The 2021

NWSL Draft The NWSL Draft is an annual event which takes place in January of each year where the teams of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) select players who are in their senior season in college or have exhausted their collegiate eligibility. Prior ...

was the ninth annual meeting of National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) franchises to select eligible

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

players. It was held on January 13, 2021. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, it was the first NWSL Draft to be held virtually via

videoconferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...

and web streaming.

Format

* All 10 teams of the

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 Federatio ...

(NWSL) take turns making their selections over four rounds, with 10 picks per round. Draft order in each round was determined by the reverse order of standings after the preliminary stage of the 2020 NWSL Challenge Cup, with the exceptions being

Racing Louisville FC Racing Louisville Football Club is a National Women's Soccer League team based in Louisville, Kentucky. It began playing in 2021 at Lynn Family Stadium. The team is owned by Soccer Holdings LLC, which also owns Louisville City FC of the USL Cham ...

taking the first selection as an expansion team and

Orlando Pride The Orlando Pride is a professional women's soccer team based in Orlando, Florida. The team joined the National Women's Soccer League, the top level of women's soccer in the US, for the 2016 season. It became the tenth team to be added to the l ...

slotting into the fourth spot as decided by the board of governors after the team was unable to participate in the Challenge Cup. * The

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

expansion team took over all player-related assets (including draft picks) of defunct team

Utah Royals FC Utah Royals FC was an American women's professional soccer club based in the Salt Lake City suburb of Sandy, Utah. Established on November 16, 2017, as an expansion club, the Royals played in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) from 2018 ...

. * The draft was broadcast live via the NWSL's official

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...

channel. * Final list of players who registered was released on January 12, 2021.

COVID-19 pandemic

Due to the

, the NWSL made the following changes to the draft regulations that apply only to the 2021 NWSL Draft: * Due to the disruption of college soccer and resulting NCAA D-I spring season in 2021, the NWSL applied for and received a waiver from the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

so that D-I players who are drafted could choose to report immediately for the

2021 NWSL 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 (2 ...

and forfeit their remaining collegiate eligibility, or remain with their collegiate teams until the conclusion of the NCAA D-I spring season in May 2021. * The NWSL waived registration requirements so that all D-I players who had exhausted three years of collegiate soccer eligibility prior to the 2020–21 academic year were automatically eligible to be drafted. * The NWSL playing rights of drafted players will be held until the start of the 2022 preseason rather than the end of the 2021 season as was the case previously.

Results

Key

Picks

Notable undrafted players

Below is a list of undrafted rookies who appeared in a competitive NWSL game in 2021.

Trades

Round 1: Round 2: Round 3: Round 4:

Summary

In 2021, a total of 28 colleges had players selected. Of these, five had a player drafted to the NWSL for the first time:

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

Kansas State Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

UNC Wilmington The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW or UNC Wilmington) is a public research university in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina System and enrolls 17,499 undergraduate and graduate students eac ...

, and Vanderbilt.

Schools with multiple draft selections

Selections by college athletic conference

Selections by position

References

External links

* {{2021 NWSL season by team National Women's Soccer League drafts

Draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...

NWSL Draft