This week, we wrap-up the 2018 NWSL regular season. Three of the four semifinalists also made the playoffs in 2017—North Carolina, 2017 Champions Portland and the Chicago Red Stars—with second place Seattle returning after a two year absence. Orlando Pride was a semifinalist last season but had a disastrous end of the season and finished in seventh place, seven points adrift of fourth place Chicago.
We also look at the NWSL attendances so far this season, with the league average increasing by 16% over last season, to 6,024 in 2018 from 5,083 last season. Utah averaged 9,466 in their first season for the second highest total in the league—replacing FC Kansas City's league low 1,788—plus Boston Breakers 2,896 (third from the bottom in 2017) folding before the season was a huge assist for increasing the league average.
2018 NWSL Season to Date
North Carolina Courage (17-6-1--57 points—First)
North Carolina was the dominate team in NWSL all season and was led by forwards Lynn Williams (14 goals and 5 assists)—the second highest goal total behind Chicago's Sam Kerr (16 goals)—while they also set a league team goalscoring record of 53 goals. Williams was tied for the league lead in goals in 2016 with Keleiah Ohai (11 goals), with Williams winning the Golden Boot award with more assists (as well as the Most Valuable Player Award that season). North Carolina also set league records for wins (17), points total (57) and team goals (53) and they attracted 9,505 fans to see their 5-0 shutout of Houston in the last regular season game on September 8 (that was the second game of a doubleheader with their second division USL Men's side partner North Carolina) and pushed their season average to 5,129, third best in the league. U.S. international Crystal Dunn (8 goals and 5 assists) and Jess McDonald (7 goals and 8 assists—who led the league in assists this season), also were potent attackers, with support in midfield by Brazilian Debinha (8 goals and 2 assists)—who played at Foz Catarates in the western Brazilian city of Foz de Iguassu, which borders Argentina and Paraguay, as well as with Avaldsnes in Norway and Dalian Quanjian in China—and McCall Zerboni (3 goals and 1 assist) with the 31-year-old veteran first being capped last year by the Americans. The Courage lost only one game all season, to Utah at home.
In defense, former Seattle Reign/FC Kansas City stallworth Merritt Mathias's play (3 goals and 2 assists) earned her a call up to the U.S. national team while New Zealand international captain Abby Erceg had 2 goals and 2 assists. Japanese international midfielder Yuri Kawamura only played in 2 games this season after another ACL tear while away on international duty; she had an ACL tear in 2017 which limited her to 8 games. It will be interesting to see if she returns in 2019. Irish international Denise O'Sullivan found a home in Cary after her midseason trade in 2017 from Houston; she finished with 3 assists from an attacking midfield position. The Courage allowed 17 goals, the lowest total in the league.
Goalkeeper Katelyn Rowland was tied for second in the league in shutouts for 7 with Chicago's Alyssa Naeher. Rowland played three-quarters of the games with backup from Canadian international Sabrina D'Angelo, who started 6 games.
In addition to their second consecutive NWSL Shield for a regular season champion, they won the ICC tournament in July with wins over France's PSG and Lyon, while a number of their starters were away on international duty.
Portland Thorns (12-6-6--42 points—Second)
U.S. international Lindsey Horan had a phenomenal season in leading the 2017 champion Thorns to second in the table with 13 goals and 2 assists; she finished third in the league in goalscoring behind Chicago's Sam Kerr and North Carolina's Lynn Williams and she will receive strong consideration for league Player of the Year. Canadian international forward Christine Sinclair added 9 goals and 6 assists, Swiss international forward Ana Crnogorcevic chipped in 5 goals and 3 assists and Australia international forward Haley Raso (23) missed games for Matilda Asian Qualifying games but still was influential on the wing and added 2 goals and 2 assists in 12 games. Raso suffered a back injury in the 1-0 victory over Washington on August 25 and unfortunately looks set to miss all of the playoffs. Raso has 8 goals and 7 assists in 3 seasons in the Rose City. U.S. 2015 WWC winner Tobin Heath looked fully recovered from missing most of last season with injury, providing 7 goals and 7 assists from midfield. Horan scored twice and Tobin Heath notched 1 goal and 1 assist as Portland leapfrogged Seattle in the Northwest derby with a 3-1 on the last weekend in front of a sellout crowd of 21,144. The win means that the two clubs will face off on September 15, again in Portland, as the top two sides in the league host the playoff semifinals.
Goalkeeper Adrianna Franch was back to old self at the end of the season after missing games after surgery at the end of April to repair a meniscus tear in her right knee. Britt Eckerstrom—in her second year with the club and who helped the Newcastle Jets to the playoffs in 2017-18 in Australia—played extremely well in the 10 games she filled in for Franch.
In the stands, Thorns have attracted 203,506 for 12 games, for an average of 16,959, compared to the league average of 6,024. They are below last season's average of 17,653: there are no alarm bells ringing as they are still the best drawing women's soccer club in the world. They will host all 3 2018 playoff games—their own semifinal versus Seattle, the North Carolina-Chicago semifinal three days later (moved by the league to avoid Hurricane Florence which was hitting the North and South Carolina region over the weekend) and the league final between the semifinal winners next weekend.
Seattle Reign (11-8-5--41 points—Third)
With a new coach in Vlatko Andonovski, this side earned their first playoff spot in three years with a superb carryover staff of U.S. international Megan Rapinoe on the wing (7 goals and 6 assists), Wales international midfielder Jess Fishlock in midfield (2 goals and 1 assist) and Australian international Lydia Williams in goal (leading the league with 10 shutouts and a goals against average of 0.69 with only 11 goals allowed in 16 matches). This week, Andonovski told the media in a conference call that Williams: "Brought calmness when we have possession and organizes the back line well. She understands the game very well and tactically is a very savvy player and is a coach on the field as well."
New additions came up trumps for the Reign in U.S. international Ally Long in midfield (3 goals and 1 assist), English international forward Jodie Taylor (9 goals and 1 assist), and in defense Australian international winger Steph Catley (3 assists), Megan Oyster (1 goal and 2 assists) and Danish international Theresa Nielsen (1 goal and 1 assist). The latter three defenders clear all meshed well with Andonovski's approach, which focuses on defense first—Seattle had the second fewest number of goals allowed in the league with 19 in 24 games, two behind North Carolina, who let in only 17 all season. Andonovski this week discussed building his defense this year: "Developing the cohesion among the defensive group was not easy when you had six new defenders, including Steph Catley, Alyssa Kleiner (from the Washington Spirit and Christen Westphal (ex-Boston Breakers along with [holdovers] Lydia Williams and Lauren Barnes but it was an enjoyable process and we had individual videos, team videos, coach videos and separate sessions for the defenders; to be successful we need to get the goal against average below one per game and we set up that goal and achieved it. I've been happy with their integration [this season]." Canadian international forward Adrianna Leon was a strong pickup for the bench later in the season and can start in the league but was used sparingly (152 minutes across six games). Ghanian international Elizabeth Addo (who has played in Hungary, Nigeria, Serbia and Sweden) showed speed and skill but played primarily as a backup. In a phone interview this week, Andonvoski said about the international playing her first year in North America: "Addo is a tremendous young player (25) and is not even close to reaching her full potential and we are excited that she will be here for a while and we will help her develop further." In a similar vein, forward Jasmyne Spencer (1 goal) has been in the league for six years but seems unable to break into a reoccurring starting role, with her highest goalscoring season being 2016 with the expansion Orlando Pride. Andonvoski said this week that he is pleased with Spencer's improvement this season: "Early in the season they [Spencer and Addo] didn't get to play a lot but we focus on individual development so towards the end of the season, we were able to see that with both players playing the way they are now and not losing a step. They are getting better every game and I'm happy with where they are at. Jas [Spencer] will get to play more [in Saturday's semifinal]." Maddie Bauer, in her second season with the Reign, only played 16 minutes in one game and was released recently so she could go abroad, landing in Sweden at Djurgarden.
Attendance showed a 5% decline over 2017 (3,824 vs 4,027 per game) despite making the playoffs for the first time since 2015; this franchise needs something to burst beyond the plateau level in attendance that it has been at for some time. Certainly Portland's 3-1 over the Reign on September 7 to take second place and host the semifinal was a boost overall for the league—the semifinal will draw close to a capacity 21,000 crowd while 5,000-6,000 in Seattle would have been the most realistically one could hope for. Seattle is definitely a soccer city and with a central located, albeit old and artificial turf field, they need and should be drawing in the 8,000-9,000 range. This team continues to be independent of the MLS Sounders, but those talks—which broke off in 2013—could use a revisiting, leveraging the Sounders' regular 40,000 plus crowds for regular season games, and in excess of that for high profile international matches.
Chicago Red Stars (9-10-5--37 points—Fourth)
Chicago racked up a lot of ties with 10 (two more than Seattle and Utah, who each had 8) but Australian international forward Sam Kerr's addition to the front line was a brilliant move by Chicago. She had great reads from Japanese midfielder and 2011 World Cup winner Yuki Nagasato, as well as, towards the end of the season, American midfielder Vanessa Di Bernardo, who was feeding her well and chipping in with some key goals of her own (2 goals and 2 assists). Holdover midfielder Danielle Colaprico (1 goal and 4 assists) and defender Arin Gilliland (4 assists) also had strong seasons.
Kerr ended up as the league's leading goal scorer for the second year running (with 16) in 19 games and one behind the record she set last year despite playing in 3 fewer games, due to international call-ups, and hopefully she will be recognized in the Final FIFA Player of the Year voting, when last year she didn't even make the final 3.
Chicago as a team had 38 goals for third in the league behind the Courage (53) and Thorns (40). American Alyssa Mautz, who won a U-20 World Cup in 2008 in Chile, had 5 goals and 3 assists. Attendance has been stronger this season for the Red Stars in the MLS Fire's Toyota Park with 4,004, well above last season's average of 3,198.
Utah Royals (9-8-7—35 Points—Fifth)
Overall this was a very good first season for the club in its new environs of Salt Lake City after the offseason transfer of the FC Kansas City assets. Laura Harvey (ex-Arsenal and Seattle Reign) is still one of the best coaches in the game but she needs some different forwards for 2019, as her side scored only 22 goals in 24 games, besting only the two bottom sides Sky Blue FC (21) and Washington Spirit (12) for goals in 2018. The 2015 World Cup winning forward Amy Rodriguez underperformed with 5 goals and 1 assist but at least she played a full season, after missing effectively 2016 and 2017 with maternity leave and an ACL injury respectively; fellow U.S. World Cup winner Christen Press was dangerous but 2 goals and 2 assists for her half season after joining from Gothenburg in Sweden are not good enough. American Katie Stengel (ex-Boston Breakers) did better as the season went on, finishing with 6 goals. Norwegian international Elise Thorsne was a complete disappointment (pointless in 9 games) and is expected to not return next season.
In midfield, Icelandic international midfielder Gunny Jonsdottir (1 goal and 2 assists) played every minute and was a tremendous find along with Canadian international Diane Matheson (2 goals and 1 assist), who looked world class at times. Rachel Corsie of Scotland came with Harvey from Seattle and played in all 24 games; the highpoint was a game saving tackle on a Lynn Williams breakaway late in the North Carolina game in Salt Lake City to preserve a 0-0 tie.
Veteran American defender Becca Moros should receive the NWSL "Comedian of the Year" if such an award was given; she pantomimed a fainting goat when sparring with Megan Rapinoe for a ball late in their 1-0 home loss versus Seattle on August 11, which received a yellow card but lots of acclaim and video replays for its creativity and underlying message of Rapinoe's tendency to dive—no, heavens perish the thought!
In the back, Moros and U.S. international Becky Sauerbrunn were solid in front of U.S. international pool goalkeeper Abby Smith, who kept former U.S. international Nicole Barnhart on the bench for much of the season. Smith had 6 shutouts and allowed only 18 goals in 17 games, while Barnhart allowed 5 in 8 appearances. Their 23 goals allowed were third best in the league.
A come from behind 2-1 win on September 8 over Chicago in the final game of the season left Utah only two points behind the Red Stars in the table. The game drew 11,851 fans, which shows that despite missing the playoffs, the move from Kansas City and their 2017 average of 1,788 fans per game and subpar stadium situation was an unqualified success, drawing 9,466 per game in Real Salt Lake's MLS Stadium with the majestic Washoe Mountains as a backdrop.
Houston Dash (9-5-10--32 points—Sixth)
English international Rachel Daly was superb all season (10 goals and 2 assists) to finish fourth in the league in goals and helped drive the Dash to a club record number of wins (9) and points in a season (32); she could break out next year at the World Cup if she is selected. She worked well with American international Kealia Ohai (5 goals and 4 assists) who came back from an injury-plagued 2017. The midseason acquisition of current U.S. and former Mexican international Sofia Huerta was brilliant; she had 5 goals and 4 assists for Houston, along with 3 goals and 2 assists in Chicago; she played with creativity and passion. Defender Taylor Comeau, who also came in the same trade from Chicago, made the NWSL Team of the Month for August. This international-loaded team included Australian internationals Claire Polkinghorne (who came in midseason) and Kyah Simon (2 goals and 2 assists) and South Africans Linda Motlhalo (1 goal and 1 assist) and Thembi Kgatlana (2 goals and 3 assists), who both added speed and stretched defenses. In defense, second year Dash South African international Janine van Wyk was again solid in the back while Canadian internationals Alyssa Chapman in defense (1 assist) and forward Nichelle Prince (1 goal and 2 assists) should return next season.
In goal, though shaky at times, U.S. international Jane Campbell was the starter for every game this year and seems set as the starter for years, while backup Mexican international Bianca Henninger (who played a third of the games last season) played some this season with the UWS Champions Houston Aces.
Clear losses in two of their last three games to playoff teams Seattle (2-0) and North Carolina (5-0) do not take away from the Dash's successful season where they set club records for performance metrics and giving their fans hope. If they had swung those six points around, they would have pipped Chicago for the final spot in the playoffs this season.
Dutch native Vera Pauw should by rights win the league Coach of the Year title for turning around a franchise that for three plus seasons was painful and disappointing to watch under Randy Waldron, who went from coaching a poor professional league club to an even worse college team in the struggling University of Pittsburgh (who have started the 2018 season 4-1-3 (W-D-L). Vera focused on defense early in the season but then the club exploded on the offensive end, including 5 second half goals in a 6-1 home romp over Sky Blue FC on August 25. They just missed the playoffs this season and needs to add a little more depth in defense and try to unleash Simon (who has scored 42 W-League goals in Australia and had 3 goals and 3 assists in her best season in the NWSL with the Boston Breakers in 2013) but with a fast start, they could see playoff Shangri-La in 2019.
Their attendance was eighth best at 3,572 and ahead only of Sky Blue FC, down 22% from 4,578 in 2017, and they are the only MLS or USL men's affiliated franchise (Portland, Utah, North Carolina and Orlando) that is not among the leaders in league attendance,. With the improved play and dynamism of Vera Pauw and a likely playoff berth looming in 2019, the crowds should increase, assisted by with more cross marketing by parent MLS side Houston Dynamo to their well-appointed downtown stadium.
Orlando Pride (8-6-10--30 points—Seventh)
The Pride fell from third place with one-fourth of the season left and completely collapsed, finishing in seventh place by picking up only 2 points out of 18 in their last 6 games—incredibly four of them were at home; their 3-1 loss in Orlando in a crucial match with Chicago on August 25 officially eliminated them from the playoffs and then they went to Sky Blue FC for their last match on September 8 and lost 1-0, which was the New Jersey side's only win of the season. The Pride scored 35 goals for fifth best in the league but allowed 37, the seventh highest total in the league ,compared to last year's 45 goals for and 31 against.
Don't blame Alex Morgan—she did well, including scoring the only goal in the Chicago defeat—and had 5 goals and 2 assists on the year. Former Arsenal forward Chioma Ubogagu was solid with 4 goals and 1 assists and young American Rachel Hill had 4 goals in a reserve goal. However, 2015 WWC winner Sydney Leroux had 6 goals and 2 assists while Brazilian international Marta had 4 goals and 4 assists but looked jaded at times. Both Leroux and Marta, along with U.S. international goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris, who was also suspect at times in the back, could move on, particularly as her backup Haley Kopmeyer played the majority of Seattle Reign games for the past three seasons. Regarding Marta, reports out of Europe are that Marta has discussed possibly moving back to the continent. Even with her long tenure in Sweden, reports are that top level German or French clubs have the Euros that would attract the top-earning women's player in the year. Spain is another possibility and would be a boost to the league that has been building nicely and importing a number of world class players, including from England, Mexico, Chile and Brazil. Marta is still a world class talent but didn't seem happy this season and maybe would do better with a change of scenery.
Disappointment all around for the Pride, which was expressed best by Scottish native Tom Sermanni, one of the best coaches in the women's game and an ultimate gentleman, after their August 25 loss to Chicago, when a win was absolutely necessary to keep their playoff hopes alive. Sermanni said after the game: "Where to start? To be honest, I'm a little bit embarrassed by the performance tonight, if I'm being frank. Aspects of our game, fundamental aspects of our game that should be an automatic, are not an automatic. If you can't go out and match effort and willingness and work rate and organization and pick up some of the soccer cues that we should be picking up and be able to run, you're going to struggle in this league. It's been a story all this season that we're a team that seems to be waiting about for something to happen, whereas all the other teams we play roll their sleeves up and get out there and get on with it and make things happen. It's difficult to rectify when there are so many players that really, frankly, haven't played up to what our expectations have been of them. That might be down to a failure of me and how we've coached them, how we've set them up. I don't know. But it's just some of the fundamental things that we do or don't do are really coming back to haunt us. An example of that is we've played against Sam Kerr [who scored twice] numerous times now. We talk about her not getting in behind. And she's probably going to get in behind your defense once or twice in a game if you're alert, but to get in seven, eight, nine times is just, stuff like that is unacceptable for the quality of players that we've got. Very disappointing. Disappointing for the fans because we've got a great set of fans. Disappointing because, if anything, that you want to see from a team—I know it's an overused word probably, effort, but our effort just seems to be almost, when I say nonexistent, very slow. It's just made us look so vulnerable and it's made us look like a very poor team. That's the thing now—I've got to apologize to the fans. As a coach, I put a team out there that on paper looks high quality but has actually performed very poor. That's down to me. I apologize to them for how we've done, particularly tonight."
As far as his thoughts on the 2019 season, Sermanni said: "The top question we have to answer and everybody has to look at is what we do going forward to next year. We can't have, as a club of this—a club of any status, to be honest—we can't have some of the performances that we've had this year. That has to be rectified. Whether that's so that we can perhaps do that in several ways. One is that you change personnel. The other is that you change your coaching philosophy. You change your training regime and you do things differently to make the team effective. The difficult part I've found this year is that when I look at our team compared to last year, as I said on many occasions, I think we've probably improved the quality of our team or our squad as a whole, but we haven't got close to matching the performances that we've had last year. I need to scrutinize my performance. I need to scrutinize players' performances, and then we need to sit down and say this is what we think we need going forward."
When asked if he could pinpoint what went wrong this season, Sermanni answered: "No, I can't….We've never really got on a roll. There's barely been a game this season where I've felt we've been a dominant force and a game where we've had what I call a complete performance. Whatever game we played, there's been stages during the game—and every team has those stages during the game—where you have lapses. The problem is that when we have lapses, we have lapses. And, again, whether it's concentration, organization, decision-making, lack of effort, waiting for somebody else to do your job for you, I really don't know. Probably a combination of all those things. Just when we felt like we had everybody back and that we were ready to go, we've almost gone the wrong way. One of the things I don't think that has helped us is, well two things, that I think have been perhaps responsible in the ways that when we've been dominating games, which we have done in several games, we haven't scored. When we've been having times when we're not dominating games, we've conceded goals. Tonight's a great example of that. Tonight probably typified the season as a whole in the sense that we were kind of shaky in the first half, but we got over the shakiness. As we were getting into the 40th minute, we were actually starting to come into the game and we were actually starting to get some play. Then all of the sudden within the blink of an eye we're 2-nil down [by half time to goals by Sam Kerr and Vanessa DiBernardo]. It's hard to explain why that happened. Apart from those factors that I said earlier, that's the only answers that I've got."
On September 14th, the club announced that Tom Sermanni and the Pride had agreed to mutually part ways. We hope Sermanni will stay within the league and that the management picks another experienced coach for a franchise that is important to the league, given its strong MLS franchise ownership and belief in the women's game adding to its brand image.
Off the field, Orlando—which hosted last year's NWSL Final—is only attracting an average of 4,837, fourth best in the league but down over 20% from last year's average of 6,186. The knowledgeable fans stayed away from the team that just never jelled this year.
Washington Spirit (2-5-17--11 points—Eighth)
Late in the season, the Spirit fired Jim Gabarra as head coach, replacing him with assistant coach Tom Torres, who headed up the Spirit's Academy teams and has coaching licenses in the U.S. and France. Torres was named as interim head coach to finish the season and the team will search for a new head coach this offseason, which likely will not include Torres. Gabarra took his side to the league final in 2016, where they lost on penalty kicks to the Western New York Flash—the ultimate Cinderella club at the time, who snuck into the playoffs and kept battling from behind in the semifinals against Portland and in the final. Gabarra then gutted the team before the 2017 season and suffered through two poor seasons but last year had 5 wins and 4 ties for 19 points— despite finishing in a tie for last—compared to this season's 2 wins and 5 ties for 11 points. The team has a good young forward base in U.S. international Mallory Pugh (2 goals and 1 assist while missing 9 games due to injury and international games), Ashley Hatch (4 goals and 1 assist) and Rose Lavelle and Andi Sullivan (both 0 goals), but this team has to essentially rebuild the defense, which at times was like a cheap paper towel when it gets wet—it just falls apart. Defenders Caprice Dydasco, who was injured in the 2016 Title Game and missed some of last season, is a key piece to retain along with U.S. international Taylor Smith.
Look for new international imports as Nigerian international Fran Ordega (3 goals) and Argentinian international Estefania Banini (1 goal) could look for a team in Europe for next season, particularly as a new coach would probably want to rebuild with the young Americans and bring in one or two attackers from the league or abroad.
Another positive was a late season crowd of 7,976 at MLS Audi Field in the capital district of D.C. for a 1-0 loss vs. Portland, which was a club record attendance for a team that always draws well in suburban Maryland. Attendance, with the Audi Field bump, rose to 3,892 in 2018 for sixth compared to 3,491 in 2017 (again in sixth place among league teams). Eventually this club could follow the Chicago Red Stars, who moved from a smaller suburban stadium to hold occasional games at their MLS stadium, before a full time move in 2016. The Spirit draws well in suburban Maryland but the new stadium and convenient public transportation are carrots that could bring better crowds in a strong city for soccer.
Sky Blue FC (1-6-17--9 points—Ninth)
Unlike Washington, where Gabarra was probably past the sell-by date sometime in the summer of 2017, we would vote that his former assistant with Washington and Sky Blue before that Denise Reddy, not be let go and given at least another year to rebuild this side, albeit after tying a U.S. women's pro soccer record for fewest wins in a season (1) with the 2011 WPS Atlanta Beat side. Eleven of their 17 losses were by only goal. The team finally won its last game of the season in front of 4,086 fans with a 1-0 win over the Orlando Pride, with Carli Lloyd (4 goals, 1 assist) scoring the winning goal with about 15 minutes left. Losing Sam Kerr after last season at the head of your attack was never going to be easy to fix. Their points total (9) placed them second lowest in all 12 U.S. women's pro soccer leagues seasons for points to the Beat's 7 points in 2011, breaking the NWSL record of 11 points for the 2016 Boston Breakers
Savannah McCaskill (3 goals and 3 assist) has the heart of a lion and the skills of a cheetah on attack and she is the future of the team. Mexican international Katie Johnson, who came in after a season in Seattle, led the team with 4 goals and 2 assists. As with the Washington Spirit, the defense was easily pulled apart. Other players to build around include Canadian international Kaitlyn Sheridan in goal—who with 108 saves/stops surpassed the previous record of Alyssa Naeher (Boston Breakers with 106 in 2014), and finished tied for the all-time record with Aubrey Bledsoe of Washington, who also finished with 108 saves this season—Sarah Killion in midfield, forward Imani Dorsey—who wasn't even on the team to start the season—scored 4 goals and 1 assist in 12 games and 2 time NWSL champion forward Shea Groom (2 goals and 3 assists). This side needs to spend some money on solid attackers and midfielders from abroad but there are some significant pieces to build upon.
Sky Blue FC, whose majority owner is New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, must deal with continuing charges that the players are treated poorly, with inadequate housing and poor training conditions. Carli Lloyd was reported to have had to take an ice bath in a 50 pound garbage can because there were no pools available. The league needs to solve this player morale and image problem—the Western New York franchise's moves to North Carolina has been a success in terms of how the players were treated and the Buffalo/Rochester situation was nowhere near as bad as in New Jersey. Perhaps a new market is what this team needs (see North Carolina and Utah as positive examples), with an opportunity to play in a suitable stadium closer to or in New York City an option that should be explored.
Sky Blue FC's season average attendance was 2,531, 1,000 fewer per game than the next lowest average (Houston at 3,572) and a slight decline from Sky Blue's 2017 total (2,613 average), albeit when they had Sam Kerr setting league goalscoring records.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.
Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey
