Episode 42 - Nobody on the Valkyries Can Slow Down Angel Reese

Alex: Game two, we got to talk about Angel Reese hitting 30 points, 16 rebounds, the third to do 30 and 15 plus in a Finals game, behind Stewie and Jonquel Jones.

Caitlin: Hi, I’m Caitlin.

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex.

Caitlin: And this is Raising the Game, a women’s sports podcast covering primetime performers, the business behind the athletes and leagues, and what the growth of women’s sports means for the next generation of women’s athletes.

Alex: Episode 42, and we’re recording a little bit later, which means we have extra to talk about in the WNBA.

Caitlin: Yeah. And we could say that we did it, so we would have two playoff games from the final series. But in reality, we had to shuffle because of the reason I lost my voice.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: So if I sound weird, I’ll explain in just a second.

Alex: We’ll get there. We’ll get there. We have that. We have U.S. Women’s National Team. We did not yet talk about game two yet. Feels like a year ago that game happened. And we are down to two games left in the NWSL season.

Caitlin: Yes, we’re getting down to the wire, and there’s again chaos, I think, is how we’ve been describing it. It was how I saw it described by many folks who follow the NWSL over the course of the week. So a lot of movement that could happen there, but we will be very close to knowing how those playoffs are going to shape up by the end of this coming weekend. And we’ll talk a little bit more about playoff format and things like that.

Alex: I started writing down all the different scenarios for that final spot, and I was like, we’re only going to do some of these today, because it’s just, it’s too much.

Caitlin: So many, which is great, right? Like, we talked a lot about the parity in the league, and I think it’s fun when you get down to the wire and it’s not predetermined who’s going to be in the playoffs.

Alex: All right, and also just a reminder, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, heart, share, comment, repost, all those things. Yeah, just help us out there.

Why Caitlin Lost Her Voice: A Section Semifinal Shootout

Caitlin: Absolutely. Favorite thing?

Alex: I was thinking about this earlier, and I mean, the WNBA Finals have been fun. That’s kind of a given. But I thought it was really funny. Last night you are coaching, I’ll give it away why she lost her voice, she’s coaching the game and I’m getting these updates from your voice-to-text watch about what’s happening, and every 15 minutes it was like another thing and another thing. I don’t want to steal it from you, but I’m assuming that might be your favorite thing.

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah. So I’m a little hoarse from screaming, mostly at the end of our section semifinal last night. So there’s kind of a play-in tournament to the overall state tournament here in Minnesota. We are in a particularly difficult section, and we were playing a huge rival of ours going all the way back to my time playing at my alma mater. And long story short, we came back from 1-0 down, game-tying goal late in the game, so like huge momentum shift, then we have to go to overtime. It’s two 10-minute periods, no break in between, like you just flip sides. And then we were tied after overtime, so we went into a shootout. And I’ve mentioned before on the podcast, I am a former goalkeeper. I loathe shootouts. I think most people do, because it’s just…

Alex: It’s the worst way to go, if you have to go.

Caitlin: It really is.

Alex: Especially if you are a higher ranked team and it just happens to get there. It feels like…

Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, we went into a shootout. I coach our goalkeeper. I’m kind of a nervous wreck while she’s doing her thing. I’m like, you know, obviously I want our shooters to do well too. But I lost my voice because I was screaming, and we ended up winning in the eighth shot in a shootout. Which, if shootouts are already stressful, you start with five shooters, you kind of get to whoever gets the most out of five. If you’re tied, sudden death shoot-off.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And we got to shooter number eight. So you can imagine, you got to the end of the five, which was already stressful.

Alex: Do or die.

Caitlin: Do or die by the end, right? And then it’s like six, do or die, seven, do or die, and then eight. It was a lot.

Alex: There’s a video her dad took of her that has her chewing gum just aggressively and talking to herself until finally it happens and the game’s over.

Caitlin: Yes, yes. And goalkeeper came up big. She had three big saves in the shootout, which is a lot. She did great. So we are going on to the finals tomorrow night, which will be last night by the time you are here in this episode. So we’ll see what happens. We get to play the number one team in the state before we get to the state tournament. Fun for us.

Alex: Yeah. It’ll be a breeze after that. It’ll be a breeze.

Headlines: Kansas City Attendance, the Crest Cup, and FIFA Candidates

Alex: All right, let’s go into headlines. Let’s do it. After 40 straight sellouts at CPKC Stadium, the KC Current seek to set a home attendance record of 18,000 plus this weekend when they take on Washington.

Caitlin: Yeah, so we first saw this and we were like, wait, that stadium seats about 11…

Alex: Five, I think.

Caitlin: Oh, I thought it was four.

Alex: It’s 11,500.

Caitlin: Okay. So like not a ton. We were like, how are they going to do this? Well, what they’re trying to do is, I think they’re calling it Pack the Plaza or something. So there’s a plaza where they’re going to allow people basically standing room. And then you can watch games on big screens or whatever. I’m sure there’s vantage points to see the field. But pretty cool. I also think that that game has implications for the Current to clinch a playoff berth, so important for them.

Alex: U.S. Soccer announces the Arthur M. Blank Crest Cup, which will feature clubs from the NWSL and USL Super League and begin in 2028.

Caitlin: So this is really cool. This kind of models after, on the men’s side in England, they do the FA Cup, where you play different levels or league tiers of clubs will play one another. I think it’s great. I do have, and there’ll be another headline in a minute, of like, how much volume of play can we actually sustain here? I mean, in some other leagues, specifically men’s leagues, they play quite a bit, but there’s reasons why we need to be asking that question on the women’s side, namely because they have not had access to resources and research, frankly, which we’ve talked about here on the pod. So a curiosity that came on the heels of something that I think sounds like it could be really cool.

Alex: WNBA announces Nneka Ogwumike as the 2026 Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award winner, making her a league record five-time award winner and a back-to-back honoree.

Caitlin: I mean, are we surprised?

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: No. Madam President, I feel like this is just like, so that’s additional flowers for you. Your bouquet is huge now. They did also announce the All-Rookie and the All-Defensive teams, which we will talk about in our WNBA segment. Still waiting on the All-WNBA teams, though.

Alex: They’re gonna announce it tomorrow while we’re trying to edit this.

Caitlin: They probably are.

Alex: Michelle Kang and Lise Klaveness are named as UEFA’s candidates for next FIFA president.

Caitlin: Great, yes. Let’s get a woman in there. A very qualified woman at that. So both of these women, we’ve talked about Michelle Kang quite a bit. She owns the Washington Spirit, the London City Lionesses, and OL Lyonnes. I think more important, though, is her advocacy. She has the Kynisca research group. She is the founder of the Kang Women’s Foundation or something of that nature. But just her advocacy for women in sports and specifically football has been the one she’s kind of chosen to lean into. She could be an incredible leader of that organization. Now, FIFA obviously is much larger than just women’s football. That’s why the second candidate here is really interesting, because Lise Klaveness actually has been leading the overall Norwegian football association. So men’s and women’s sides, both sides having significant success over the years, right? Their men’s team this last World Cup did quite well. She also was the one who I think really rallied the troops when all that drama was going down within FIFA, Infantino and the buy-in or whatever that whole…

Alex: Pushner and all that stuff.

Caitlin: But she was the one that was like, no, no, we UEFA are not okay with this. She kind of called that out right away and got that letter out saying we will boycott. Certainly has a spine on her, and we appreciate that in our leaders.

Alex: And NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman confirms the league plans to continue expansion, targeting two more teams after they add Atlanta and Columbus in 2028.

Caitlin: Yeah. So this is, there’s actually a lot that we’ll probably go into once we kind of hit off-season, on the growth plans that they have for the NWSL. There’s many different lanes we can talk about. But she did share this. Speculation is kind of running rampant around, like, does it start to split into an East versus West, which we just saw announced for the PWHL. In the U.S., that is super because of how geographically large the country is. So travel starts to become a real challenge as far as it pertains to player safety and things like that.

So this is also, though, where I go: how do you continue to add games without guaranteeing the infrastructure, which is everything from training staff to facilities to even the research? Like I said, and we’re already seeing the highest incidents of injuries, specifically season-ending injuries, for these players. So again, broader discussion we want to have, but something that keeps kind of hanging in the back of my head as I see these headlines come through. Because you want the expansion, right? And you want the growth, and we are obviously very big proponents of that, but at the same time, you want it done in the right way that again supports and protects the players.

Alex: That’s something that came up when we first started talking about it. I worry that it’s some of these richer people pushing for growth for growth’s sake. How do we get as close to the EPL or MLS or whatever it is? Because we want the money.

Caitlin: Quicker, right? So exactly.

PWHL: Corinne Schroeder’s Injury and the World Championship

Alex: In PWHL news, presumptive San Jose starting goaltender Corinne Schroeder seen leaving Canadian national team training in a wheelchair and boot.

Caitlin: Yes. I think it’s Schroeder is how you pronounce it.

Alex: That’s okay.

Caitlin: Yeah, according to Team Canada’s head coach, this was an off-ice injury during warmups.

Alex: I’m like…

Caitlin: How do you end up in a wheelchair and a boot? What were you doing?

Alex: Kicked a soccer ball into the wall or something.

Caitlin: Like honestly, because they do a lot of soccer ball juggling and stuff. It’s very common for hockey players to do that. And I’m just like, that sucks. So impact for San Jose, not a huge impact for Team Canada. Obviously their starting goaltender is the wall of Montreal, Ann-Renée Desbiens. But it is a good opportunity for us to remind you about the IIHF World Championships coming up here, as almost like a little appetizer to the PWHL season. So end of October, early November, there’s some friendlies being played between Team Canada and Team USA. One will be played in Michigan end of October, and then the other one is played, I think, in Montreal. It’s in Canada somewhere. And then they all ship off to Denmark for about 10 days.

Alex: And then come back two days later.

Caitlin: Yep. Someone will be crowned the world champion, and then they’ll come back and two days later PWHL training camp starts. So buckle up, folks, hockey is almost here.

Alex: It’s almost here. Super Bowl festivities this year will feature a women’s flag football tournament.

Caitlin: This is really cool, and we have highlighted a few times the partnership that the NFL is trying to have, specifically with girls and women’s flag football. But I think the other thing to keep in mind is that flag football will be an Olympic sport at the LA 28 Olympic Games. There are certain criteria that each federation kind of has to meet in order to field teams. And so there’s a big push here.

Now I also think that, as we’ve talked about before, the NFL is trying to figure out, like, how do they continue to grow? And I think what they’re seeing is, oh, there’s a wave happening in women’s sports. How do we get into that?

Alex: Yeah, for sure.

Caitlin: Right. So I think that’ll be really cool. I know our oldest is highly interested in flag football. But they call it the Grand Slam of Flag. It’ll feature six international women’s teams, half a million dollars in prize money. And again, just part of this push really to grow the sport ahead of the 28 Olympics.

The Six-Player WNBA All-Rookie Team

Alex: Yeah. All right, let’s talk about these Finals. Before we do, we have a couple of team announcements. We had the All-Defensive team and All-Rookie team. Let me just read off the All-Rookie team first.

Caitlin: Yeah, let’s talk about it.

Alex: And it’s going to get interesting. You’re going to notice how many names I say on this first one here. Pauline Astier, Azzi Fudd, Flau’jae Johnson, Olivia Miles, Kiki Rice, and Sydney Taylor. So if you’re counting, that’s six. That’s one extra. So what happened here?

Caitlin: There are many theories out there. So just for the record, normally there’s five, because you put five players on a court for basketball. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that, but I know that some of our audience members are newer to these sports, and so maybe that doesn’t seem that odd to you. Six is a choice. I am very curious, and I think I’m not alone, in wondering why.

If I look at the list, Miles is obvious, right? She won Rookie of the Year.

Alex: Azzi is probably pretty obvious.

Caitlin: Potentially. I think Flau’jae is definitely in there. She had a fantastic season. The Storm obviously struggled, but she was consistent. She grew over the course of the season too and had an impact on that team. I think Astier’s impact for the New York Liberty during the regular season was significant. And then I think you can’t not acknowledge what Sydney Taylor did as far as momentum for the Chicago Sky. I mean, she hit two poster-worthy, game-winning three-pointers. She’s that undrafted rookie, which is just a cool story, battling for a space in the W, right?

I think where I get a little like, what is Kiki Rice and Azzi Fudd both missed significant portions of the season. Not to take away from what they did contribute, because they both were big contributors to their respective teams. But I’m like, there were definitely other rookies that played a lot more. But I guess maybe the argument then would be how important they were to the team. And I would actually argue, having watched the Wings and the Tempo, that I do think the Wings were better when Azzi’s on the floor. I do think the Tempo were better when Rice was on the floor. So maybe that’s the delineation and they just couldn’t find a tiebreaker.

Alex: I thought it was interesting having Astier and Sydney Taylor as both undrafted technically, but also technically not rookies, because they played EuroLeague. So, yeah, rookies to the league. So it’s kind of, I think it’s a little bit weird there. But then I think the stat I saw was, undrafted rookie, SDT starts 34 of 40 games, which is just incredible.

Caitlin: You can’t discount her impact. I mean, we saw her too, like multiple times, just bottle up Olivia Miles, which proved to be a very difficult thing to do for most people, not just teams, like people. And she did a great job of that when we played the Liberty throughout the season and then also obviously in the playoffs. But yeah, I just think it’s funny and I really, I would love to be a fly on the wall when they’re deciding this. And it’s like, well, we have a tie, so we’ll just do both and there’s no way to break the tie.

Alex: Yeah. Like, do it.

Caitlin: Are we doing participation awards?

Alex: Maybe.

The 2026 All-Defensive Teams and the Missing Lynx

Alex: All right, let’s do this All-Defensive team. We’ll do both here. We have the first and second team. First team, we had Shakira Austin, Rhyne Howard, Angel Reese, Gabby Williams, and A’ja Wilson. Second team was Veronica Burton, Jordin Canada, Sonia Citron, Breanna Stewart, and Kiah Stokes. Citron. You’re like Citron. It sounds like you’re talking about Patron.

And my takeaway from this is, between the two teams, the Dream and the Valks, both our Finals teams, each have three players. So they make up six of the 10 spots on these two teams.

Caitlin: And then I think you see the representation too of the Mystics, who also were a challenge, primarily, I think, rebounding wise, but they definitely affected folks from a defensive perspective, with Austin on first team and Citron on second team.

What I think is interesting here, and I mentioned this to you a little bit before we were prepping, is the Lynx were one of the better defensive teams in the regular season. There’s not a single Lynx player on this list. Kayla McBride was in the top five in steals. And again, we’ve talked ad nauseam about how she takes on top defensive assignment. She often is successful in doing that. Not necessarily in holding somebody to no points, but like disrupting their game plan.

So I think that’s interesting overall. Though I looked at these two teams and I was like, yep, checks the boxes. I was going through and pulling some stats and I’m like, okay, looking at steals per game. One, two, and three are all from the Atlanta Dream. And that is gonna come up when we talk about this playoff series. But you had Rhyne Howard leading the league. That’s really impressive, folks. That’s very good. Jordin Canada, she was on second team, but second in the league in steals with 1.9. And Angel Reese hot on her heels with 1.8 per game. But we all know now, hopefully everybody knows now, how good of an on-ball defender Angel is on one through five. She’s not just guarding the big, she can poke it away from the point guards.

Alex: I kind of feel like had the Liberty been a little bit better earlier in the season, you might see Stewie move up to that first team. I think she did well most of the year, but just because of their little bit of struggles early, they didn’t really, these kind of tend to go towards those players on better teams a lot of the time. And so I just think that she probably could have moved up there had they been better.

Caitlin: Yeah, a hundred percent.

Alex: Definitely proved it during the playoffs, but too bad it’s a regular season award.

Caitlin: Right, right. Do you want to throw out your speculation for All-WNBA, since we don’t have it yet? We can be proven wrong.

Alex: Hopefully this is like…

Caitlin: A manifesting that it gets released.

Alex: Yeah. I think Angel’s on there. It’s hard because I’m trying to go through all the positions.

Caitlin: I have my first team like locked down.

Alex: I think you got Olivia.

Caitlin: Yep.

Alex: I think you got Kelsey Mitchell.

Caitlin: Yep. A’ja. Yep. What am I missing here? Oh, I don’t know.

Alex: Caitlin, maybe? Maybe too many guards. Oh, well, I guess you get three.

Caitlin: Yeah. But you got, I mean, I don’t necessarily think they pick the teams based off of all the positions, because you can have different lineups, but I would put Stewie in that fifth spot personally. I think from a criticality to team, individual performance piece.

Alex: You get a coach on the floor too.

Caitlin: And you get a two for one, you get a coach. And kind of going to the positional piece, that’s kind of where my head went to. And then I think, first of all, I think it’s really hard. Like the level of talent in the league is so high, right? That discerning between who should be on the first team and the second team is a huge challenge. I don’t envy anybody that.

I think on that second team, you’re probably looking at a Gabby Williams, Clark, if she’s not on that first team, a Bueckers.

Alex: I was gonna say, you put Paige.

Caitlin: I think from a bigs perspective, this was where like…

Alex: Jonquel.

Caitlin: Maybe Jonquel Jones, or is it Aliyah Boston, right? Who is pretty much a force for the Fever through most of the regular season. Natasha Howard, potentially. But yeah, then you gotta look at the Lynx too.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: So, we’ll see what comes out. I do feel like my top five, I feel pretty solid on, but I feel like that next five, it’s a little like…

Alex: Never know. You might get a top six.

Caitlin: Maybe they’ll just give us three teams.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

Caitlin: We don’t want to choose.

Alex: I feel that sometimes you just don’t want to make a decision.

WNBA Finals Games 1 and 2: A Possession Contest

Caitlin: Yeah, for sure.

Alex: All right. Let’s move on. Let’s talk about it. It was really interesting because we started prepping this for one game.

Caitlin: We did.

Alex: We had to move recording night. So we have two games. We have Golden State winning 68-64 in game one, Atlanta winning 79 to 65 in game two. I mean, this is just a defensive battle. It’s gonna be a defensive battle all series.

Caitlin: I think we knew coming in that, you know, we talked about that, right? It’s the best defense against the second best defense. And so offense is not… And I’ve seen some debate about this, like in online forums, of like, oh, it’s ugly, or it’s boring. It’s like, okay, I don’t know what you’re watching, but it’s definitely not boring. B, yeah, these are not teams known for their really excellent offensive sets and things like that.

The Valkyries score as a group. Like we’ve talked about that. Like anybody can go, I’m thinking of a different word, but like, anybody can go off. Maybe I’ll use one of our Instagram followers. Vines242, he called it a Hydra.

Alex: Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Caitlin: And so it’s like, which head of the Hydra is gonna come at you? For sure, cut one off, but somebody else is gonna pop up.

Alex: Right. And I think that’s pretty accurate. I thought it was pretty interesting. I think it was maybe the day after the first game. We were talking about it and I think we talked about how it’s not a shooting contest. This series is not a shooting contest. It’s a possession contest. It basically comes down to who is gonna get the most possessions in a game.

Caitlin: Yeah, and I think that brings me to the Dream, right? Which their offense, when they are best offensively, it’s when their defense is creating fast break opportunities, or points off of turnovers. To me, I think you’re exactly right. Like the Dream want to get more possessions by using their defense to get the ball away from the other team. The Valkyries want to extend possessions by hitting the O boards, being really, really diligent in their rotations and their communication when they are on defense, and getting into their defensive sets. They actually aren’t that great defensively in transition.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Right. And I think that’s what Atlanta exposed in game two versus in game one. I think the Valks were really able to keep it to, I said that to you during game one, by the time we got halfway through the third quarter, I was like, this is gonna come down to how many possessions can each team get, right? Because no one’s shooting great, to your point.

So it was fun to see this counter of game one was very much played in the Valkyrie style of play and game two was very much played in Atlanta style of play, and sort of watching the punch, counterpunch between Coach Nakase and Coach Smesko. Like, I think they are two of the best, they are for sure two of the best coaches in the WNBA. I think it could be argued that Natalie Nakase is certainly very much up there with the likes of a Cheryl Reeve and a Becky Hammon. Came out of Becky Hammon’s coaching tree, as they like to say. But I’ll be curious to watch that duel play out too as the series goes on.

Gabby Williams in Game 1, Angel Reese in Game 2

Caitlin: Now, a lot about the defense. There have been some incredible performances. I think we should start with Gabby Williams’ performance in game one, right? So I think game one, Gabby Williams had 26 points. She really just like, team on back, and I go. Kind of pulled a Stewie, so to speak. That’s what we call it now.

We did get to see Allisha Gray back and she showed up. Well, she had 19 points.

Alex: I think she did have a procedure too of some sort, so she’s back with something.

Caitlin: Some pins or something. Yeah. But she kind of led the Dream in scoring, but you didn’t really get much else from others. The two things that I think Coach Nakase preaches with her team are strength in numbers and empty the tank. And that was, again, really on display there in game one.

Alex: Game two, we gotta talk about Angel Reese hitting 30 points, 16 rebounds, the third to do 30 and 15 plus in a Finals game, behind Stewie and Jonquel Jones.

Caitlin: Yeah, and she shot over 60 from the floor, which, I don’t think that’s actually ever been done. I think I was reading…

Alex: Oh, interesting.

Caitlin: So to be that efficient from an offensive perspective and put up the numbers that she did. But I mean, just like her energy. I continue to be so impressed, and I’m not gonna stop talking about it, with her willingness to own the moment. It’s so impressive.

Alex: Yeah. You kind of worry as Golden State, by beating them the first game, what you’re gonna light, like the fire, like it’s gonna come out of her.

Caitlin: Yeah, and one of the things that I remember, we were watching game one and the first quarter, I think Angel had 11 points or something. She was just getting what she wanted in the paint, anything. And then they went away from her, and I kept thinking in the second half, I’m like, why? Why are we not giving her the ball? She was the matchup you wanted. Now I know they’ve got Kiah Stokes in there. She’s on that All-Defensive team. She, I don’t know, fourth in the league in blocks or something. She had four blocks in the game the other night. She’s a rim protector, right? I just, like, Angel still won that matchup. Kiah Stokes had four blocks last night and Angel Reese put up 30 points. So they gotta keep feeding her, in my mind.

And the other thing that I think is beneficial now for the Dream is now the Valks are gonna figure out, how do I adjust to slow her down? One, I actually don’t know if you can slow her down. She’s just so physical and she’s kind of crafty under the bucket. It’s like she’s learned how to, I don’t know, get her in foul trouble, right? Like that’s one way.

The second thing is, you game plan for her, she draws a bunch of attention. You’ve got Gray, you’ve got Canada, you’ve got Borlase who comes off the bench and can hit some shots for you. You obviously have Rhyne Howard, who’s been cold from a shooting perspective to start this series, but she can light up at any minute. So I think DeWanna Bonner, like part of me feels like the Valks, while they have this incredible defense, their challenge and again, that Hydra scoring approach. If your only player who’s really like a true scorer is Gabby Williams, and I don’t personally really know that she’s like a true scorer, or maybe it’s just in the system that she’s in with the Valkyries. But if she’s cold, like she was in game two, it’s like, where’s the help coming from?

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Caitlin: Right? And they haven’t been able to find that rhythm where they’re getting more support from the bench as much as they’re used to.

Alex: Yeah, I was just thinking back. I remember exactly what you said had me thinking about this. But I think when we were prepping post game one before game two, I had said, you know, I think Angel needs to find the offensive rebounds, get those steals, turn on those fast break points. And the other thing I had written was, I don’t think that even if you are doing that, it might be hard if Golden State starts hitting threes like they’ve been known to do. And we saw last night that they couldn’t hit threes. And so like that, that’s one of the things that might’ve been the difference in that game. And so I just know if they’re flustered from just turnovers and just everything going on, but they just, like you said, Gabby Williams needed help, and Zandalasini hit, what was it? It was ridiculous. One of 12 or something like that.

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah. I mean, they have a very clear team identity, the Valkyries do. And obviously it works for them most of the time, right? I’m really interested to again see how this matchup plays out, because it almost feels like the Dream are like the perfect team to, like the only team who over a sustained run of games could make that identity not effective. So we’ll see. I’m certainly not counting the Valks out by any means. I just think watching these matchups play out and watching these identities, it was really interesting to see them spotlighted so clearly between the two games.

Ballhalla, State Farm Arena, and What Each Team Needs

Caitlin: The one other thing I want to just mention before we go into maybe what we think of from a momentum perspective going ahead, is like that Ballhalla, or that whole vibe. It is so loud when you watch on TV.

Alex: We hear you guys on TV. It’s so loud.

Caitlin: Shout out to the Golden State Valkyries fans. It is impressive.

Alex: Yeah, it is so impressive.

Caitlin: I love how even in the loss, and in like a 14-point loss, like a bigger loss, y’all were still in it. I really want to go to a game there at some point.

Alex: Yeah, I thought I’d seen earlier tonight, I thought it felt especially towards the later end, it felt a little bit quieter, but we talked about like that’s just how it works when the team’s not doing well. But it was still loud, like it’s still there, like it’s crazy.

Caitlin: Yeah, a hundred percent. So the Dream, as you said, you were like, this is a stupid thing to say, but the Dream had to win one in Ballhalla in order to win the championship. So they have done it. And I think we’ll move into kind of, you know, what are we looking for as these next couple games. We’ll have two more games before we…

Alex: We might have three games actually before we release our next episode.

Caitlin: Yep. So, what do you got from a momentum perspective?

Alex: Well, let me just update that quick. The fifth game will be on Monday night while we’re recording our next episode. So by the time you hear our next episode, we’re gonna have it on TV. We could have a champion.

Caitlin: Yeah, we could.

Alex: All right. Momentum. I mean, I just think for the Dream, they need to keep on the turnovers. The stat I had here was eight points on turnovers in game one, 24 in game two. I think we’re talking 19 of those were on those fast break steals.

Caitlin: Yeah.

Alex: And this kind of goes both ways to what you said earlier. You need to keep Angel on the floor, keep feeding her, but she needs to watch out, right? Obviously she doesn’t want to get into foul trouble. And that’s like kind of the momentum piece that you’re going to probably end up talking about with Golden State. I also think if they find a half-court rhythm more than they have, like…

Caitlin: Yeah.

Alex: It’s unstoppable.

Caitlin: Yeah. I, but I will say on that point, I don’t know if they need to, right? Because again, I think Atlanta’s strength is in its transition game. And I actually think, like I said, I think that’s a weakness for Golden State.

Alex: It’s just like, they do that too. Yeah. And now it’s just over.

Caitlin: Yeah. And I think that actually, I forgot to mention, but you also can’t stop me from talking about Jordin. She continues to just ball out. She had her fourth double-double of the playoffs in game two. And in the playoffs, she’s averaged five more points per game than she did in the regular season, like six to eight percent better from the floor. She’s 96% from the free throw line. Like, how clutch is that when you know you can go to the line and get easy points, right? She’s averaging four and a half rebounds per game, almost nine assists, like she’s almost averaging a double-double in these playoffs on two and a half turnovers. So like, that’s crazy impressive. Not to mention she’s averaging two steals per game. So her steals almost immediately offset.

So like, I think we talked about her quite a bit throughout the playoffs, but the Dream also go as Canada goes. I think Canada and Reese are the two really big kind of fulcrums, and then Gray and Howard sort of add that scoring piece, they add the defense. I mean, Rhyne Howard does incredible work defensively. I think she had six steals or something like that in game two as well.

But to me, I feel like it’s Canada and Reese, and if they can go, yep. You can look at the box score from game one. Canada did not have, it was a worse game of the playoffs so far, right? And Reese was kind of limited, and they lost, right? So whereas Howard can have an off night or two or three, and they can win games.

Alex: What does Golden State need to do to swing it back?

Caitlin: So they had been really impressive early in the playoffs when it came to ball security and taking care of the basketball. And so they’ve got to get back to that, which is hard. I think, again, it’s hard because Atlanta is so disruptive. Their hands are so active. It’s not like Golden State’s doing a bunch of turnovers on just kind of like really bad passes or silly stuff, like traveling and things like that, or whatever. But they’ve got to figure out a way, right? More ball fakes, more screen action. Like there’s gotta be ways for you to get more open passing lanes.

I also, you know, you mentioned this, but the flip side of like they have to, I think Angel picked up her third foul in game two with like five minutes or so left in the second quarter. Like it was still early in the game. You have to be, like Coach Nakase or whoever, like you have to be telling your players you have to go attack her.

Alex: Get her to four before the half.

Caitlin: Before the half, right? And then it severely limits what Smesko can do with her in the second half.

Alex: I think she was only at five by like two minutes left in the game.

Caitlin: Yes, so they have to be more diligent and more direct about how they go after her, for sure.

And then I think what’ll be interesting to watch, we didn’t touch on this, I’ll touch on it right now. So last week we talked about the whole Gateway Center versus State Farm Arena. Update on that was they are playing game three and four, excuse me, in State Farm Arena. They are opening it up to its full capacity. So 17,000 plus fans. You guys, 42,000 people were in the queue for tickets as soon as they went on sale. Like, this will be a hundred percent sold out. It is going to be rowdy.

I have seen the Dream fans, this is their own admission, they tend to roll in late second quarter.

Alex: They’re in Atlanta late.

Caitlin: Yeah, it’s well, it’s Atlanta on time.

Alex: Yeah, yeah.

Caitlin: There’s like, please, in the WNBA threads, the Dream threads, like get there on time because we got to be loud for our girls. Right. And so I think it’s going to be interesting to see how the Valkyries handle being in a hostile environment, right? And I use…

Alex: Ballhalla is loud.

Caitlin: Well, but it’s not hostile to them, right? It’s supportive.

Alex: This is gonna be bumping.

Caitlin: And again, to clarify, hostile environment in the sports world is a very normal thing to say. It doesn’t mean that anybody is getting attacked. It just means that it’s loud. It is hard to hear. You might get some things shouted at you about you not being very good or whatever. They are gonna shout at you. They’re trying to distract you and throw you off your game. That’s what we mean when we talk about a hostile environment. Not people coming up out of their seats and stepping into people’s workspaces.

So I think that’s gonna be interesting. Again, I love this chess match.

Alex: I love this chess match. It’s gonna be good.

Caitlin: And again, we could have a champion by the time you’d hear from us next.

Alex: Yeah, I think it goes to six though. I think it goes to six, which means next week, late.

Caitlin: Well, we have three games before they hear from us.

Alex: Yeah, so we’ll be at five. I think it’s gonna go to six. I’m just saying.

Caitlin: Well, each team has one win.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: We need four wins. I’m right.

Alex: Yeah, okay.

Caitlin: Oh, you, oh, I see.

Alex: I think it’s gonna end in six. That’s a normal thing to say.

Caitlin: Okay, I didn’t think that you, I thought you meant like it will have to go to six games to get a winner. Like I thought you meant based on the math right now, you had to play six games to get to four.

Alex: No.

Caitlin: Okay.

Alex: I think it’s going to go to six.

Caitlin: Understand. Understand. I also hope it goes to six. I think the Valkyries for sure have at least one more win in the tank, if not more than that. But if you can’t tell from the hat I’m wearing, I am an Atlanta Dream fan in this series. I’m wearing an Atlanta Dream hat for those who are just listening to us.

Alex: Yeah. I got you. I got you now. I understand.

Caitlin: I literally thought you were telling me and my math was wrong.

Alex: No.

Caitlin: I didn’t take too kindly.

Alex: I would never even think about doing that.

Caitlin: Yeah, you would.

USWNT Draws Spain 2-2: Putellas, Paralluelo, Sanchez, Swanson

Alex: All right, let’s talk about soccer. All right, feels like months ago, USA pulled out a tie with Spain, a draw, 2-2. This went literally last Tuesday, a whole week ago.

Caitlin: A whole week ago, folks.

Alex: We had, let’s see here, we had an attendance of 18 and a half thousand. We had Spain, we had Putellas, I can never say it right, in the 27th minute. I’m gonna need some help again with this name. Paralluelo.

Caitlin: Paralluelo.

Alex: That double L gets me. In the 32nd minute. And then we had our friend Ashley Sanchez in the 49th minute, fun little goal.

Caitlin: Beauty.

Alex: And Swanson in the 86th.

Caitlin: Yes. Yeah. Do you wanna take us through the…

Alex: Oh yeah, we can do a little bit more. We had del Fava and Tordin earn their first caps, and we have had an interesting record here. Hayes has now used 46 players this calendar year, a program record. And we had Swanson being the 12th mother to score for the U.S. Women’s National Team.

Caitlin: Sometimes I have to remind myself that Hayes has this long-term plan that she’s trying to play out. But like, you know, you just get to a point where we’re like, okay, Emma, World Cup’s coming. We gotta lock it in.

Alex: I have a good question that I’m gonna steal from someone else when we get to the end here.

Caitlin: Sounds good. All right, I’ll take us through the starting lineup. I’ll add actually though to those records, Alexia Putellas got her 150th cap for Spain, making her the most capped women’s football player in Spanish federation history and the third most capped player, men’s or women’s, behind goalkeeper Iker Casillas, which goalkeepers can tend to have longer careers, right? And defender Sergio Ramos. So really impressive for Putellas. The other thing that’s uber impressive about this is she’s like, I don’t know, 24?

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Like she has a long time to play still, but she was so good from a young age and was immediately into that senior side. So awesome for her. Great to see her score a goal. I think Alexia certainly represents a big swath of the global game and engaging on the global stage. So we love to see it.

All right. Starting lineup. We started with Phallon Tullis-Joyce in goal. So switch up from game one and Claudia Dickey. We had Emily Fox still in that right back position. We kept the center back pairing of Kennedy Wesley and Tierna Davidson, and then started Gisele Thompson at left back. So she had come in in game one, was actually quite positive. I liked how she played. She’s got a ton of speed and can get further up the pitch. Hayes must’ve liked what she saw, decided to start her, right?

And then in the midfield, we had Heaps and Lavelle again with Hutton this time, which is very interesting, right?

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: We talked after game one, we really needed a six, like a true six, and we got one. So that must have been an adjustment that, again, they decided they needed to see.

And then up top-ish was Sanchez, Wilson, and Rodman. Now, I actually think I saw that the formation that they were playing wasn’t really their typical 4-3-3. And Sanchez can kind of drop in. She actually does kind of drop into that midfield quite frequently in her club play. So I think she had a little bit more free rein. It didn’t start great.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Yeah. It’s still a mess. And we gave up, like Alex said, two goals in the first 30 or so minutes, down 2-0 at halftime.

I’ll run through the subs really quick, because I think that’s important. Again, as indicators for how Hayes is thinking about composing this team. And then I do want to talk about some of the positives and the criticisms. If your question, you want to raise that before I get into my criticisms?

Alex: I think it’s best after the criticisms.

Caitlin: Okay, perfect. So for substitutes, she brought on Swanson again. So Swanson was a sub in game one, sub in the game here, at the 60th minute, she came in for Rose Lavelle. We brought Alyssa Thompson onto the pitch. In the box score, this was listed as a sub for Gisele Thompson, which doesn’t really make sense, because Gisele plays left back and Alyssa Thompson plays forward. So I’m not, again, the formation is a little, I think they were doing something different and I did not get to watch the full game, so I didn’t get to see how they set up.

They did bring in Jaelin Howell for Claire Hutton, but that is a like-for-like, right? That’s a six swap. And then Yohannes came in for Heaps and Cooper came in for Rodman, Michelle Cooper. In the 80th minute, del Fava did get her cap. As you mentioned, Tordin came in for Sanchez and then Sears came in for Wilson. So this was the first time we saw Emma Sears in this series of games.

So, you want me to get into criticisms? Should I do positives first?

Alex: Yeah, I think so.

The Positives: A Comeback Script and Two Goalscorers

Caitlin: Okay. They’re pretty brief.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think the first thing is, I had seen, and maybe I mentioned this either to you or maybe I even said it on the podcast, I probably didn’t, so after game one, I watched a clip from the podcast that Tobin Heath and Christen Press do, and Tobin Heath, I’ve talked about her before, but she’s very much a football strategist. Like she has that strategic mind, right? And she was talking about how they had this built-in scenario to practice against, of, you’re down 2-0 in the World Cup, how do you…

Alex: Yeah, yeah.

Caitlin: I don’t know if she called Emma Hayes or was like, hey, let’s try to simulate the scenario and then figure out how to play through it and solve the puzzle. Right. Well, that is exactly what happened. And I think that the team should look on that positively.

I think the other thing that’s interesting is the goals came from, well, first Sanchez scored our first goal in the 49th minute, but like immediately out of half, within five minutes of restarting the game, you’ve scored a goal. That is fantastic.

Alex: Yeah. That’s the momentum.

Caitlin: Exactly. Right. And capturing that back. And then you had Swanson score a goal on a play from del Fava to Cooper to Swanson. So all of your subs came in and impacted the game in a way when you really needed a goal, right, to claw it back.

So let’s talk a little bit about those goal scorers. I loved Ashley Sanchez in this international break. She was positive every time she was on the pitch. I think she a hundred percent has shown that she deserves a spot in that rotation. And her goal, y’all, was so cheeky. The angle that she got the defender into. Now, granted, I think the defender misplayed the situation, but she just took a shot that no one was expecting her to take, right? And she snuck it through.

Alex: I was like standing up, cleaning or something, trying to watch at the same time. And I was like, the way she came in, I was like, oh, this is…

Caitlin: It doesn’t look like you can get a goal.

Alex: But it was.

Caitlin: And I think that is to me like the hallmark of somebody who’s just on as a goal scorer. Like the goal looks huge to her, right? To anybody else, I don’t think they would have taken that shot even. They would have assumed it was gonna get deflected or blocked or whatever. So keep her in the rotation, Emma, if you’re listening.

And then I loved that Mal got a goal. Her goal was wicked, that half volley. She said in the post-game press conference, it was actually a really bad first touch by her that popped it up. And then she’s like, I have no choice but to just knock into this thing.

Alex: I wouldn’t say that. Just say, yeah, I tried to do that.

Caitlin: I think the crew was like, you don’t need to cop to that, right? But I love that super sub connection, right? That is actually something you absolutely want to see when we talk about this with our high schoolers, right? When you go on the pitch coming off of the bench, like your job is to raise the level on the pitch, right? In some ways, it’s knowing your role and it’s understanding, like, hey, I may not be starting, which I think is a coveted position oftentimes, but I have a way of impacting this game, right? So I thought that was super positive.

Other than that, I did think the bit that I watched at the end, I thought Yohannes looked a lot more comfortable. Now she came in as a sub, we talked about that. She also, weirdly enough, came in for Lindsey. And part of me is almost like, is it that? And I realized that they play together. They’ve played club together, like things like that. But like, is that combo what didn’t work in that first game? Like, I don’t know. But she almost scored a third goal right at the end of regulation, which would have been amazing. But the keeper made a fantastic save. So anyway, that’s sort of what I have for positives.

Alex: Okay. Criticisms?

Caitlin: You want me to roll into it?

Alex: Yeah, I think so.

The Criticisms: No Edge, No Settled Back Line, No Number One Goalkeeper

Caitlin: So again, after game one, on some podcast, LB, Ugo Lazo, maybe, I think I’m trying to remember, Kelly O’Hara, former U.S. Women’s National Team outside back. She said that, and I realize we have to put the explicit thing on our podcast now, but I think I’ve snuck a few in the last couple of weeks. She said we need a bitch on the team. And to be clear, what she means is we need somebody with an edge, somebody who is going to kind of pop up and fight.

And you think of those Brazil friendlies earlier, and you think of Emily Sonnett, right? And I think we miss Emily Sonnett for a lot of reasons, but I think she did bring some of that fight and feistiness, kind of like gets under the other team’s players’ skin a little bit. And I think, you know, they do like, some of them can bring it sometimes, but it is like a little, we’re a little too nice. Like it’s a little too nice. Kelly O’Hara was that when she played, by the way.

Alex: I think going into what you’re gonna talk about next is people might say Trinity, but it’s more that she gets upset with herself.

Caitlin: Yes, she can take herself out of a game. And I think we saw that a bit in these friendlies, same thing we saw at the beginning of the year. She can be a little bit disengaged when she is not quite playing the way she thinks she should be. When she’s on, she’s fantastic, right? But she loses engagement.

I also think, I didn’t say this in the last episode, and again, I don’t know exactly how they were positioned in the second match, but Trinity typically plays on the right side of the field. She can obviously, your forwards can flex and flip and you change and things like that. But they had her on the left a lot, and I do kind of wonder if she was a little not in her comfort zone and that that was maybe frustrating her. But she still had some chances and she was just off. Yeah.

Okay. My big thing though, can I go into it? I’m waiting for your question.

Alex: Well, I mean, we can go my question.

Caitlin: Okay.

Alex: Unless you have another criticism.

Caitlin: I do, but I don’t know if it’s your question.

Chemistry Versus Depth: Does Emma Hayes Have a Starting XI?

Alex: Let’s do my question. We’ll see what happens here. I have a lot here, kind of, so we’re going to dump the prompt into the Caitlin LLM and kind of see what comes out.

I started out with, does Hayes have a true starting 11 yet? And then what it morphed into is, I saw a clip from The Women’s Game podcast with Sam Mewis and Becky Sauerbrunn, either today or yesterday. And they were talking, when is the right time to build chemistry versus building depth? And I immediately was like, I think we talked about this on a walk last week. And so I think Becky was like, the time to build chemistry was yesterday. And like, at some point, your best team isn’t your best players. It is the team with the best chemistry.

So do you think Emma Hayes has the starting 11 that has that chemistry? Or do you think she’s thinking in terms of, the starting 11, they’re the best players right now?

Caitlin: So great question. No, I do not think that Hayes has her starting 11. Part of that is because I think there are some question marks around players that should be in the starting lineup that are dealing with injury scenarios. Naomi Girma, Sam Coffey, right?

Two, my third criticism is I don’t think that we have a true number one goalkeeper. And I think that that is part of the disruption we’re seeing in the back line. Not only do we have back line pairings that have not played together, I’ll come back to your chemistry piece, right, but you don’t have that cohesion of leadership behind you.

And I haven’t seen, not to say that Dickey and Tullis-Joyce and Mandy McGlynn when she’s played haven’t been good. They’re good at component parts of the position. I haven’t seen any one of them actually have a full game where they manage the game the way that you need a number one goalkeeper to manage the game, right?

There’s, when I coach my goalkeepers, there’s four components that I talk to them about, right? There’s shot stopping. That’s what everybody thinks of, right? But then there’s distribution, there’s communication, and there’s what I call box management. You could call it game management, but it’s, how do I know when to come off my line? How do I keep my defense organized? How do I make decisions that dictate the flow of playing the game? And I just think we haven’t seen that consistently from those goalkeepers.

So that to me is problematic when you start to talk about the chemistry, because that’s a piece of it, right? And I think going into this year, you’re 18 months removed from a World Cup. Last year was like the year of experimentation after winning the gold medal at the 2024 Olympics. And that was fine. I think everybody was kind of on board with like, let’s do all of this depth exploration and whatnot.

I do think coming into this year, I think we even said it on this podcast, of like, after SheBelieves, we sort of thought we were gonna see the same, more or less the same 23, right? Barring injury, the same 23. We haven’t seen that. We’ve seen some of them, certainly. I think you have consistency in obviously Heaps, Lavelle, like kind of some of the core, Rodman, Wilson, etc.

I still think we aren’t quite sure what that back line needs to be. I think Emily Fox is a lot, she’s one of the best right backs in the world in my opinion. But when you aren’t quite sure what your center back pairing is going to be, you’re not quite sure who your goalkeeper is going to be, that to me is one of the biggest things. Then you couple that with some of the players aren’t fitting the structure correctly, or the structure’s not right for the players, like, that is a problem.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: And you only have four windows left and one of them is qualifiers, right? That’s the next one. And then the second one is the send-off friendlies where they’re going to play some not probably very good teams, right, to kind of have a little bit of a showcase and kind of get everybody ready before the World Cup. So like, it feels like we wasted windows to build the chemistry. So I think I’m on team Becky here. Also, team Becky is a great team to be on. She’s super smart. I’m talking about a legendary center back for the U.S. Women’s National Team.

And I think I had mentioned to you when we talked too, I’m really curious about the timing of some of these key retirements from that back line. You had Becky Sauerbrunn, Kelly O’Hara, Crystal Dunn, Alyssa Naeher, right? Who all, I don’t know exactly the timeframe, but they all retired from professional soccer, national team play certainly. And I just, I don’t think that they’ve built that back up. And with the absence of Sonnett and then the absence of Girma, they don’t have the experience back there to stay organized, it feels like. So that’d be my concern.

Alex: All right. Good question.

Caitlin: All right. So as I mentioned, I think World Cup qualifiers for the U.S. Women’s National Team are in November. They play El Salvador. They only have to win that game and then they qualify. They should qualify. It would be very shocking for them not to qualify.

For all of the griping and moaning, let’s back up for a second. Let’s be really clear that they were playing the number one team in the world, which I know we all think that should always be the US, but it’s not. Spain was depleted, so we also have to remember Spain was not its full strength. But like, we are nitpicking the number two team in the world.

Alex: They’re very, very, very good.

Caitlin: And they can beat most teams in the world.

Alex: Yeah, and we talk about Emma playing teams like this. Two testers. We’re not playing the lower teams.

Caitlin: A hundred percent. So just to caveat, we again are picking apart this team in the biggest challenge that she could have put them up against going into the World Cup, which again, kudos to her for doing that. And we’ve figured some things out. And now I expect there to be changes, conversations, like, you know where you need to go now. And maybe that was what she was waiting for.

NWSL: Two Games Left and a Playoff Race in Chaos

Caitlin: Okay, NWSL.

Alex: Yeah, I think probably give a rundown here quick. We’ve got two games left. I think it’s still important to do the entire table down to like the 10th, because I think Gotham still has not…

Caitlin: They have not clinched the Shield yet.

Alex: So right now we got Gotham at number one with 55 points, San Diego number two with 54 points, Washington clinched probably since the last time we recorded, with 52 points, they’re at third. At fourth is Kansas City at 47, fifth, Angel City at 46, sixth, Utah at 46, seventh, Portland at 44, Seattle is at eighth with 43, North Carolina at ninth with 42, and Denver at 10th with 38.

Caitlin: Still alive.

Alex: They are still alive.

Caitlin: And they have games that absolutely could put them in, because they play North Carolina, I think.

Alex: I believe so.

Caitlin: On decision day, when we get to that point. Something like that.

Alex: So what I had was, I had a few of these from Portland on down. If Portland wins this Friday against North Carolina, they are in. This also caps North Carolina at 45 possible points, which is important, right? Seattle can win their next two games and they are in. If they win one and Portland wins as well, then they are in. I think that’s how it worked. I might get these all confused. But North Carolina can win, I think, both and be in. And I didn’t put who they played, this is probably why it’s going to sound a little bit confusing. But then Denver needs to win both and have Seattle take one point or fewer from Utah and Orlando, and then it could still come down to the tiebreaker there.

So Denver is a huge long shot. Portland is essentially in, unless they bomb out, they’re essentially in. Seattle and North Carolina are really where it’s gonna matter.

Caitlin: And then above that, Kansas City, Angel City, and Utah are basically battling for position in the seeding in the playoffs, which is intriguing because two of them are on 46 points and the other one’s on 47, right? So they have a lot of room to kind of flow up and down.

What I think is, I do think it’s funny that, I do think North Carolina, we talked about this a few weeks ago, but they had by far the most difficult slate of games to end the season. I do think they played Denver in that last game. And then Denver plays like Racing, I think, this weekend. It’s like, should be a win, right? And then you come down to all this like, and they both need to win that last game, right, to make the playoff.

So, I think we should talk a little bit about decision day.

Alex: Yeah, I wanted to say, for those of you who don’t know, decision day, everyone plays a game on November 1st at 4 p.m. So all the teams are playing at 4 p.m.

Caitlin: So yeah, not this coming weekend, but the following weekend. All the games same time. You don’t, I mean, presumably you’re getting some information, but like there’s no way of adjusting what you’re going to do ahead of time for your game plan. So you just know what you need to get done and you go in and you do it. Really, really cool. I will look forward to whipping around to different games.

Alex: Yeah, exactly.

Jordynn Dudley’s Season Ends, and Three Zambian Internationals Are Stranded

Caitlin: Some things that I do think are really interesting from an impact perspective for some players here. So for Gotham, Jordynn Dudley was just put on season-ending injury list for them. She has been a huge kind of contributor to their offensive flow. Young player, really, really talented. Brings some of that feistiness we were talking about with the national team just a few minutes ago. And Gotham does seem to be a little bit like they can’t quite get there. Right. And how much does that impact them going into the playoffs?

And then the other just super weird, super weird and really unfortunate, frankly, but Zambian international players Barbra Banda, Prisca Chilufya, and Rachael Kundananji are currently stuck in Uganda, because they went over there to play in this international window for Zambia. And the CDC has marked Uganda as high risk for Ebola outbreak. And so they are not allowed back in until like October 31st or something.

Alex: The day before decision day.

Caitlin: Yeah. And now this is, so Banda plays for Orlando. They’ve basically been eliminated. Chilufya just moved to the Chicago Stars. They were eliminated a long time ago. But Kundananji plays for Angel City, who is, again, like I just said, vying for playoff positioning. She’s a pretty integral part to their team. That sucks.

And it does bring up questions of like, what, why? We’re like…

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Yeah. How do we make sure that we are putting player safety and health first? Now to be fair, they may have been just fine, right? And this is like, CDC has labeled it at that. And so like, that’s it, it doesn’t matter. But did somebody look ahead to know that if I go there, and then maybe you say no, I’m not gonna do that. I don’t know.

So anyways, interesting things to watch for. This weekend certainly impactful. Decision day is also going to be a lot of fun.

Golden Boot Watch: A League Record 13 Players in Double Digits

Alex: Any changes on the 10-10 watch or the Golden Boot?

Caitlin: I think the biggest change, so not a ton of change from a 10-10. That has been the same. I’m kind of like, ladies, come on, like do something. But on the Golden Boot watch, we didn’t see a ton of change at the top. It will be kind of funny, Barbra Banda will probably still finish second, even though she’s missed like so much of this season.

But we did add more players to this double-digit season scoring list. We added Haley Hopkins from Kansas City Current. She is on 11. Remember that a couple weeks ago she had a hat trick. I think she also scored a brace this last weekend. So she went from six to 11 really quickly. We added Maddie Mercado of Seattle. Seattle put three goals on the scoreboard in a game.

Alex: Which is a lot for them.

Caitlin: So she’s sitting on 10. And then Amanda Gutierres from Boston joins her teammate Aïssata with 10 goals. So we now have 13 players in double-digit scoring, which is a record for the league.

Alex: Yeah. That’s awesome. Cool.

Caitlin: And there’s still players sitting on nine, so we could see even more.

Alex: And Sanchez could break it in two games.

Caitlin: And Sanchez could break it. We’ll see.

Alex: Scoring record, just to be clear.

What to Watch This Week

Alex: All right, let’s close this out. What to watch. WNBA, the night before this comes out will be game three in Atlanta. Saturday we’ll have game four in Atlanta, noon Central on NBC and Peacock. And then Monday will be Finals game five at Golden State, 7 p.m. Central on USA and Peacock. I think from there, it actually jumps to Thursday night for game six, if there’s a game six. So a little bit of a pause in between there.

Caitlin: I assume. Oh no, it wouldn’t be travel.

Alex: Just travel back.

Caitlin: Yeah. Oh, true.

Alex: Yeah. NWSL, North Carolina Courage at the Portland Thorns.

Caitlin: Oh, that’s a bummer.

Alex: Friday, 9 p.m. Central on Prime.

Caitlin: That’s a real bummer. See, they have a horrible slate of games.

Alex: We have Gotham at Orlando, so Shield watch there, 2 p.m. on Sunday on CBS Sports Network. And then the Washington Spirit take on the Kansas City Current. We talked about that.

Caitlin: Yes, yes. Pack the Plaza.

Alex: Yeah, Plaza. It’s on Sunday, 4 p.m. on ESPN.

Caitlin: Nice.

Alex: LPGA is the BMW Ladies Championship in Korea. So again, like a Wednesday late evening through early Sunday morning on the Golf Channel.

NCAA volleyball, this one was interesting. Number four Kentucky versus number 19 Texas A&M. This is a rematch of last year’s national championship. So we’ve got that going. I believe that’s Sunday at two on ESPN.

And then our only ranked matchup in hockey this week is number nine Colgate at number one Ohio State. Good luck, Colgate. 5 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. on Saturday on Big Ten Plus.

Caitlin: Yeah, we didn’t mention it, but the Minnesota Gophers hockey team split the series with Ohio State this past weekend. So they…

Alex: We’re not gonna talk about Wisconsin and…

Caitlin: Are we not? Are we not gonna talk about that?

Alex: We don’t need to talk about that right now.

Caitlin: Okay, you’re lucky that Zoe’s on that team and I don’t wanna get on the maps too hard. That was probably pretty rough.

Alex: It is rough. I know.

Momentum and Setbacks: Responsible Growth and Angel Reese

Alex: All right, momentum, setbacks. I think my setback was the whole San Jose goalie situation. Not the way you want to start your franchise off.

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah. It’s, again, an important position.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Man, I think I’m gonna go back to something that we kind of started the episode with a little bit here, but I think this just like inkling I have around, like, can we make sure we grow responsibly, or does this become like, how do we get the most money the quickest?

We’ve talked before about how, I don’t know, 6% of all sports research, whether it’s injury rehabilitation, like training protocols, things like that, are done on women, right? 6% of the research. Like we are starting so far behind from the perspective of being able to make informed decisions about all of those things, right, as it pertains to athletes. I think this also ties into sport specialization at young ages and things. There’s like a whole can of worms we could open on that.

But from a business perspective, it’s hard. I feel very torn, because on the one hand, like, I want to see the growth. I think it’s amazing. But on the other hand, I don’t want to see players’ careers shortened because we’re now trying to pack in, I mean, we play 30 games in the NWSL right now. You add the two teams, you’re now gonna play 34, right? You add two more teams, that’s potentially 38. And then you layer in all the other things they’re trying to do too. I just wanna see it done responsibly.

Alex: I think to bring it back to where we started this podcast in January, I think the one upside to some of that is CBA negotiations. And that’s like, you saw the WNBA kinda be like, we want to make our money now. And it’s like, well, you’re making money. So guess what? You got to spend some on us to make sure we’re safe, make sure we’re getting paid to do what we’re doing to our bodies, things like that. And so hopefully we have some balance that does happen there.

Caitlin: Yeah, I mean, I do think that’s a positive. And then I do think like we are seeing some investment in training facilities and things like that, but like that has to become the standard, right? And that is still not the standard in these women’s leagues. So I just, I wanna see the overall standard raised, because that is going to influence the product on the pitch, on the court, wherever it’s happening. And that’s what actually is gonna end up making you money. You don’t have a product if players keep getting hurt.

So again, we will have a much larger conversation about this probably pretty soon.

Alex: My momentum, I mean, just Ashley Sanchez. Like we pulled for her, you got to call her up, got to call her up, she had that goal. She’s probably gonna break the record. And then NWSL I think just fun to watch, and seeing she’s either getting more chances than on the national team.

Caitlin: Yeah, she really is.

My momentum, this is not a surprise and I probably said it recently too, but it’s Angel Reese. I said it already in this episode, but like I’m so impressed with her ability to handle the spotlight and rise to the moment. I actually don’t know that I’ve seen, and I know y’all hate it when I use hyperbole, so I’m gonna use hyperbole. That was for our online folks, just to be clear, not our listeners. I don’t actually know that I’ve seen many athletes, I’ve certainly seen some, but not many athletes who can rise to the occasion like she is showing us right now. And has shown us, right? But I think right now feels pretty transcendent from a career perspective.

Alex: Something I’ve seen her do recently that I don’t know how she did it. Seen multiple people in the online spaces say, you know what, she wasn’t for me, or I didn’t, she wasn’t it, and now I just can’t get it out. Like she is her, right? Like how can you get people to have accountability on the internet?

Caitlin: Yeah, yeah, agree, agree. So very much looking forward to how the rest of these playoffs play out, and all of them can continue to kind of create this, I don’t know, this entertainment that is like so palpable right now. So, love it.

Alex: All right. Instagram, Threads, YouTube, RTG underscore pod. RTGpod.com. And raisingthegamepod@gmail.com if you wanna send us a note.

Caitlin: Please do. We will be back next week for episode 43.

Alex: We will.

Caitlin: All right, talk to you then.

Alex: Bye.

Caitlin: Bye.