NWSL 2020 Mini-Previews: North Carolina, Sky Blue, and Chicago

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The eighth season of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was supposed to kick off on April 18th. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the beginning of the season has been postponed until shrugs, well…eventually… someday… we hope. We’re hard at work creating full season previews, but while we wait for games to start up, we wanted to give fellow woso fans a little something to read. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing some of what we’re thinking about in hopes of starting conversations about the upcoming season now. Think of these as the previews of our previews.

Our first set of teams are all in very different places coming into this season. One hopes to continue dominance. Another’s offseason changes potentially signal a new chapter for the club. The third must find a way to cope with the glaring departure of arguably their most important player.

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2020 Season Preview: Houston Dynamo

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2020 Season Preview: Houston Dynamo

Mauro Manotas and Alberth Elis are still in Houston.

Despite numerous rumors extending back multiple years, neither of the Dynamo’s attacking duo was sold this offseason. The Dynamo, then, will mostly run it back this season, this being perhaps their last shot to maximize the value of their attacking stars. Outside of a handful of acquisitions, this will mostly be the same team that has missed the playoffs the last two years.

One key difference: Tab Ramos, not Wilmer Cabrera, is the coach. Ramos is more likely to incorporate young players and is expected to play a more cohesive, front-foot style. Cabrera spent the first year of his tenure playing a counter-attacking 4-3-3, then switched to a more possession-based style in 2018 and 2019, with unfavorable results.

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2020 Season Preview: NYCFC

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2020 Season Preview: NYCFC

Look, if we do this whole preview in serious pundit voice there’s going to be nothing to say about New York City Football Club. They're the exact same team as last season! Which was pretty much the same team as the season before that! They’ve been good for years, and if you’re crazy enough to bet on MLS you’d have to be even crazier not to bet on them being good again this year. Like some jerk wrote, boringly, on this website a couple of months ago, there’s no reason NYCFC shouldn’t be a playoff team in 2020.

But screw that, right? There’s a reason nobody likes Nate Silver. You know who everyone likes, deep down, whether they want to work through this uncomfortable personal truth with their therapist or not, is very loud men who go on TV to yell their loud sports takes loudly. And if those men gave even one tiny airborne molecule of a crap about American club soccer, boy would they have some news for you: NYCFC is not going to make the playoffs this season. Not even close! In fact, you’re an idiot for ever thinking they might.

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