Reading (Into) the Minutes: How The Pride Might Allocate Playing Time This Season

On Tuesday, the Pride held their first practice of the preseason, and even though it is not November, I am giving thanks that they are finally back on the field. There are only so many stories out there during the off-season, when news comes in drips and drabs. It was great to see players back in their Pride practice uniforms and smiling together on the field, and with every passing day, the Pride’s roster will get closer and closer to being set for the 2026 season, and we will know which players will compete to replace the minutes of those who departed the club during the off-season.

At almost this exact time last year I wrote an article about how the 2025 Pride were bringing back nearly every player from their 2024 team, and while just two weeks later the Pride said “oh really, Andrew?” and transferred Adriana to Al Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia, a robust 87% of the minutes played by Pride players during the 2025 NWSL regular season were played by players from that 2024 team. That percentage would likely have been even higher if not for the injury to Barbra Banda, but 87% is still the second-highest percentage of minutes played in the subsequent season by returning players from the league champion in NWSL history, as you can see from the table below:

The 2025 Pride had a lot of continuity from that 2024 team, and while we will never know what would have happened if Banda had stayed healthy (my completely unbiased prediction: back-to-back champs, wins in every playoff game by at least 10 goals), we know that when she played, the team had a +10 goal differential in 16 (but really 15) games, and the team was +1.04 goals per 90 minutes better with her on the field than off the field. That stat is courtesy of fbref.com, a phrase I sadly may not be able to say again this season, as fbref’s data provider cut off its data access this week, and sadly one of the world’s best free databases for men’s and women’s soccer statistics is now gone. I am feeling more verklempt than Mike Myers in an SNL sketch. Let’s move on.

There is only a weak negative correlation between the percentage of minutes played by returning players in the subsequent season and a champion’s finish in the subsequent regular season. So, while a negative correlation means as the percentage of minutes played by returning players increases, a team’s regular-season finish decreases (decreasing being good, because the number is getting closer to one, which is first place), the correlation is weak. In plain language, that means just because a lot of players return, it does not imply the team will challenge for the regular-season title.

The correlation is also weak and negative for the relationship between returning player minutes and a team’s finish in the subsequent playoffs, and the numbers back up what most of us inherently think anyway, which is that while it is good to have continuity and bring back championship-winning players, it does not guarantee anything.

This leads me to the roster, as we know it, for the Pride. I wrote a piece in our most recent newsletter, which you can subscribe to by clicking here, about the positional breakdown of the players currently on the Pride’s roster. But if we step back and look at the macro view for the Pride, the following players, who played at least one minute during NWSL play in 2025, are no longer with the club: Emily Sams, Ally Watt, Carson Pickett, Morgan Gautrat, Prisca Chilufya, Simone Charley, Grace Chanda, and Bri Martinez. Those players combined to play almost exactly 25% of the NWSL regular-season minutes last season, and some quick math tells us that means the Pride currently have 75% of their minutes played in 2025 returning for 2026, as it stands today.

Kylie Nadaner’s return date is still to be determined, so that is another 6% currently unavailable (dropping the total down to 69% returning) but will probably be back during the season. The upshot of all this is the team returns approximately two-thirds of its minutes from last year from a team that, when healthy, was among the best in the league.

It is not ideal that the minutes that have to be replaced include one of the league’s best center backs in Sams, who played the full 90 minutes in every game except one, but at the same time, it is ideal that Banda is likely to play 500+ more minutes and Jacquie Ovalle will probably play 1,000+ more minutes than they did in 2025. If those two hit those benchmarks they will replace all or nearly all of the minutes played by the now-departed Watt and Charley, and while they were solid contributors, minutes played by Banda and Ovalle will be considered an upgrade.

Pickett’s departure will likely be covered by a combination of the new defenders who have signed with the Pride in recent weeks, some Kerry Abello minutes in the midfield instead of at left back, and increases in minutes for Julie Doyle, Simone Jackson, or Summer Yates, who hopefully will be fully healthy this year and return to her 2024 form. Thus far, the Pride have signed two attacking players — rookies Solai Washington and let’s-hope-she-doesn’t-wear-number-six Seven Castain — but both players primarily played forward in college, so we do not yet know if they have the ability to play out on the wing.

If they do, those two could also be in the mix to replace Pickett’s midfield minutes as well as the minutes played by Chanda, Chilufya, and some minutes at their natural position of forward. That leaves the one minute played by Martinez, which will be absorbed by the Pride’s deep list of right backs (Cori Dyke, Hailie Mace, Oihane, Nicole Payne). The midfield minutes played by Gautrat can be filled by Ally Lemos, Luana, and Viviana Villacorta, though most likely by the first two.

You surely noticed that I skipped over replacing the minutes from Sams and Nadaner (while she is out). While there are players on the roster who can do that, there is also the ever-present risk of a Rafaelle injury, as she has not been the most durable player while in Orlando. Zara Chavoshi and the recently acquired Hannah Anderson are both center backs, though last season Anderson was the third center back for a bottom-of-the-standings Chicago team and Chavoshi was the fourth center back in Orlando. Both players are young and have the potential to improve, and in Chavoshi’s case she was behind three really good center backs last season, so being fourth on the depth chart is not an indication of her talent.

Some of the Pride’s other outside back players like Abello, Dyke, Mace and potentially others could also play some center back, but it still feels like that position is unsettled at the moment and there is not enough depth, especially with Rafaelle’s injury history and an even longer schedule this year due to the two new expansion teams joining the league.

Speculation season will come to an end soon, but new Vice President of Soccer Operations and General Manager Caitlin Carducci still has weeks left to make additional signings or trades and firm up the roster (hopefully she ensures Own Goal stays for another year). As the preseason opens, it seems like the Pride have backfill options already on the roster to adequately cover every departed player except for Sams, but that $650,000 they received for her is some dry powder that Carducci surely will make use of at some point to acquire additional new talent. Perhaps Anderson, Chavoshi, or another defender will show so much in preseason that those funds can be deployed elsewhere, or maybe Carducci will go center back shopping, but either way, there will be a new center back pairing when the season opens.

The countdown is on until the season opener on March 15 at home against Seattle, and while right now most fans are focused on how many days are left until that game, you can be assured that in the front office and among the coaching staff they are having just as many conversations about how to allocate the game minutes as they are how to allocate those practice days.

Both conversations matter, but none more than how game minutes will be allocated. Pride leadership will make minute examinations of minute details, parsing minute distinctions to determine who ultimately earns major minutes.

Vamos Pride!