February 10 – The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has announced its full schedule for the 2023 regular season that will kick off on March 25.
Champions Portland Thorns will kick off their NWSL title defence on March 26 against Orlando Pride at Providence Park.
The league is not in its 11th season which will see its 12 teams play a 22-match home and away league campaign.
In 2020, the league introduced its Challenge Cup as a means to get a competition played before the league season could be finalised due to uncertainties around covid and schedule planning.
The competition was a success and the NWSL stuck with it as a pre-season cup competition before the start of the 2021 and 22 league seasons. That is now changing and for 2023 the UKG NWSL Challenge Cup will run concurrently with the regular season.
The Cup will feature three groups of four teams playing double round-robin matches for a total of six contests.
Group stages kick off April 14 and complete August 5/6. Following the group stage, four teams will progress to theknock-out semi- finals on September 6 and the final on September 9.
The top six teams from the regular league season will qualify for the NWSL Championship playoffs, with the top two teams receiving a first-round bye. The final will be played November 11.
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