The 2025 NWSL season officially gets underway on Friday with the Challenge Cup, this year featuring 2024’s best teams – the Orlando Pride and the Washington Spirit.
The Pride return to play after a record-breaking 2024 season in which the team won their first-ever trophies, winning both the NWSL Championship and the NWSL Shield. The Spirit, meanwhile, landed in second place in both categories last year but both sides have a chance to start fresh with the Challenge Cup – and collect their first piece of silverware of the new season.
Here’s what you need to know before tuning in.
How to watch and odds
- Date: Friday, March 7 | Time: 8 p.m. ET
- Location: Inter&Co Stadium — Orlando, Fla.
- Live stream: Amazon Prime Video
- Odds: Orlando Pride +130; Draw +230; Washington Spirit +200
What is the NWSL Challenge Cup?
In its current iteration, the NWSL Challenge Cup is a game between the most recent winners of the NWSL Championship and Shield. Since the Pride won both last year, the 2025 edition will be a rematch of last season’s championship, which the Washington Spirit competed in.
The Challenge Cup was launched in 2020 as a return-to-play solution in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021 and 2022, it was a tournament that took place before the start of the regular season before morphing into an in-season cup competition in 2023. The current format was introduced last year, with the San Diego Wave beating NJ/NY Gotham FC in the one-off game.
Storylines
Orlando Pride: Fresh off a record-breaking season that saw the Orlando Pride transform from one of the NWSL’s bottom-dwellers to the cream of the crop, the big question facing the reigning champions is: Can they keep it up? They are running with a very similar squad to the one that completed a double in 2024, including last season’s defender of the year Emily Sams and MVP candidates Barbra Banda and Marta. Banda will be someone in particular to keep on after a 17-goal season in her debut NWSL campaign, while Marta will aim to enjoy the Pride’s new look as long as she can, since 2025 will likely be one of the final years in her storied career.
Washington Spirit: The 2021 NWSL champions exceeded expectations in 2024, assembling an impressive attack with a batch of the league’s best young attacking talents and hitting the ground running despite head coach Jonatan Giraldez’s midseason arrival. It makes them an exciting season to follow in Giraldez’s first full season, though things might depend on availability. Last year’s MVP nominee Trinity Rodman and rookie of the year Croix Bethune, for example, traveled to Florida for the Challenge Cup but their ability to play is still unknown as they both deal with injuries.
Prediction
Anything is possible in a one-off game between two top-quality sides, especially as they shake the last of the preseason rust off of them. If the Spirit do not have some of their stars available to them, though, expect this one to tilt in the Pride’s favor. Pick: Orlando Pride 1, Washington Spirit 0
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