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National Women’s Soccer League Expansion Draft continues to grow the game

  1. Photo courtesy of National Women’s Soccer League
Michaela Hyde and Alexa Hyde
Connector Staff

This week marks a major moment in professional women’s soccer. The National Women’s Soccer League, the NWSL, added an additional team to its existing members, bringing the total up to ten through a series of trades culminating with today’s Expansion Draft.

The NWSL, founded in 2012, is the third attempted league in a line of professional women’s soccer leagues; following the fold of the Women’s United Soccer Association, the WUSA in 2003 and Women’s Professional Soccer, the WPS in 2012. The original eight, Boston Breakers, Western New York Flash, Sky Blue FC, Washington Spirit, Chicago Red Stars, FC Kansas City, Portland Thorns, and Seattle Reign, established with the start of the league, consist of players scattered across the United States and from around the world. In 2013, the league had established itself enough to create a ninth team, the Houston Dash, which played its first inaugural season the following year. With the creation of a new team, what needs to occur are trades. This lead to an Expansion Draft, where the newest established team is able to select players from other team’s rosters to establish their own, and the College Draft.

With the popularity and media reach of the FIFA 2015 Women’s World Cup, the frenzy created by the gold medal run of the United States Women’s National Team, enough stability has been created for the league to launch a tenth team, the newly minted Pride FC based in Orlando, FL. The success of the addition of the Houston Dash laid the groundwork for the Pride to enter the NWSL, as was announced October 20th.

What occurs when a new team is added to the league? Well, following the announcement of the formation of the Pride, major trades in the NWSL started to occur.

On October 26, Orlando acquired U.S. Women’s National Team forward Alex Morgan and Canadian Women’s National Team defender Kaylyn Kyle from the Portland Thorns, as well as forward Sarah Hagen from FC Kansas City in exchange for College Draft picks and an Expansion Draft pick. Seattle Reign picked up Meghan Klingenberg, U.S. Women’s National Team defender and member of the Houston Dash, in exchange for midfielder Amber Brooks and a College Draft pick.

The Boston Breakers gave up midfielder Dagny Brynjarsdottir to the Portland Thorns in exchange for midfielders McCall Zerboni and Sinead Farrelly, and both teams traded College Draft picks and overall selections.

When the news of the Expansion Draft broke, what followed was each team releasing lists of protected and unprotected players as well as the draft procedures.

The rules of the Expansion Draft are simple. Three minutes were allotted to the Orlando Pride to choose their ten draft picks. The player pool they had to choose from came from any affiliated NWSL player. Existing teams were allowed to place nine to ten players on their protected list, with a maximum of two allocated United States national team players per team able to be protected.

The Orlando Pride, however, could draft at most two players per team or a single allocated player from each club. The Expansion Draft occurred on November 2nd, and results of the Draft have been released.

With the results of the Expansion Draft, Orlando Pride FC has established a solid base to kick off their season, featuring FIFA 2015 Women’s World Cup gold medalists Alex Morgan, forward, and Ashlyn Harris, goalkeeper, as well as Canadian World Cup player, Kaylyn Kyle, defender. From the Draft, the Pride gained Harris, a Florida native, from the Washington Spirit with the number two Draft pick. With the number three pick, Orlando selected Taryn Hemmings, defender, from the Chicago Red Stars. They acquired Jasmyne Spencer and Jamia Fields, both forwards, from Western New York Flash in their fourth and fifth picks, respectively. Cami Levin, a defender, joined the Pride from Sky Blue FC in the sixth round of selections. English national team forward Lianne Sanderson took the number seven draft pick spot. The Pride gained additional Florida native Toni Pressley, another defender, from the Houston Dash. Maddy Evans, defender, was taken from the Boston Breakers in the ninth round. Finally, Audrey Bledsoe of Sky Blue FC was added as the tenth and final draft pick and will serve as backup goalkeeper to Ashlyn Harris. Are you wondering where the number one pick ended up? Due to the major trade involved to get Alex Morgan to Florida, the first round pick Meghan Klingenberg was taken from Seattle Reign by the Orlando Pride and then promptly traded to the Portland Thorns, making her a member of four NWSL teams in two weeks.

Now that the Expansion Draft has concluded, what’s next for the NWSL? To prepare for the 2016 play season, teams can continue to trade at their discretion, and the 2016 NWSL College Draft will be occurring at a currently undisclosed date. The National Women’s Soccer League season officially begins in March of 2016, with the Orlando Pride playing in its inaugural season.

 

UMass Lowell Political Science. Social Media Editor. Politics and professional sports. Media and makeup. Follow @kaylaaakaliope for endless sports rants.

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