A title match often represents a finish line, the closing of a chapter and the coronation for a select few. Saturday’s NWSL final between the Red Stars and Spirit will certainly feature those aspects, but there's a bit more that comes with the territory to cap a brutal season that was so often derailed by what occurred outside of player control.
Instead, it’s become a year of player empowerment and a year when the lifeblood of the league finally became heard, though the events to make it so were heinous. They resulted in a long-overdue ousting of multiples coaches whose misdeeds and abuse were overlooked or ignored for far too long.