| And some details about Denver joining the NWSL |
Hello Courage Country! It’s been a fairly slow week, so I hope you’re ok with a short newsletter today.
Things should pick up a little closer to the season starting, including kit reveals!
Courage news and updates
In exciting news, Jaedyn Shaw did her first press conference as a Courage squad member, sitting with Denise O’Sullivan and head coach Sean Nahas.
You can watch the whole conversation on the Courage’s YouTube channel.
Here’s a quick rundown:
- Training has just started, but Nahas and Sully felt the team seems to be settling in well.
- When asked about new members of the roster, O’Sullivan said, “One thing about the Courage is the culture stays the same, and our values don’t change, and I think that’s very important in preseason to get these players coming up to scratch and they see what we do here.”
- They talked a lot about the positive-but-intense training environment in preseason.
- Louis Fernandez at WRAL asked for how they’re planning to pair Shaw with Ashley Sanchez. Nahas said he’s still working on it but teased some “fun” ideas, and said space matters more than position, so he’s working on spacing with the starting spots.
- We asked Shaw about her approach to fitting into the Courage’s unique system. She responded the play style looks fun, so she’s excited to be in it, and added, “I take a lot of pride in scoring goals, so hopefully I can be a help with that.” She emphasized working on the attack with the team.
- Nahas reiterated the importance of fitting the player to the system, and had a great line about Shaw: “Nobody has seen the best of her.” 🦁
In other news, the Courage have been needing to clear some space on their roster ahead of the 2025 season. Departures are a sad necessity at this point. We received two updates this week:
- Forward Haley Hopkins was traded to Kansas City Current in exchange for $50,000 of intra-league transfer funds.
- Midfielder Victoria Pickett was loaned to AFC Toronto for the 2025 season (through December 2025). Toronto is in the brand-new Northern Super League, so Pickett will have the opportunity to shape Canada’s top tier play from the outset.
Around the league and beyond
- Amazon greenlit a documentary on Washington Spirit’s 2024 title run, promising “unprecedented access” to the NWSL playoff period. 🍿
- The league finally officially announced Denver as its 16th side for the 2026 expansion. Maybe most noteworthy are the details around the investment group, and the fact that they broke a record pre-selling season tickets:
Denver NWSL has received 5,280 season ticket deposits, breaking an NWSL record as the fastest expansion franchise to eclipse 5,000 deposits. The Mile High figure was reached in just three days and comes on the heels of Denver being awarded NWSL’s 16th team on Thursday, Jan. 30
— Taylor Vincent (@tayvincent6.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 2:07 PM
That’s it for this week! As always, you can get in touch with tips, suggestions, corrections and more: contact@lionspitch.com.
Next match: Saturday, March 15, 5:00 pm ET
v. Racing Louisville
AWAY
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