Preview of the NWSL Challenge Cup Final for Novices

/ American Soccer, NWSL / By

If you have read my blogs before, which you haven’t because “why would you?” you’d realize that I don’t know what I am talking about and that I will tell you I don’t know what I am talking about. However, I am able to dumb things down for people, but more so because I’m not educated enough to make clear sense (or cents). That being said, I am actually proud of this blog because I strongly believe that these are the actual necessities you need to know about the NWSL Final. 

Announcement: I refer to some of the players as “SHE,” which I can not confirm is the pronouns they go by, so apologies for my ignorance.

For the Newbies

I am writing this with the hopes that you don’t understand even the tiniest bit. What this won’t be is an explanation of how you play soccer and much less about the rules of soccer. In fact, I encourage learning on your own during the offseason. So I’ll tell you what you need to know going into this final game but not that much.

What You Absolutely Don’t Need to Know?

You’re going to hear a lot about things that just don’t make sense when thinking about soccer. Here’s a short list of things that you do not need to know about, the Playground, Sun Glare, Subway, a farm, the coffee truck. These are all just memes and it’s an injustice to the players that bust their ass if new fans come in and worry about a god damn playground. 

You also don’t really need to know about the rules. If I had to say which rules you do need to know, it’s 2 teams try to put a ball in the net for 90 minutes, and if at the end of the 90 minutes nobody scores, they take turns shooting the ball at each other. You’ll see lots of stops in plays. Lots of fouls. Lots of violations. Lots of balls kicked outside the white lines. And a pair of water-breaks. TBH, a soccer game has more breaks than Kardashian noses. 

The Characters

Houston Dash– This team is from Houston (duh). More importantly, they’ve stunk for a really long time. But this past winter, they did things to make sure they stunk a lot less. Particularly, they made their defense better than what it was. Just think Thor 3 compared to 1 and 2. 

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Rachel Daly– She’s the blonde English gal. She’s Houston’s fearless leader. She has a wicked accent. She’s really fucking good. 

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Chicago Red Stars– The other team in the final (duh). They have been really good, but they’ve never won a championship (oxymoron?). People will comment on their jerseys which are kinda cool but tiny fonts are never good. A bunch of their players are injured.

 

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Julie Ertz– She’s the blonde American gal. She’s Chicago’s fearless leader. She plays defense. She might be the best player in the world.

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Kealia Watt– You’ll hear about her a lot. She plays for Chicago, but the past 6 years she played for Houston. She plays on offense. 

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Why You Should Watch?

It’s the championship game of an elite sports league with elite athletes, why would you not? 

How You Can Watch?

The game is on CBS open broadcast. Meaning basically anyone with a TV can watch it. If you only want to watch it on mobile, CBS gives a free trial of CBS All Access, where you can watch all the games that were played this summer as well as live stream the game. People outside of North America can live stream the game on Twitch.

That’s all I got for you. I strongly encourage to go out and learn about the league on your own. Google, Wikipedia, NWSLSoccer.com. Do them all. If you want to sound smart for your zoom NWSL party, you can recite this line. “I think Chicago’s defense is going to give Houston some problems. And if we see the same Chicago from Wednesday, we might see a blowout.” You’re welcome. 

 

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