus rookie defender Zara Chavoshi and free agent goalkeeper Kat Asman, will bring some new vibes and claws-sharpening-claws energy to the 2025 squad.
The Pride’s season kicks off in early March, and while the roster could still change in the next seven weeks, I think that it is likely that who they have right now is who will be wearing purple in the opening match.
I am looking forward to seeing them run it back while going on a title run.