2021 National Women's Soccer League Season
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2021 National Women's Soccer League Season
The 2021 National Women's Soccer League season was the ninth season of the National Women's Soccer League, the top division of women's soccer in the United States. Including the NWSL's two professional predecessors, Women's Professional Soccer (2009–2011) and the Women's United Soccer Association (2001–2003), it is the 15th overall season of FIFA and USSF-sanctioned top division women's soccer in the United States. This season was the first in which the NWSL has been fully self-governing. After the 2020 season, the league terminated its management contract with the United States Soccer Federation (USSF or U.S. Soccer), which nonetheless continues to provide major financial support to the NWSL. Further financial backing is provided by the Canadian Soccer Association. Both national federations pay the league salaries of many of their respective national team members in an effort to nurture talent in those nations and take a major financial burden off of individual clubs. On ...
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National Women's Soccer League
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federation. The NWSL was established in 2012 as the successor to Women's Professional Soccer (WPS; 2007–2012), which was itself the successor to Women's United Soccer Association (2001–2003). The league began play in 2013 with eight teams, four of which were former members of WPS (Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, Sky Blue FC, and Western New York Flash). it has 12 teams across the United States. five teams have been crowned NWSL Champions, awarded to the playoff winner; four teams have claimed the NWSL Shield, awarded to the team in first place at the end of the regular season; and three teams have been champions of the NWSL Challenge Cup, an annual league cup tournament that began in 2020. The latest (2022) NWSL champions are the Portla ...
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Women's Professional Soccer
Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 season, with continued plans for future expansion. The WPS was the highest level in the United States soccer pyramid for the women's game. On January 30, 2012, the league announced suspension of the 2012 season, citing several internal organization struggles as the primary cause. Some of these issues included an ongoing legal battle with magicJack owner Dan Borislow and the lack of resources invested into the league. On May 18, 2012, WPS announced the league folded and would not return in 2013. After the WPS folded, the National Women's Soccer League formed in 2013 and took WPS's place as the top professional women's soccer league. History Planning After the folding of Women's United Soccer Association, which played its third and final ...
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The Athletic
''The Athletic'' is a subscription-based sports website that provides national and local coverage in 47 North American cities as well as the United Kingdom. ''The Athletic'' also covers national stories from top professional and college sports (National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, NCAA football, NCAA basketball (U.S. only), National Hockey League, mixed martial arts, Major League Soccer (U.S. and Canada only) and association football (U.K. edition only). ''The Athletic''s coverage focuses on a mix of long-form journalism, original reporting, and in-depth analysis. Its business model is predicated on dis-aggregating the sports section of local newspapers and reaching non-local fans not reached by a local newspaper. History ''The Athletic'' was founded by Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, former coworkers at subscription-based fitness company Strava, with the mission of producing "smarter coverage for die-hard fans." The compa ...
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2021 NWSL Abuse Scandal
Throughout the 2021 National Women's Soccer League season, allegations of abuse surfaced in multiple teams across the National Women's Soccer League in the United States. As a result, five out of the 10 teams then in the league had head coaches resign or be fired, with league commissioner Lisa Baird also resigning due to the scandal. A later investigation led to four of these coaches receiving lifetime bans from league employment, and several other coaches and executives receiving lesser discipline. Timeline In July 2021, OL Reign announced that head coach Farid Benstiti had resigned, with the club stating that it had "great respect for Farid’s talents and all he brought to the organization." Later that year, it was reported that Benstiti had resigned following a number of complaints of abuse, including having disparaged players' nutritional habits and fitness. Later that month, NJ/NY Gotham FC announced that general manager Alyse LaHue had been fired following an investigatio ...
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Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous county in Oregon. Portland had a population of 652,503, making it the 26th-most populated city in the United States, the sixth-most populous on the West Coast, and the second-most populous in the Pacific Northwest, after Seattle. Approximately 2.5 million people live in the Portland metropolitan statistical area (MSA), making it the 25th most populous in the United States. About half of Oregon's population resides within the Portland metropolitan area. Named after Portland, Maine, the Oregon settlement began to be populated in the 1840s, near the end of the Oregon Trail. Its water access provided convenient transportation of goods, and the timber industry was a major force in the city's early economy. At the turn of the 20th century, the ...
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Providence Park
Providence Park (formerly Jeld-Wen Field; PGE Park; Civic Stadium; originally Multnomah Stadium; and from 1893 until the stadium was built, Multnomah Field) is an outdoor soccer venue located in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. It has existed in rudimentary form since 1893, and as a complete stadium since 1926. Providence Park is currently the oldest facility to be configured as a soccer-specific stadium for use by a MLS team, and is one of the most historic grounds used by any United States professional soccer team. Two professional soccer teams, the Portland Timbers of MLS and Portland Thorns FC of NWSL, use the facility as their home pitch. The stadium has been host to several major United States soccer events including national team matches, Soccer Bowl '77, the 1999 and 2003 FIFA Women's World Cups, the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup, the 2014 MLS All-Star Game, the 2015 NWSL Championship Game, and MLS Cup 2021. Providence Park has been the home of the Port ...
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2021 NWSL Challenge Cup Championship
The 2021 NWSL Challenge Cup Championship, the final match of the 2021 NWSL Challenge Cup, was a soccer match held on May 8, 2021 at Providence Park in Portland, Oregon, USA. It was contested by Portland Thorns FC and NJ/NY Gotham FC, the winners of the West and East Divisions, respectively, of the Challenge Cup. The match finished drawn 1-1 after 90 minutes, with the rules specifying that the teams would not play extra time but would instead proceed to a penalty shootout. The Thorns won the shootout 6-5 after 7 rounds, thus winning the 2021 NWSL Challenge Cup. Road to the final Portland Thorns FC won the right to host the final by finishing with the best record across both divisions. ''Note: In all results below, the score of the finalist is given first.'' Match Details Portland struck first, with Christine Sinclair winning the ball near midfield and then scoring from just outside Gotham's penalty box in the 8th minute. Portland generated several more chances in the first ...
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2021 NWSL Challenge Cup
The 2021 NWSL Challenge Cup was a league cup tournament that took place during the 2021 National Women's Soccer League season. It began on April 9 and ended May 8, one week before the start of the regular season. It was the second iteration of the NWSL Challenge Cup tournament, which had started in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and was announced as a regular event later in 2020. Portland Thorns FC won the 2021 final over NJ/NY Gotham FC in a penalty shootout. Format While the inaugural Challenge Cup took place entirely in a single "bubble" location during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 Challenge Cup was played in home markets. The 10 NWSL teams were organized into two regional divisions of five teams each. Every team played four games within their division, with the two division winners competing in the final on May 8. The full schedule was released on March 9, 2021, along with tournament rules and regulations. Tiebreakers The initial determining factor for a ...
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NWSL Championship
The National Women's Soccer League Playoffs (or NWSL Playoffs) are a single elimination tournament among six teams in the National Women's Soccer League of the United States, deciding the winner of the NWSL Championship. Since playoff games cannot end in ties, those are broken by two straight 15-minute extra time periods, followed by shootouts of best-of-five rounds plus extra rounds as required. Format The top six teams in the final standings at the end of the NWSL season qualify for the playoffs and are seeded in order of their record; the top two teams receive a first-round bye. Prior to 2021, only the top four teams qualified for the playoffs. Tiebreakers The initial determining factor for a team's position in the standings is most points earned, with three points earned for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss. As of 2022, if at least two teams tie in point total, when determining rank and playoff qualification and seeding, the NWSL uses the following ti ...
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NWSL Playoffs
The National Women's Soccer League Playoffs (or NWSL Playoffs) are a single elimination tournament among six teams in the National Women's Soccer League of the United States, deciding the winner of the NWSL Championship. Since playoff games cannot end in ties, those are broken by two straight 15-minute extra time periods, followed by shootouts of best-of-five rounds plus extra rounds as required. Format The top six teams in the final standings at the end of the NWSL season qualify for the playoffs and are seeded in order of their record; the top two teams receive a first-round bye. Prior to 2021, only the top four teams qualified for the playoffs. Tiebreakers The initial determining factor for a team's position in the standings is most points earned, with three points earned for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss. As of 2022, if at least two teams tie in point total, when determining rank and playoff qualification and seeding, the NWSL uses the following ti ...
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NWSL Player Allocation
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) federation players were players whose salaries for playing in the NWSL were paid for by their respective national federations from 2013 to 2021. American federation players were contracted to the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) and not to their respective NWSL clubs, whereas Canadian federation players were contracted directly to their respective NWSL clubs. Federation players were sometimes known as allocated players, allocation players, or subsidized players, which occasionally created confusion with players paid using the NWSL's "allocation money," a mechanism introduced before the 2020 NWSL season. NWSL federation players originally came from the USSF, the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA), and the Mexican Football Federation (FMF), and they were distributed to the eight founding teams of the NWSL through a player allocation process in January 2013. The FMF ceased allocating players to the NWSL in 2016 and before starting its own ...
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Canadian Soccer Association
The Canadian Soccer Association (Canada Soccer) is the governing body of soccer in Canada. It is a national organization that oversees the Canadian men's and women's national teams for international play, as well as the respective junior sides (U-20 and U-17 for men and women). Within Canada, it oversees national professional and amateur club championships. Organization and governance Canada Soccer's objectives, as described in its by-laws, are to: # promote, regulate and control the game of soccer throughout Canada, particularly through youth and development programs; # organize competitions in Association Football in all its forms at a national level, by defining the areas of authority conceded to the various leagues of which it is composed; # draw up Association Football regulations and provisions, and ensure their enforcement; # protect the interests of its Members; # respect and prevent any infringement of the statutes, regulations, directives and decisions of FIFA, ...
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