The Wait Is Over

Numbers Don't Lie

On Tuesday, the independent valuation firm of Honkamp Krueger and Company sent their reports concerning the North Carolina Courage and Houston Dash to the NWSL league office, who made them available to those who had declared an interest in purchasing the two clubs. Following the moves of the past month, the Courage's assets were valued at 1.45 million dollars and the Dash's at 850 thousand. Heather O'Reilly, on behalf of the Carolina Blue Foundation, sent a wire transfer from their account at Bank of America to NWSL headquarters in the amount of $2,900,000, which meets the buy-out price for the club. In Houston, a local husband-and-wife team had secured additional investment capital from her sister and brother-in-law to reach the release price of $1.7 million that would turn over control of the Dash to them in seven days.

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Wednesday's match between the Breakers and the Reign ended up being a case of two teams on short rest trying to conserve as much energy as possible on the turf at CenturyLink Field. John Herdman turned over his starting lineup, bringing in seven new players. He had planned to start Libby Stout in goal for Steph, but with the chemistry she had developed with her defensive core, he chose to ride her hot hand along with the Back Bay Triangle.

Boston: Labbe; Santacaterina, Dahlkemper, Oyster, Stassi; Mewis (c); Elston, Andrews, Parry; Duran, Purce.

Seattle: Kopmeyer; Stott, McNabb, Barnes, Pickett; Fishlock, Yanez, Lytle; Lavasseur, Johnson, Rapinoe.

Neither team was particularly enterprising during the first 45, with only one shot on goal registered, that by Marie Lavasseur of the Reign. A Midge Purce shot forced Haley Kopmeyer to make a reaction save, which went out for a corner. Dahlkemper's in-swinger landed on Mewis' head, but Kopmeyer was there to make the save. Substitutions of Kyah Simon and Caitlyn DiSarcina perked up the attack, but with too little push from the midfield the forward pairing was left stranded a lot of the time. The defense held stout for the Breakers and both teams ended up settling for a point with a 0-0 draw, ending Boston's winning streak at five games.

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Mia Hamm had been working the phones for the past couple of weeks seeking out teams that might be looking to off-load some talent in an effort to rebuild. Her conversations with Heather O'Reilly were productive, with the two sides agreeing in principle to send Sammy Jo Prudhomme to the Olympias. The two clubs, however, needed to find a willing partner for a three-way trade, as neither O'Reilly nor general manager Cindy Parlow Cone were particulatly fond of Teagan Micah. Another trade-in-the-works would have Shelina Zadorsky heading to LA for the Olympias' first round picks in 2023 and 2024. Becky Sauerbrunn looked ahead to 2023 and saw the need to have a reliable backup in place when Sabrina D'Angelo left for the World Cup and was prepared to deal away Abby Smith for a quality NWSL-level goalkeeper. Orlando searched for a team whose starter they could poach since Ashlyn Harris was retiring at the end of the season. Portland had signed a goalkeeper at the start of the transfer window and were in position to trade AD Franch for some additional attacking help. Most of the rest of the league was either happy or unable to generate interests from other teams.