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Hopefully your Sunday was as lit as Ellie the Elephant’s. 🎧 We also recommend you listen to “Full Time Review,” where we recap the weekend’s NWSL action in 15 minutes or less every Monday.

Hey Full Time readers, Gossip Girl, er, Emily Olsen here with the crew, and we have the biggest news ever. One of our many sources says things are really heating up in the NWSL playoff race.

Kansas City Current’s Temwa Chawinga has yet to meet a record she doesn’t want to break. The final victim of the “Temwa Sweep,” the San Diego Wave, didn’t have a chance when Nichelle Prince sent a pass across goal to Chawinga. Don’t believe it? We have the video proof. Can you say, “MVP”?

There’s been a lot of sappy goodbyes lately, but you’ll never guess who was spotted at Kelley O’Hara’s farewell game. That’s right, the ultimate insider Dan Humphreys, I mean Penn Badgley, looking awfully smiley with his LFG KOH hat and complementary Gotham jersey. Trying to fit in among legends like Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Sam Mewis, Ali Krieger, Heather O’Reilly and Midge Purce are we, Dan? Keep trying.

Speaking of Midge … do you want to know what everyone’s watching? Ask the NWSL champ about how she spent the “Offseason.”

Until next week … XOXO, Full Time.

(Missed the reference? Watch the CW’s “Gossip Girl,” co-starring Badgley, on your streaming service of choice and it will all make sense.)

Before the international break, let’s take stock of the NWSL playoff picture. Here’s where things stand headed into the final weekend, starting Nov. 1:

Honorable mention: Angel City may have been eliminated from postseason contention this weekend, but that doesn’t take away any of the sauce from this Sydney Leroux goal 👀 as the team honored the career of Merrit Mathias.

Chawinga scored in the 54th minute of a 4-1 Current win over San Diego at CPKC Stadium. She has officially scored a goal or more against every NWSL team in 2024 alone. As if you need the numbers to convince you any more about Chawinga’s unprecedented season, we asked Jeff Rueter to spell it out:

“At this point, I’m comfortable stumping for Chawinga as the MVP front-runner. Barbra Banda has undoubtedly been unstoppable and one Orlando’s two hearts alongside Marta. She’ll be front and center in the Best XI, and she might even win NWSL Championship MVP.

“However, the Pride was already on its way to an all-time great season before Banda debuted. It’s hard to imagine where this Current side would be without Chawinga.

“The fact that Chawinga is leading in goals (20 to 13) and is tied with Banda in assists (six apiece) further cements their impact on results. No matter who wins out, we’ve truly been spoiled by these two world-class strikers who’ve played at the top of their game all season long.”

The New York Liberty are WNBA champions after Sunday night’s win at the Barclays Center. Investment ended up being a key theme after the confetti rained down. Presenter Holly Rowe gave props to Liberty owners Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai for bringing the team out from Westchester to Brooklyn, but across the board 2024 was the year of the W.

Women’s soccer and the NWSL can look to the WNBA for plenty of lessons after this season, not just for the league’s explosive growth but also the risk to players that comes with it. But sometimes it really does boil down to a single idea: investment.

It wasn’t hard to think of what we’ve seen from this year’s top four NWSL teams and how meaningful investment on and off the field has changed all four clubs, sometimes within a single calendar year.

As the NWSL season winds down, a challenge awaits the league: how to capitalize on this momentum around women’s sports. Those top four teams all have a chance to keep building as they host quarterfinals next month. For some, like Orlando and Gotham FC, it’s the first chance to host a home playoff game. Opportunities like this matter.

Above all, the expectations are going to be sky high for viewership this year, especially with the championship in the primetime slot on Saturday, Nov. 23. Last year’s final between Gotham FC and the Reign pulled 817,000 viewers — and that was with the added storylines of Megan Rapinoe and Ali Krieger retiring. The NWSL won’t fall because they fail to crack 1 million viewers this year, but it feels more imperative than ever for the NWSL to hit tangible metrics like this.

Seriously, how many times have we said goodbye to long-time NWSL players this year? Three more players announced or were honored for their retirements last week. We’ve shared the emotional baggage by taking turns with our immortalization of players.

Melanie on Kelley O’Hara’s farewell: “KOH tried her best not to cry, even joking that someone should set a timer to see how long she’d last. When she turned to her Gotham teammates, all bets were off. Gotham celebrated O’Hara’s legendary career on Sunday night, following their last regular season home game, a 3-1 win against the Pride before 10,757 fans, including a-listers Morgan and Rapinoe, as well as, for some reason, Penn Badgley. She ended her remarks by saying, ‘I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, and I’ve had the best time of my life.’ (Next up, another emotional farewell with the USWNT in Nashville.)”

Steph on Desiree Scott: “In a year of big retirements, Scott’s feels like it flew under the radar, even with her teammates wearing custom-printed shirts with her face on them. That’s Scott in a nutshell: understated, but invaluable. It’s been hard watching the end of her career dwindle the way it has between injury recovery, a tough personal year and an extremely strange Olympics with Canada. But Desi Scott tried as hard as anyone ever has, her 5’3″ frame churning in the midfield for decades. May she have no regrets and abundant memories.”

Meg on Merritt Mathias: “I’m still thinking about my hour-long call with Mathias before her retirement announcement — not just for her honesty and vulnerability, but because she raised so many big, important questions about what it means when an NWSL great retires. Mathias got her flowers this weekend at Angel City’s last home game (and a delightful homage from her teammates with their pregame fits), but she’s truly an NWSL OG and a one-of-one human being, too. With so much attention paid to national team careers, Mathias is a perfect reminder that we’ve got to celebrate the best of the best at the league level too.”

Who’s the BOS?: We didn’t have a newsletter last week to properly discuss the botched rollout of BOS Nation FC, but Steph was at the unveiling and captured the fans’ emotions, while Meg weighed in with her thoughts.

Going camping: Emma Hayes named her 26-player roster for the October camp last week with 18 Olympic gold medalists and a handful of players who likely impressed Hayes on her recent U.S. tour. We see you, Ashley Sanchez and Yazmeen Ryan! The team faces Iceland on Oct. 24 and 27 before facing Argentina on Oct. 30.

Troubling reports: Last week, we published an interview with former Fulham Ladies captain Ronnie Gibbons who told she was assaulted by former club owner Al Fayed on two separate occasions while she was playing for the London club. She waived her anonymity to tell her story after her former manager told the BBC that Fulham “protected” their women’s players against Al Fayed. The full story is both heartbreaking and vital.

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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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