The first Team of the Round for 2025 is here! To kick off the NWSL season, we have a 3-4-3 that costs $3,050,000 and earns 201 points.
Fun facts:
- The top 11 scorers overall would have been in a 0-3-3-5 formation, cost $3,425,000 ($225,000 over budget), and had 7 Pride players – that team would have earned 215 points, 14 more than the actual TOTR
- The Pride impressed in Round 1, earning a lot of points with their 6-0 win against Chicago – an all-Pride 11 would have been only $100,000 more expensive and 4 points weaker than this TOTR; a no-Pride 11 would have been $525,000 cheaper, but fully 42 points worse!
- Clearly, Banda is a big driver of that, but also notable that the top four defenders overall (every defender with more than 10 points) all came from the Pride – pretty indicative of how important that clean sheet is!
- As the player with the most points in the round, Banda is the captain, and anyone who captained Banda and got the 2x points bonus on her score earned 56 points – those 56 points account for more than 25% of the TOTR total (201 points)
TOTR 1
Goalkeeper: McGlynn 10
Defenders: Abello 17, Strom 14, K. Pickett 10
Midfielders: Debinha 22, Marta 18, R. Jackson 12, Morris 11
Forwards: Banda 28, Chawinga 17, Cooper 14
Teams Represented – 6
Bay FC – 1 player
Kansas City Current – 3 players
North Carolina Courage – 1 player
Orlando Pride – 4 players
Utah Royals – 1 player
Washington Spirit – 1 player
For more on how we calculate the Team of the Round, click here!