NWSL Draft Recap (By Team)

TLDR - IDK

Firstly, I have no idea. Sky Blue has 9 players under contract. Then they offered 9, after Gibbons retired, new contracts to players from last years roster. Then traded for 3 others. 21 in total. Do all those players actually sign the new contracts or even show up? Tough to tell. You can have a max of 26 players, with 22 on the regular roster and 4 practice squad players.

Now to the draft picks. 4 of their 8 draft picks were raised within an hour's drive of Sky Blue's home field. So they drafted locally. And according to this article Ashley and Mace, might not join. Mace is a weird one, cause she'd probably like to stay on the USWNT radar in case of an injury crisis and them needing a versatile forward/defender for the world cup. You could argue that staying in the U.S. would probably be better cause many games in Europe aren't recorded with any quality. Including those in England, Germany and France. I tried watching a West Ham game recently cause I was interested in seeing how Visalli was doing and it was unwatchable. I personally think if Mace goes abroad and plays extremely well, it'll still get noticed. Exhibit A.
The Division 1 Féminine goalkeeper of the year.

Another issue is college, do they plan to, or have they already graduated? I believe Ashley has already got her degree, and I don't know about Mace. But if they still have school that means they don't join the team until May (Dorsey did this last year and then won rookie of the year). This year that works fine cause that's when players will be leaving for the world cup so teams will need bodies. But Sky Blue will likely only be losing 2-3 players. Orlando and Portland meanwhile will be losing closer to 8-9 players.

And don't forget about the season differences. NWSL is March-October roughly. I believe that England, France, Spain and Germany are August-May with a winter break. Sweden and Iceland are similar to the NWSL schedule. And you can only move between the different countries during the Winter and Summer transfer windows, unless you're considered a free agent. I think that's right anyways. Honestly, you need a rosetta stone for "assholian" to understand anything FIFA says.

And then you have to get a work permit, but that shouldn't be an issue as long as you have a team. So honestly, I don't know. Mace is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Ashley (#6 draft pick), Monaghan (#10), Kenie Wright (#23) and Sabrina Flores (#34) are essentially playing at home. And then there is James (#11), Carusa (#19) and Marckese (#28). But the way players are dropping from Sky Blue's roster, they might anyone they can get.

/r/NWSL Thread Parent