NWSL x LIGA MX Femenil Summer Cup

Taylor Vincent
Taylor Vincent, Resident NWSL ExpertJuly 12, 2024
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#nwsl #liga mx femenil #summer cup
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While players were released for the Olympics and Olympic prep on Monday, the Olympics group stage will begin on July 25th and the Gold Medal match will take place on August 10th. In previous years, summer international tournaments like the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics have meant that teams play regular season games while missing key players, to combat it this year there will be the inaugural NWSL x LIGA MX Femenil Summer Cup. 

The 33 match tournament kicks off July 19th and includes all 14 NWSL teams as well as the six teams with the most points achieved in Liga MX Femenil Clausura and Apertura during 2023. The Liga MX Femenil season consists of two tournaments: an Apertura tournament, which takes place from July to December, and a Clausura tournament, which takes place from January to May. The six teams which qualified for the Summer Cup are: Tigres UANL, Club América, Chivas de Guadalajara, Rayadas de Monterrey, Pachuca and Tijuana.

The Summer Cup will not only allow teams an opportunity to bring home some extra hardware, it also allows players who might not have as many minutes in the regular season to see game time, and it allows domestic players to potentially sign to NWSL teams as a National Team Replacement Player (NTRP) and give them an opportunity to fight for a potential contract through the end of the year. 


Breakdown of players who will be missing the Summer tournament due to participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Yellow means the player has not yet played a game with the squad

Gotham will be missing the most players from their current starting rotation during the Summer Cup with seven players, while Orlando, Portland, and Washington all are missing five players — six if you count the players who have signed and not yet played a game with the team. 

On the low side, Angel City is only missing one player for the Olympics, and Louisville, Seattle, and Kansas City are only missing two. With Ali Riley dealing with injury in the first half of the NWSL season and only playing in five of the team’s 16 matches, Angel City is definitely the team who will be the least impacted by missing players. They’ll need to take advantage of San Diego’s recent rough patch, and Bay FC losing their primary attacking/pressing strikers. 

The Red Stars are the other NWSL-side in a group with both Gotham and Washington—both of whom are ahead of Chicago in the regular season table, and missing a large number of starters. Chicago will have a good opportunity to be the top NWSL team in Group D, although missing captain/goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher and forward Mallory Swanson will likely change the structure of their attack and defense. 


#nwsl #liga mx femenil #summer cup
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