Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman shakes hands with officials after an NWSL regular season game against the Portland Thorns at Audi Field on August 3, 2025.

It's been a long, strange summer, but the NWSL is officially back, with the entire league looking down the road at the back half of the season.

In truth, this 14th round of matches around the league showed what the break does. Between teams using this as a second preseason of sorts, key players missing for international tournaments, transfers, players returning from long injury breaks, and more, most of the games over the weekend felt a lot more like week one.

Still, we saw a sign of things to come in a few places. The Kansas City Current looked more or less like themselves even without key midfielder Vanessa DiBernardo, Trinity Rodman came back and stayed entirely in character with a huge goal, and some of the league's struggling sides came out and showed genuine improvement in getting results over teams expected to be in the mix down the stretch.

After a long wait, the Take-Off is back with analysis of the weekend that was. Let's get to it:

All stats cited from FBref unless otherwise noted.

Racing Louisville 0:2 Kansas City Current

On the surface, this is a pretty unremarkable result. Kansas City has won four games by this same scoreline this season, and has seven shutout wins overall. It's also their seventh two-goal win of the year. They're good!

It's also not really a shock for Louisville, who are serving as this year's NWSL litmus test. When Racing has played the teams above them in the standings at the moment, it's been rough: 1W-1D-6L, and a minus-8 goal difference. Facing those behind them, it's the opposite: Bev Yanez's side has gone 5W-1D-1L in those games, winning five in a row.

But under the hood, the hosts made this one into a test for the Current. Yes, KC controlled play: the Current had an 11-4 advantage in shot attempts in the first hour, and by the eye test Louisville were largely being forced to defend rather than choosing a lower block. Racing's counter-attacks were sporadic, and didn't amount to any better chances than the ones KC was carving out.

However, that's kind of the point: the league leaders picked up just 0.44 expected goals (xG) from that opening 60 minutes, with eight of those shots coming from outside the box. Yes, Louisville was having to defend for long spells, but the crucial thing here is that they were doing a good job of it against the best team in the NWSL. KC didn't just have to earn the win because of Racing's effort; they were organized and going about their work with intent.

That's a departure from the kinds of defeats they've suffered in the past, and Yanez took notice.

"We're different. We're just different," Yanez told reporters Friday night. "I feel like there was a lot of work ethic [required] to block shots, block crosses, to prevent a lot from them, which we're very proud of."

The Current did end up winning the game, but it required a really well-worked goal rather than a gift from Racing or one where the defending was truly poor. Scroll to 0:45 on the clip below to see the good stuff:

The list of teams in the NWSL that can be even remotely expected conjure up this goal after pounding on the door in frustration for an hour is short. The two-touch play, using possession to manipulate Louisville into leaving (small) gaps, inviting pressure and moving out of it — you just know Emma Hayes nodded with approval seeing Claire Hutton's involvement in the build-up — is all top-tier soccer.

This team also just added Ally Sentnor. For now at least, they remain in a class of their own in 2025.

Going back to who Racing is beating and who they aren't: the next few weeks are going to be difficult. Louisville's next three games are at Orlando, at Washington, and at San Diego, who are all further up the table. However, Racing fans should take heart: Chicago farmed points against the teams behind them last season, and the then-Red Stars got into the playoffs. Louisville has taken an obvious step forward as this season has gone on, and even in defeat against KC, there's enough here to break the endless run of ninth-place finishes.

Washington Spirit 2:1 Portland Thorns

Is there a player in this league more built for the big moment than Trinity Rodman? Out for months, two weeks out from rejoining training, on a minutes cap, on national TV in a clash between two Big Teams, and it feels completely natural that she clobbered a game-winner past Mackenzie Arnold two minutes into stoppage time.

We have plenty on Rodman (for example, here's her talking in more depth about her injury and her outlook going forward), but let's throw in one last post-game quote on the goal itself:

"I'd been kind of floating on the back post any time we were getting in the final third," Rodman said in the understandably crowded Audi Field press conference room on Sunday. "We had been working on [a] float back post cross in training all week. We didn't have the runners today for the most part, and we had talked about that at halftime...

"As soon as it was going towards Croix [Bethune], I knew she was gonna have some kind of cheeky touch, and I was not gonna miss it. I mean, I was gonna hit it through the net."

Beyond the huge news of a big star doing big-star things, this game was by some distance the best fodder for what the Take-Off is supposed to be. Some of that was a weekend characterized by rust and fitness issues coming out of the break, and some of that was just how it is playing soccer in August in the United States.

But there was also an attempt from both teams at "Rowdy Audi" to tweak their approaches in an attempt to wrong-foot the opposition in tactical terms. Rob Gale's 4-2-3-1 included Reilyn Turner starting as a left winger slashing inside, with Olivia Moultrie playing as a false No. 9. Given that this is probably Turner's ideal role, and her xG output this year — her 5.8 coming out of the weekend is fourth-best in the entire league, and on a per-90 basis she trails only Temwa Chawinga — it's a good idea on paper.

However, the Spirit's choice to set up in a 3-4-1-2 ruled the day. Having a third center back left Turner smaller spaces to slash into and more numbers to pick her up, and with Portland offering no natural width, Washington wingbacks Gabby Carle and Kate Wiesner were the platforms for a dominant first half.

Wiesner was credited with four shot-creating actions (tied with three teammates for the highest total in the game), Carle added three progressive carries, and it was the Canada defender offering a perfectly-weighted pass to allow Rosemonde Kouassi to do the platonic ideal of a Rosemonde Kouassi moment en route to an assist on Gift Monday's opener:

Anyone that watches the Spirit regularly knows Kouassi can turn on the jets in a way that only Chawinga and Alyssa Thompson can match. Isabella Obaze did everything she could here...and ended up getting posterized.

There have been questions about Kouassi's final product, but if you can't see it by now, you're not looking hard enough. Kouassi and Kansas City's Michelle Cooper are the only two players in the NWSL's top 10 for per-90 xG and expected assists (xA), and the Ivorian attacker has quietly climbed within one of the overall assist lead for the season despite playing just 664 minutes in 2025.

Between all that, the Spirit had Portland in a blender for 47 minutes in the first half, only to get hit with a classic "that's soccer, baby!" moment:

Olivia Moultrie's an excellent player, and Jessie Fleming's work to create the goal was top-tier as well. You can bottle the Thorns up all you want, but their talent level is still high enough that they might snag a goal out of nowhere. In boxing terms, they always have a puncher's chance.

However, with all due respect to the quality of play required to manufacture this equalizer, there's no room to let the Spirit off the hook for their role here. After tormenting Portland on and off the ball for 45-plus minutes, this goal was a gift stemming from a collective drop in Washington's intensity and awareness throughout the sequence.

That's something that Washington has been guilty of too many times at home in 2025, letting dominant spells amount to a level scoreline, or even a deficit. Sunday was a storybook, feel-good win in a lot of ways, but the Spirit will have to think about this part of the match just as much as Rodman's late thunderbolt.

"I think it's been a fantastic first half, to be honest, in terms of provoking what we wanted," said Washington head coach Adrián González. "Especially in possession today, we knew where the advantages were... We had huge chances to have a better win, if I can say that. It seems like we like to suffer a little bit until the end, I don't know why."

That last line was said as a joke, but it is a worthwhile point for a team that has only won three of seven home games. A healthy Spirit can be the biggest challenger the Current have down the stretch, but that's going to require putting games away when the advantage is clear.

Orlando Pride 1:1 Utah Royals

Let's first start with some unabashed good news for the Pride: Luana and Simone Charley made big returns, with the former in uniform after being activated following a 15-month battle with cancer. Charley, by entering the match in the 79th minute, ended an 854-day wait between games after suffering two separate Achilles tendon tears in the last two years.

On the flip side, a home draw against a Royals team at the bottom of the table, who just traded their attacking centerpiece, cannot be called good news. Orlando started 2025 with four straight regular-season wins, conceding just one goal, but since then? 4W-2D-4L, and a humdrum 10 goals for/10 goals against split in terms of goal difference.

Some of that is a little bit of bad luck: the Pride's xG figures over that span are plus-2.8, and they've had the higher total in seven of the 10 games in that span. However, the goals have dried up, with two games (a 3-2 win over Angel City FC on April 25 and a 3-1 win at Utah on May 23) representing 60% of their scoring since April 19. Orlando is still doing well, sitting second overall and with a plus-10 goal difference, but games like this one are far more representative of how they've played lately. It's been a bit of a grind.

It doesn't help when their foes come up with a goal like this one from Mina Tanaka:

On one hand, as Jill Loyden is halfway through stating as this clip ends, Utah has struggled all season to come up with better looks than firing one up from 25-plus yards. On the other...look, it's a banger that required real vision from Tanaka, and outside of Orlando, we're all better for seeing it.

Still, the Pride will see their errors here: their structure following a turnover is a mess, which is why Kaleigh Riehl is able to step forward and bypass Orlando's front line and midfield to feed Tanaka. Then, Tanaka turns into a 1-on-3, only for no Pride player to actually close her down thanks to what looks on replay like a lack of communication and a lack of someone taking charge in the moment. Finally, Tanaka's shot definitely caught Anna Moorhouse by surprise, though we'll allow for a caveat that it's struck right on the line between sun and shade at Inter&Co Stadium.

What's more, the Orlando reply to this stunner was tepid at best. A 32-yard effort from Morgan Gautrat was their next shot attempt, and that came deep into first-half stoppage time. At the other end, Claudia Zornoza crashed a dead ball off the post that was absolutely going to beat Moorhouse had it been any lower, while Imani Dorsey's sneaky low shot required Moorhouse to make a sharp read and turn a potentially tricky chance into a textbook save.

Maybe some of this stems from Marta and Angelina having just come through the epic that was the Copa América Femenina final, but overall this is less of a tactical problem and more of an issue of feel. The Pride aren't really exerting the mental control on games, or delivering the important little things (we're talking tackles, choices to play quickly or slowly when the time is right, etc.) that was their hallmark in 2024. It's not that they've stopped producing the smart, cultured choices entirely, but that we're not seeing this street-smart team show that savvy as often.

Eventually the Pride got their act together, equalizing through Prisca Chilufya (shout out to Simone Jackson for that assist). Stoppage time was a bombardment of the Utah goal to an almost comical degree, with Mia Justus showing exactly why Pro Soccer Wire has been talking her up for years now. The final 30 minutes looked more like the contender Orlando should be, rather than the not-quite-there team their recent performances have resembled.

As for Utah: it would have been easy to read the Sentnor trade as a reason to let this season drift away. Coming out of the break in last place, away versus Orlando in absolutely brutal August heat, without Mandy McGlynn (who missed out with a hand injury)? There wouldn't have been an especially high level of criticism had the Royals merely shown up and accepted defeat.

Utah instead went out and fought extremely hard, as they did in a 3-3 draw with the Spirit before the break. The Royals may need to start a rebuild, but no one on the playing side has given up on the year at this point. Nuria Rábano put in nine tackles (winning six), while Kate Del Fava and Aria Nagai chipped in three interceptions a piece. Utah was under pressure and at a talent deficit, but they poured everything into this one to claim a point.

That's a mentality that can be built upon, even as it may be necessary for the Royals to ship more players out before the transfer window closes on August 25 (note: intra-NWSL moves can keep going until the roster freeze on October 9). The task ahead for the club's leadership will be how to acquire players and assets without disrupting a valuable thing in a league where being ready to fight is a prerequisite.

Other NWSL scores

  • Chicago Stars 1:1 NJ/NY Gotham FC
  • Seattle Reign 2:0 Angel City FC
  • North Carolina Courage 0:0 San Diego Wave
  • Bay FC 2:2 Houston Dash

One last thing

If you report on this league, you learn to never rule anything out. Maybe it's a weather delay like the one in Orlando, and maybe it's World Cup winner and NWSL legend Yuki Nagasato turning up in the Audi Field press box as a member of the media covering a big game like a seasoned vet.

Here's what she was working on:

Bottom line: If you think you've seen it all in the NWSL, you're wrong.

This article originally appeared on Pro Soccer Wire: NWSL Weekend Take-Off — Rodman return sparks Spirit, KC Current keep rolling

Reporting by Jason Anderson, Pro Soccer Wire / Pro Soccer Wire

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