clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

NWSL Power Rankings - Week 14

Thorns return to first place.

By Kreg Asay
NWSL Power Rankings

Looks like I missed last week’s power rankings due to preparing for a vacation to see the Royals play Portland. As such, here’s the rankings for Wk 14 and 13 (in parenthesis). Once again every team changed positions due to some unexpected results. Looks as if having the international players back actually helps doesn’t it?

I do rankings for both NWSL and MLS a little differently; typically in soccer leagues within the USA, the home team wins more than 50% of the time. Thus I rank any team deviates from the ‘normal’ higher - basically an away team winning will move higher than a home team winning. The same applies for ties - a home team drawing will likely cause them to drop because it’s not what was expected of them.

So without further mindless banter, here’s the power rankings for week 14. (#) indicates last week’s ranking.

  1. Portland Thorns (3) - Tied on the road against the Royals.
  2. North Carolina Courage (1) - Met it’s match vs Sam Kerr and the Red Stars.
  3. Reign FC (2) - Bye Week! Move down due to Thorns rise.
  4. Chicago Red Stars (5) - Kerr jumped into the Golden Boot lead by notching her 10th goal vs the Courage. The win also put them into 3rd place.
  5. Utah Royals (6) - Had to come back twice to tie the Thorns at home. Move up only due to other teams moving down.
  6. Houston Dash (9) - Went to Washington and Dashed the Spirit (yes I like bad puns).
  7. Washington Spirit (4) - Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago the Spirit were league leaders?
  8. Orlando Pride (8) - The Pride’s ups and downs continue. Beat Sky Blue at home, can’t really move them up for that.
  9. Sky Blue FC (7) - They had their obligatory good results, now back to the usual routine.. or so it would seem.

More From RSL Soapbox