2023 NWSL Season Previews: Houston Dash, Chicago Red Stars, Orlando Pride
/Houston Dash-ing toward the mean
The Houston Dash made the playoffs for the first time last season. They finished 2022 in fourth place but tied for 36 points with two other teams (San Diego Wave and Kansas City). The Dash ended up losing to Kansas City in the 90+10th minute in the first round of the playoffs, and they’ll undoubtedly be on a mission to avenge that loss in 2023.
So, what should we look forward to this season?
A new head coach
Last season saw three head coaches for the Dash. Former head coach James Clarkson was suspended in April 2022, and first assistant Sarah Lowdon stepped in as the acting head coach while the Dash searched for a new person to fill the role. Once Clarkson was dismissed, the Dash started turning around their 2022 ship. Lowdon went on the record preaching the importance of defensive organization off-the-ball movement. The first four games of Lowdon’s short tenure saw those principles translate on the field after Houston improved in goals conceded per game for the Dash: on average, they were conceding 1.7 fewer goals per game (0.5 goals conceded/game vs. 2.2 goals conceded per game). Of course, it goes without saying here that the sample size was quite small, but it’s important to acknowledge Lowdon’s successes.
Juan Carlos Amorós was hired as the interim head coach in June 2022. Amorós saw immediate success in the NWSL as a first-timer. In fact, he became the first head coach in history to win their first three games. He also led the Dash to their first playoff berth in their nine-year history, and hosted that match-up to boot. Despite those successes, Amorós left the Dash almost immediately in the offseason. He’s now the head coach at NJ/NY Gotham FC, and longtime OL Reign assistant Sam Laity has taken the reins at the Dash.
This will be Laity’s first head-coaching gig, so it remains to be seen if he’s up for that challenge. Houston’s actually returning players that accounted for a huge portion of their 2022 minutes (80%), and those players were obviously successful last season. That will help Laity this season, but he also brought in a huge squad–made of up 34 players–for preseason. That might indicate that he’s hand-picking his roster additions, and rounding out his roster with players that best fit his coaching style.
Some exciting attackers
Speaking of additions, Diana Ordóñez’ trade was one of the biggest stories to come out of the 2023 NWSL Draft this year. Ordóñez requested the trade in the offseason, and North Carolina clearly made it happen. The Courage sent Ordóñez and the No. 30 overall pick to Houston in return for the No. 8 overall pick, which North Carolina used to draft defender Sydney Collins. It was an interesting move for the Courage, considering Ordóñez made 17 starts in 19 appearances in North Carolina, but head coach Sean Nahas said the team wanted to honor her requests to be closer to home. Ordóñez also finished fourth in the NWSL Golden Boot race with 11 goals, only behind Debinha on the Courage roster. Those 11 goals even broke the league record for goals scored in a rookie season.
North Carolina’s loss is Houston’s huge gain.
There’s no doubt that Ordóñez will be headlining the Houston attack this year, paired with Ebony Salmon. Ordóñez scored 11 goals on 7.27 xG, and Salmon scored 9 goals on 5.38 xG. That translated to 0.83 goals on 0.46 xG per 96’ for Salmon, which was the highest goals minus expected goals value in the league (read: overperformance). Unfortunately for Houston, Ordóñez was ranked third in that overperformance measure, having scored 0.71 goals on 0.24 xG per 96’ mark. We should expect some regression to the mean for these players, which might translate to fewer goals scored.
María Sánchez will also be a player to watch in Houston’s attacking third. Sánchez was second on the entire Dash roster in passing goals added in 2022, though the player ahead of her (Julia Ashley, CB) only played 172 minutes. Sánchez also recorded two goals and four assists last season, which was her first full season in the NWSL.
Sánchez, who is known for her signature footwork on the flanks, led the team in crosses into the penalty area in 2022. We should expect her to do that again this season, especially now that one of her targets will be 5’11” Ordóñez, who also happens to be her Mexican women’s national teammate. Both Sánchez and Ordóñez will be available for the Dash through the 2023 World Cup window, considering Mexico failed to qualify last summer. Heartbreaking for both players, but very good for Houston.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Nichelle Prince in this discussion of the Dash attack. Unfortunately, Prince tore her Achilles in the offseason during a Canadian women’s national team friendly and will be unavailable this season. Prince was second in scoring and assists for the Dash last year, with five goals and three assists. She posted the second-highest xG+xA value (0.40) of all Houston players who recorded at least 1000 minutes in 2022. Her injury is a huge loss to this Houston team, but hopefully for them, Ordóñez will make up for at least some of it.
A high defensive line
Houston conceded 27 goals last season, which came out to 1.14 goals against per game. That’s actually their best mark since 2016 (i.e., as far back as our database goes). Digging into the numbers a little more, Houston ranked second-to-last on total clearances last season, but first in interceptions. They also led the league in offsides provoked. An ‘offsides provoked’ event is awarded to the last defender when an attacker is called offside.
From this, we could conclude that Houston played a high line last year, and also that they likely conceded a high xG per shot. Case in point, the Dash conceded 0.11 xG per shot last season, which was tied for second-highest with Gotham, and only behind Washington Spirit. That’s a rough look for the Dash, considering Washington and Gotham were in 11th and 12th place, respectively, at the end of last season. Regardless, the Dash gave up a total of 26.69 xG per game, but only allowed 25 goals. That put them right in the middle of the pack in G-xG last season.
Thinking about the ways in which this Dash backline will attack, we should expect their full backs, Allysha Chapman (Courtney Peterson/Natalie Jacobs) and Caprice Dydasco (Madelyn Desiano/Jacobs) to play many crosses into the box this season. Last year, they ranked fourth to last in total crosses across all teams. This season, the Dash have one of the tallest field players in the league (Ordóñez) as the target of those crosses, so it’s likely they might send more crosses in. Ordóñez scored five of her 11 goals off of headers last season, and took the second-most header shots, only behind Taylor Kornieck of the San Diego Wave.
I should mention, though, that it won’t matter how many goals this team scores if they can’t keep the ball out of the back of their own net.
Puzzling goalkeeper decisions
Jane Campbell has been Houston’s go-to ‘keeper for a while now. She’s played over 1500 minutes in net for the Dash in every single season since she was drafted 15th overall in 2017. There’s no doubt that she’s a leader on this team.
That aside, some of her numbers make me wonder whether it’s time the Dash move on from their Campbell era. Barring her 2021 season, Campbell has gotten progressively in total goals added per 96’. She also posted the worst total and shot stopping goals added values of her career last season.
Campbell conceded 1.10 goals per 96’ last season, which is actually closer to the top of her career rankings. That’s less positive, however, when one considers that terrible shotstopping goals added value (-0.12 per 96’). For reference, Racing Louisville’s Katie Lund, who was statistically the best ‘keeper in many categories last season, posted a 0.35 goals added per 96’ value in 2022. Given all of this, it’s hard for me to understand why Houston is so committed to Campbell.
Despite all the data, I highly doubt we’ll see anyone else between the sticks this season. Ella Dederick is listed as ‘SEI’ (i.e., season-ending injury) on the Dash’s final 2023 roster, and Devon Kerr, who signed a one-year contract with the Dash back in January after being part of Washington’s depth chart, seems to be an eternal back-up goalkeeper. She joined the Dash as a non-roster invitee in 2019, but never actually saw the field until 2022, when she played for Washington. In 308 minutes, Kerr faced eight shots and conceded three goals on 2.02 xG. Obviously this sample size is too small to tell whether Kerr is good or bad, but she hasn’t exactly put up dazzling numbers so far.
The optimist in me says that Houston will make the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. Returning a veteran group of players and adding solid pieces are positive ingredients in a postseason recipe. Houston’s goalkeeper situation paired with attacking ~regression~ are not, but there’s probably no stopping either of those!
Huge shoutout to Theo Lloyd-Hughes and Kieran Doyle for the help with this one!
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight
By Kim McCauley
Welcome to Year 4 of the Orlando Pride vicious cycle!
Step 1: Team is rebuilding, but is young and has upside
Step 2: Unforeseen turmoil of some variety emerges
Step 3: Talented young players leave the team as a result of said turmoil
Step 4: Repeat Steps 1-3
And as a result, the Pride are never able to put together a solid foundation of core players to build upon. But they’re clearly hoping that this year ends that cycle, with Seb Hines taking charge of his first full season at head coach after taking over as interim boss in the middle of last season, and former NWSL goalkeeper Haley Carter taking over as GM.
I don’t expect Orlando to compete for a playoff spot this season, but they have a lot of super talented pieces, and could be on the first step of building something great. If they can ever keep things stable enough to get past the first step, that is.
Keeping it a buck, they need to get better at everything
This is pretty grim stuff.
So, the respectable parts. They had some dribbly gals that could skip past people. They didn’t settle for crosses too often. They didn’t waste good attacks getting caught offside. But I can’t even bring myself to get upset about the positive stuff. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t settle for crosses because they didn’t get the ball close to the box very often at all. They probably weren’t offside much because they lacked threats to run in behind. And the departures of Darian Jenkins and Courtney Peterson mean they lose a decent chunk of that dribbling ability.
There’s no picking up where they left off, continuing to build on what they started for Orlando. They need fresh ideas with fresh people.
Here’s a fun map of this team’s mental shifts
Orlando’s season was a bit of a roller-coaster, to say the least. They had a poor opener against Gotham, but looked to be on a path to playoff contention through 6 games, with 8 points and a positive xG differential. But then things went sour — some players accused the coaching staff of improper favoritism towards others, and a league investigation found that Amanda Cromwell and Sam Greene inappropriately retaliated against those players.
The team’s rolling xG differential tells a great story.
Cromwell was placed on leave after a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of the Houston Dash, and things got worse before they got better, with the Pride’s 6-0 loss to the Portland Thorns being arguably the worst performance by any team last season. But Seb Hines turned things around after that, with the Pride going on a run of 7 games unbeaten, clawing their way back into playoff contention.
But tough losses to Shield contenders OL Reign and Portland Thorns brought Orlando back down to earth, and they went scoreless in 4 of their last 5 games, slumping to 10th in the table and killing any momentum that Hines was hoping to carry into this year.
There are so many unknowns here
We’ll get to the players who we actually have some good data for in a bit, but the most interesting players on the Pride are the ones for whom the data from other leagues may or may not translate well.
The Pride will be hoping to get a big boost to their attack from 26-year-old left winger Adriana, who scored 9 goals for Brazil in 2022. Some of them were bangers, like her most recent one against Italy:
Her 9 goals came from 5.36 xG on WyScout’s model, and she had a solid but certainly not outstanding 0.48 xG per 90. WyScout doesn’t have all of her club games for Corinthians tagged, but on the ones they do have, she was similar — 7 goals from 6.53 xG and 0.38 xG per 90 in the available sample. We have enough information to hypothesize that she gets into good shooting positions and finishes her chances at an above-average level, though she was almost certainly quite lucky for her national team.
Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that she brings much to the team outside of that. Her 0.09 xA per 90 in the club sample and 0.05 in all national team games is pretty well below par for a winger on a good team. About 4 completed dribbles per 90 at about a 50% success rate is fine, but not elite. Nothing stands out about her defensive, aerial or passing stats. Her success or lack thereof is probably going to depend entirely on whether or not her teammates are good at getting her the ball in the box.
Orlando is also going to be giving a lot of minutes to rookies, perhaps more than anyone else in the league. A quick rundown:
Emily Madril was highly regarded at Florida State, but spent last fall getting a total of 90 minutes in 4 appearances at BK Hacken in Sweden. I think she’s a great prospect, and I’m excited to see if she’s as aggressive carrying the ball forward from the back as she was in college, but I haven’t seen her play a full game in 18 months.
I think Messiah Bright was a steal at 21st overall and will evolve into an above average starting striker, but she had an off year in her senior campaign. She put 51% of her shots on target and scored 17% of them in 2021, but those numbers dropped to 39% and 12% respectively in 2022.
Tori Hansen was a monster in the air last year, winning 6 aerials per 90 at a 70% success rate, according to InStat, but it was her only year as a starter in college.
Summer Yates has a lengthy USYNT pedigree and her counting stats pass a quick eye test — 7 goals, 6 assists, 55 shots, 30 shots on target in 19 games. But she doesn’t offer anything defensively, and in 2022 NWSL, that means you won’t keep a job as a midfielder.
Kristen Scott is a decent goal-scoring winger, but that’s the only position where Orlando has some depth, so I don’t think she sees the field much.
These players are all big talents, but I think they’re also big projects. Hines and his staff will have quite a bit of work to do in order to turn them into players that can be core pieces for a playoff team.
Sheesh, you’re a Negative Nancy. Is there a good scenario?
Yeah, plenty. NWSL is a high variance league by nature — see last year’s first to worst plunge by the Washington Spirit — and Orlando is no different.
Marta returns from a torn ACL, and there isn’t a single soul on earth who can predict what that means. She’s 37 and coming off a major injury, but also the GOAT. She could be the catalyst that makes every player on the team better.
18-year-old Haley Bugeja, who barely played last year, could be ready for primetime. She had a 12-goal season in Serie A as a teenager, so a breakout season for her wouldn’t be that weird. Mikayla Cluff, Kerry Abello and Julie Doyle all had similar rookie seasons — inconsistent, but showed flashes of promise in a decent amount of playing time. It would not be strange at all if all three of them took a step forward and played at an above-average NWSL starter level.
I don’t know which of Anna Moorhouse, Kaylie Collins or Carly Nelson will start the most games in goal for Orlando, but I am confident they’ll give the team a boost. The once excellent Erin McLeod had a disastrous campaign, and was the weakest keeper in the league by ASA’s Goals Added, with -11.45 in total over 2180 minutes. She was also the worst on a per-90 basis among goalkeepers who made at least 4 starts. I don’t know what those 3 are capable of, but I think they can do better.
That’s all a lot of speculation and hopium, though. I cannot make a data-backed case for why Orlando will be better this season than they were last year. The best they can hope for is a lucky dice roll and some player development to set them on a good path forward for the following years.
The Big Red Star in the Crest? That’s Mallory Swanson
By Ben Bellman
In many ways, Red Stars fans have plenty to be happy about from their 2022 season. The team earned the 6th and final seed in the NWSL playoffs, and the underlying numbers say they earned it; ASA’s expected points metric also ranks them 6th based on the shots that teams made and conceded across the course of the year.
However, I’m noticing something that would really stick in my craw if I were a fan or a member of the club: the San Diego Wave. The Wave bounced the Red Stars in the first round of playoffs with an Alex Morgan winner in extra time to cap a wide open thriller, but that was only one chapter of disappointment for Chicago. In the second game of the regular season, San Diego just worked them at home, with Ava Cook’s consolation goal in stoppage masking a shockingly poor statistical performance by the Red Stars. And when the Red Stars hosted the Wave in late July, one lone opportunity by Jaedyn Shaw was enough to keep San Diego afloat in a game they should have conceded two goals by both xG and g+, even after going down to 10 players in the 60th minute. After tasting distinct flavors of disappointment in each of their 2022 matches against the Wave, these matches must be circled on their 2023 calendar.
You might be asking, why the focus on the Wave? Well, the Red Stars play the Wave in the season opener, but more importantly - these matches were extremely emblematic of Chicago’s 2022 season. Some good moments, enough to be competitive, but never enough to get the job done.
So how about 2023?
They ain’t getting the job done. The Red Stars culminated their 2022 season by letting Morgan Gautrat, Vanessa DiBernardo, Dani Colaprico all walk in free agency. That’s a *lot* of minutes. To be precise, 40% of their total minutes in 2022 aren’t coming back. Gautrat didn’t play much last year but was a locked in top tier progressor and ball winner before that, while DiBernardo and Colaprico have been career solid innings eaters or better for Chicago. In fact, one of those three have been Chicago’s minutes leader in midfield every single season since 2017 (Where VDB gets beat out by Ertz by like, 10 minutes). End of an era.
In their stead arrive Brazilian international midfielder Julia Bianchi, Cari Roccaro via salary cap relieving trade from Angel City, draft pick Sophie Jones, and the waived Taylor Malham and Addie McCain. We don’t have great data on Bianchi, but six passes into the final third (two into the penalty area) and four interceptions per game are pretty impressive - with some heavy league strength caveats. Roccaro struggled in her time at Angel City and is maybe more suited to a back up role than the heavy minutes she might have to play in the Chicago midfield. People are high on Jones, but she traditionally played much more attacking roles for Duke - while Malham and McCain have limited sample to go off, and the sample that is there is suboptimal for a team looking to make a push. If you have questions about the Red Stars, they should be aimed here.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. While the team certainly downgraded their midfield over the past few months, returning players will give their defense a boost. National team center back, Tierna Davidson, missed all of last season due to an ACL injury and should be back to fitness. Fullback Casey Short, on the other hand, will make a return after pregnancy. In the last year they both played (2021), Chicago’s xGA was third best in the league (1.14 xG allowed per game), while it was middle of the pack in 2022 with both of them out (1.31 xG allowed per game). The relatively inexperienced players who stepped up (Tatumn Millazo, Zoe Morse – who has since left for Brighton, Amanda Kowalski, etc.) had big shoes to fill in their absence, but they held it down as best they could. However, with both Davidson and Short in the running for the World Cup roster, these players possibly still get extensive playing time.
Chicago is also returning veteran goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher for her eighth season as a Red Star. She’ll undoubtedly bring experience and leadership to this squad, but it’s worth mentioning that she had the worst statistical season of her career last season. Naeher conceded a goal every 3.5 shots on average, which put her right in the middle of the starting ‘keeper pack. Despite that seemingly average stat, she had the fourth-worst goals minus expected goals value of all goalkeepers who played at least 1000 minutes last season (0.13 per 96’, tied with Houston’s Jane Campbell). Despite all of this, Naeher hasn’t always put up such lackluster numbers. Last season was Naeher’s worst by goals minus expected goals, and before 2022 Naeher had never put up a negative total goals added per 96’ value. All this is to say it’s possible that Naeher will come into 2023 in better form, especially because this is a World Cup year. The Red Stars and their new-look midfield might end up leaning on her a lot this year, so I’m sure they hope so.
On the Bright Side
Lol Mal the GOAT. Rename the award to the MalVP. Most Valuable Pugh Swanson.
Swanson put in a statistical monster of a season in 2022 when she wasn’t on international duty:
In 19 matches, she generated nearly four goals with her dribbling alone, while the rest of the roster barely broke even moving with the ball at their feet. Swanson also contributed a third of the team’s shooting value, and a quarter of the team’s receiving value in that span. But passing is clearly a weakness in her game, often settling for low xG shots over high risk passes leading to better chances, or dribbling into cul-de-sacs and having to pass backwards. Swanson’s passes lost the Red Stars about a goal’s worth of possession-value, leaving her team with less than three net goals added from passing. This is definitely an area for her to improve on, but it’s hard to be critical of the worlds-largest-backpack carry job that was her 2022 season. This team needs more connective passing, and with the 2023 season here, whether the midfield can provide it is a huge question. Today, they face the very same Wave team that symbolized all of 2022, and despite Swanson’s brilliance, the task seems even tougher this season. Chicago should be in the playoff hunt, but don’t bet on them being a title contender in 2023 unless the roster gets more help.