ShePlays fam, we’re back for our fourth season of fantasy NWSL! It is time to start making your fantasy teams, finding the league’s best-kept secrets, and researching your rookies.
Thank you to everyone who filled out our end-of-year survey! This launch post is more detailed directly because of you. Today, we’re going to share what you can expect from us this season, what updates we made in the offseason, and address some frequently asked questions!
Our goal is to have fun elevating incredible athletes and learning more about the sport.
First off, you may notice that not every single player under contract with the NWSL is available for selection to your fantasy team right now.
We don’t add players at the start of the season who ended the season on the SEI list until we know they have been activated and are available to play again. Similarly, players who are not active in preseason due to offseason surgeries who we know through official channels are not expected to be available at the start of the season are not yet available for selection to your fantasy team.
We know this season that includes some fantasy NWSL favorites like Croix Bethune, Rose Lavelle, and Sam Staab.
As new players sign with teams, we will continue to make updates and let you know when those updates have been made and players become available. The same goes for players returning from injury!
Secondly, if you’re looking for the best user experience available for ShePlays, we recommend at the very least making your team on a desktop/laptop if you are able. It is the most comprehensive and easy to view version of the site. We know that isn’t realistic for everyone, but if you have access to a computer, we strongly encourage you to use that device.
Our website has some quirks, and you’re able to get the most out of it when you can take in the information shared when viewing on a larger screen. We know some users would prefer an app, but we’ve also heard from others who are grateful they can participate without having to download anything. In general, please know that we are working to try to improve the interface, mobile version of the site, and user experience. We have been exploring options on how to best do this and continue to do so.
If you’re new here…
Welcome! Things are about to get more detailed and you may be better served by first viewing this page on how to play, and/or the below videos that walk you through signing up for an account and building your team:
When are points updated?
Points will be updated in the hours following a match being played. Leaderboards and mini-leagues will be updated following the conclusion of the round once all points have been tallied.
In previous seasons, points would be calculated and updated following the conclusion of a round. We have continued to evolve our processes, with some trial and error over the past few seasons. This process was initiated and completed by our team members in Australia in prior seasons, which made the timing confusing for our United States-based users, especially in rounds with unusual start and end times.
Last season, we started trialing the automatic points calculation post-match.
This season, we have had a change in how we receive our data. This means that we don’t know yet how long it will take for us to receive data post-match to begin processing. As the season progresses and we become more familiar with our new partners and systems, we hope to fall into a rhythm and be able to project how long it will take for points to be awarded and published.
We understand that some users may be used to instantaneous updates or mid-game updates as a result of other fantasy sports experiences. That is not something that we have the ability to offer at this time. Women’s soccer data is still nowhere near as developed as men’s sports, and this is a huge part of why we do what we do!
What earns points?
Great question! We have a scoring matrix available on the Rules & Scoring page that tells you exactly what player actions earn points.
The ShePlays fantasy points a player earns does not necessarily equate to a player’s skill, ability, or impact on the field. The data we receive does not capture everything- off the ball work being a significant unquantifiable variable. A player can have an impact without meeting thresholds for additional attacking or defending points. Figuring out which players fill roles that regularly earn significant points and why they may earn points when another player doesn’t is all part of learning more about the sport!
What happens if a player doesn’t make an appearance in a given round?
If a player in your lineup doesn’t enter the game, a player from your bench may take their place. The order of your bench matters!
Why?
Because the next player up who fits into a valid formation will be the player who receives points.
With our change to updating points match by match, this also means that you will likely see bench players earning points over the course of the weekend in some rounds while your starting eleven slowly get through their matches. At the end of the round, those players on your bench may no longer have points attributed to them and that would be because either:
- Your entire starting eleven played!
- The player on your bench does not combine with the players in your starting eleven to create a valid formation.
The valid formations in ShePlays fantasy NWSL are as follows:
- 3 Defenders – 5 Midfielders – 2 Forwards (3-5-2)
- 3 Defenders – 4 Midfielders – 3 Forwards (3-4-3)
- 4 Defenders – 3 Midfielders – 3 Forwards (4-3-3)
- 4 Defenders – 4 Midfielders – 2 Forwards (4-4-2)
- 5 Defenders – 3 Midfielders – 2 Forwards (5-3-2)
Why didn’t we tell you that player was unavailable?
We do our best to stay up to date with player injuries. This is how we update on player injuries and some of the barriers that exist within the NWSL.
Firstly, how might you know a player is injured or unavailable?
We do our best to keep up with all team updates regarding long-term injuries. If it has been shared publicly by a team that a player is expected to miss multiple rounds, we will flag that player causing them to appear with a red highlight in the team selector only. If that player is on your team, you will see this highlight. If you go to select a player for your team, you may notice some are flagged red. Those are usually injured players we don’t expect to play.
We say usually, because we don’t always catch when a player has been activated. In these situations, we really appreciate when someone lets us know and do our best to make backend updates as quickly as we are able.
We do our best to share team injury reports as soon as they become available. Sometimes we have the opportunity to put a timeframe or elaborate on a player absence, and we do so when applicable. For the past three seasons, we did this on Twitter, @ShePlaysNWSL, typically on Thursday or Friday.
This season, we are in the midst of determining the level of activity we will have on Twitter and have created a Bluesky account. We know a lot of users have left Twitter, but don’t want to disappear for those who rely on that resource. We recommend following us on Bluesky, @ShePlaysInc.bsky.social to stay in the loop.
Outside of social media, Nick usually has some great insight on fantasy player management somewhere in his weekly NWSL fantasy column, Manser’s Answers posted right here in the ShePlays Stories side of the site!
There is also a list always available on this part of the site under the Availability & Transfers tab. You can always reach the ShePlays Stories homepage by clicking “Latest News” while in the player database or team selector.
So how might we share about player availability?
- Resharing team social media posts when availability reports are made
- Sharing a roundup of injuries/availability updates on social media before the round begins
- Potential analysis on fantasy impact from Nick found here on the site
- Red highlight of player signals they may not be available
- ShePlays player availability list on the site
If a player is traded out of the NWSL or retires mid-season, we will highlight them in red and their team will be changed to “Player Not Available”. You will still have to remove the player from your lineup, if you so choose.
Players who are added to the SEI list are also marked in red for the remainder of the season.
What are the barriers to us sharing this information before the start of each round?
We’ll be blunt. In recent years, it is unfortunately not uncommon for coaches to hide or lie about player injuries and availability.
The NWSL does not regularly update their injury report on the NWSL website.
Some teams wait until the last second to submit their injury reports – this means that we won’t ever necessarily have injury reports on Friday for games on Sunday.
Teams are not required to share training participation reports and reasoning for absence from training or information regarding level of participation like in other American sports leagues.
We know it’s frustrating when a player isn’t listed on the injury report and you didn’t see anything about an injury but they don’t make gameday rosters for consecutive rounds, only for a coach to later in the season mention how that player has done a great job coming back from their injury that was never reported. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to read minds and we can only know what is shared with us – if we have a breakthrough in this area we will certainly let everyone know.
What happens if a match date is moved?
When a match is moved, you’ll get your points for that match whenever the match is played. For example, if a match in Round 3 is moved to be played closer to Round 7, it will still be a part of your Round 3 points. Players from your Round 3 lineup will be the players you receive points for.
What if a player switches positions mid-season?
Players are assigned positions prior to the start of the season based on reporting from their teams or historical data points if teams have not made a player position assignment.
Fantasy position assignments will not change throughout the season, they’re set once a player is made available for selection.
Some teams like to move players around between position groups and sometimes players need to move out of necessity due to team availability, which means there may be contradictory information available, but we do our best to reflect the most common role of the player.
How do you know when each round starts/transfer window closes?
Each round is laid out in the Fixtures & Results page. The transfer window remains open until the kickoff time for the first game of the round. From this page you can also click on the score from any past fixture from the season and view the full points breakdown of every player who made an appearance in the match.
It’s a super fun part of the site that few users seem to explore!
The time remaining to the start of the next round is also always listed over the Team Selector and the deadline is automatically set to be calculated for your timezone (as are all of the match kickoffs!).
We historically have tweeted at least a 24-hour warning to save your teams, and sometimes at closer increments as well. We will not be able to do this on Bluesky at the moment, because it does not offer the option to schedule posts in advance. We are exploring our options and other tools as we continue to become more familiar with all Bluesky has to offer.
Why are some player pages totally blank?
Oh, if only you knew what we’ve been through over these pages. For you to access the player profile, it’s actually very simple!
The players whose pages are appearing as blank, it is due to an error with the player’s name when the page is loading. The website takes the player name, hyphenates it, and just like magic serves you the player’s page.
However, for players like Haley McCutcheon, this doesn’t work. All you need to do to view the page is add a hyphen between Mc and Cutcheon in the URL, and the page will appear!
URL automatically called: https://sheplays.com.au/nwsl/players/haley-mccutcheon
URL that will take you to the player profile: https://sheplays.com.au/nwsl/players/haley-mc-cutcheon
We’ve put hours upon hours into troubleshooting and trying to fix this issue, and it is much more complicated than it appears. While we continue to evolve and improve the site, this remains top of mind.
Please know we are aware and every player does have a profile page with their game-by-game stat breakdown available as the season progresses.
Regarding profile page updates:
This is another process and system that has been significantly updated over the offseason to improve our workflow and more easily allow updates. Our team put a lot of work in here and we are so excited to start on this next project now that Fantasy has launched!
There are over 300 active players in the NWSL, and player turnover has not been insignificant in recent offseasons. We do not currently have a timeline for when we will have all player profiles live and updated, but it is another thing we have been working hard to improve and are now moving into the next phase of that project!
We’re a small, volunteer-run nonprofit based in Australia.
We’re not the multibillion-dollar companies with huge marketing budgets and full-time teams working on their fantasy games.
Thank you for being here and growing with us as we pursue our goal of raising the profiles of these elite athletes in community and growing not just the game, but understanding of it.
Here’s to a wonderful 2025 NWSL season, and another year of fantasy soccer. Go make your team!