The NWSL is back, six days after the Euros final. Are players getting enough rest?

New York Times

3 days ago

Last Sunday, England defender Jess Carter helped the Lionesses to a second consecutive European Championship.
Their victory over World Cup winners Spain in Basel, Switzerland, was celebrated widely in the days that followed. There was a homecoming parade, a royal reception and a performance by head coach Sarina Wiegman's favorite artist, Burna Boy, as the nation basked in the euphoria.
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Carter, though, instead opted for a one-way ticket to the United States to rejoin her club, Gotham FC, ahead of the resumption of their 2025 NWSL campaign.
'I feel like there hasn't been any time to reflect,' a smiling Carter, 27, said Thursday, on the eve of Gotham's match against the Chicago Stars. 'I was just itching to get back.'
The NWSL returns Friday after a month-long pause for the Euros, WAFCON and Copa América Femenina. Carter was one of 39 NWSL players called up by national teams for these competitions, with nine players still in Ecuador for the Copa América final between Brazil and Colombia in Quito on Sunday.
Some, like Spain's Golden Boot winner, Esther González, have chosen to have a break, but Carter is now in Chicago, some 4,500 miles from where England won the final at St. Jakob-Park, speaking with journalists over Zoom. She says returning to football so soon was by choice.
'We speak a lot, especially in the national team, about that post-tournament decompression and figuring out what the right thing is for the players,' Carter said. 'For me, I struggle sometimes to have time off and then have to go again. So, I always find it easier to come back and get going.'
But with increasing numbers of international players in NWSL and the international match calendar becoming more crowded, the conversation around players' time off is becoming trickier to navigate.
Players returning to the NWSL after tournaments have no guaranteed time off, with any vacation taken after a consensus is reached between a player and their club.
Each NWSL club has its own approach and every return is different, depending on minutes played in a tournament, the amount of travel or how they're feeling mentally following the highs and lows of tournament football. These decisions are often guided by the team's medical and performance staffs, with the player ideally at the center of the conversations.
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Angel City FC, for example, signed Icelandic forward Sveindís Jónsdóttir a few weeks before the start of the Euros. She joined the club after taking some time off following Iceland's group stage exit.
Other teams, such as the Houston Dash, offered players time off. After Venezuela's Bárbara Olivieri and Nigeria's Michelle Alozie returned to Houston – Olivieri following Venezuela's group stage exit, and Alozie as a WAFCON champion — they competed in a friendly before each taking a week off.
Gotham have six players competing in the three competitions, the most of any club. They gave every returning player the option for time off, with the duration of their breaks determined on an individual basis.
'I think it's very important that players, with how long and demanding is this season in the NWSL, that they have some time for themselves, the same way that we had with the break in the league' Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amorós said in July.
This weekend, Gonzalez and Ghana's Stella Nyamekye will be absent in Chicago. Germany's star goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger, who had a heartbreaking semifinal loss to Spain in the Euros, and Danish midfielder Josefine Hasbo, whom Gotham signed in June, are all back, along with Carter.
Carter says she is confident her club will give her time off when she needs it.
'I felt like I had enough support from Gotham to be able to manage what I needed over the coming weeks,' she said. 'Because I'm well aware it's going to hit me at some point. I'm not gonna be able to keep (going) 'go, go, go' so I know that they'll support me whatever way I need, going forward.'
Scott Epsley, Gotham's director of player health and performance, explained to The Athletic how the club had a whiteboard in their offices that, for several months, helped visually track where players were and when they would be returning. Communication with the players' federations, he said, was crucial, as was having accurate information on how often they trained with those teams.
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A player's reintegration into the club's environment is tailored to their needs. Staff take a holistic approach, reevaluating a player's strength, range of motion, past injuries and other relevant factors. For example, Carter trained this week, working closely around her travel and sleep schedule, while the rest of her Gotham teammates recovered.
'When you're just playing and you're not really training, which is what these tournaments are, you can actually detrain in certain areas,' Epsley said.
Stakeholders with competing interests continue to fill the calendar, with players often stuck in the middle between international windows mandated by global governing body FIFA and the demands of their domestic teams.
'We are concerned about the inadequate rest periods between FIFA windows and regular-season games,' Meghann Burke, the NWSL Players Association's executive director, told The Athletic. 'The problem is we don't have a great answer, because FIFA just keeps grabbing more and more days (for FIFA windows), making it difficult for us to be able to play our regular season.'
After announcing the new match calendar in March 2023, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said: 'FIFA promoted a truly global approach to the discussions on the International Match Calendar, which considered the perspectives of all key stakeholders. Our fundamental objective is to have clarity on this topic, and to have meaningful football matches while protecting the well-being of the players and recognising that many regions need more competitive football.'
The Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RTSP) govern when players must be released by clubs for international duty, and vice versa. FIFA only requires that players be released the morning after a team's last match in a tournament. From there, players coordinate with their clubs.
'The reality is, when you look at the grueling demands of this past window (in July)… it's very clear that players need a rest, and that's a decision that, at this point, needs to be made by the team,' Burke said.
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The NWSLPA's scope here is limited. The international match calendar is decided by FIFA. The union is pushing for more input, so is the NWSL. The league has expressed its own desires to work with FIFA more closely over calendar concerns, hiring Sarah Gregorius, a former professional player and exec at FIFPro, the international players' union, last year to help facilitate talks with stakeholders.
NWSL players also face unique challenges. The vast geography of the U.S. means club travel is akin to international travel in Europe. There are also a growing number of competitions, while the increasing number of international players in the league adds another layer to player welfare concerns.
'The NWSL Players Association represents all of our members, with respect to their club role, and we're deeply concerned about their work conditions when they go to play for the national team,' Burke said. 'We've had members go away to a national team and come back with an injury that impacts their ability to perform work for their club. So, we've expanded our scope to be concerned about working conditions for our members who are competing for national teams in other countries.'
The NWSLPA has, however, found tangible ways to address player workload management. The union partnered with BreakAway Data last year to give players access to their physical data and pushed in its CBA for teams to hire professionals that can help players manage growing demand.
'Our approach so far has been to advocate for things like applied sports scientists, which were not a requirement until our first collective bargaining agreement came along,' Burke said, 'and advocating for experts in the space to manage workload responsibly and make sure that it's tailored to meet that individual player's needs.'
The NWSLPA also negotiated a mid-season break for players this year. That CBA-mandated break from June 23-29 was 'crucial,' Burke said. However, the league scheduled it during this recent FIFA window, keeping international players from benefiting. Burke is optimistic that, next year, a break would be more inclusive.
'Because the league (the NWSL) has to take a break during the men's World Cup (June 11-July 19), it's the first real opportunity the league has had to schedule the midseason break outside of a FIFA window,' Burke said. 'We've made that ask. That decision's not been made yet. I'm hopeful they will see the wisdom of giving the international (players) that break.'