After a nearly six-month absence, the NWSL is back this Friday to kick off its ninth year. In a unique move, there will be a league-wide Challenge Cup tournament held before the regular season begins—though in a different form from its 2020 predecessor.
A year ago, the Challenge Cup served as the main competition of an unorthodox 2020 season, with a month-long, bubble-style summer tournament in Utah won by the Houston Dash. This time around, the Challenge Cup will consist of 21 games in home markets. The league’s 10 teams (welcome, expansion squads Racing Louisville and Kansas City, the latter of which took over the now-defunct Utah Royals’ roster—and also hello, NJ/NY Gotham FC, which just rebranded from Sky Blue FC!