{"id":251242,"date":"2026-07-03T15:25:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/03\/my-wish-list-for-the-rest-of-the-nwsl-season-equalizer-soccer\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T15:25:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:25:50","slug":"my-wish-list-for-the-rest-of-the-nwsl-season-equalizer-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/03\/my-wish-list-for-the-rest-of-the-nwsl-season-equalizer-soccer\/","title":{"rendered":"My wish list for the rest of the NWSL season \u2013 Equalizer Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 David Banks-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n

The NWSL returns Friday, July 3 after taking the entire month of June \u2014 save last week\u2019s Challenge Cup \u2014 to cede the soccer stage to their make cohorts.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here are 11 thoughts on things I would like to see between now and the end of 2026 around NWSL.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here are 11 thoughts from the weekend. We\u2019ll do this every Monday following NWSL match weeks. Some points will be factual, some will be opinion based. And some will just be random statements or observations.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s dig in. I hope for\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

I \u2013 For the Shield race to remain tight<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Shield race has a chance to be the best the league has ever seen. The top six teams are separated by four points, and the two teams four points back \u2014 the Spirit and Gotham \u2014 have matches in-hand and are level with the Royals in terms of maximum available points. And by that metric, the Courage are seven points off the top but only three back of max available due to matches in hand.<\/p>\n

The last time the Shield race went down to the final weekend was 2023 when the Wave took advantage of a Thorns loss to swoop in and nab the title in their second season. That Wave team though, was .500 with seven games to go. This year\u2019s group feels like quality if imperfect sides battling to get the best of each other.<\/p>\n

As far as endings, the gold standard remains the inaugural 2013 season. FC Kansas City were moments away from the inaugural Shield when the Chicago Red Stars beat them in stoppage time of the final match of the season. That left FCKC level on points with the Thorns and Western New York Flash and the Flash won the league\u2019s first hardware on the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a9 David Banks-Imagn Images The NWSL returns Friday, July 3 after taking the entire month of June \u2014 save last week\u2019s Challenge Cup \u2014 to cede the soccer stage to their make cohorts. Here are 11 thoughts on things I would like to see between now and the end of 2026 around NWSL. Here are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6805],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-womens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}