The men’s World Cup awakened new American soccer fans. It’s time for NWSL to invite them in

It is one thing to have been on the ground floor ahead of the meteoric rise of an indie band or clothing label, but announcing it undermines whatever social cachet may have been gained from possessing that degree of taste and vision.

Claiming to have known about something before it became cool does not, in fact, ensure coolness to the person saying it.

This is how many American soccer fans feel after the 2026 men’s World Cup. The vindicating joy of watching the same people who once disparaged the sport fall in love with it as the biggest World Cup in history unfurled on our doorstep, mixed with the urge to shout, “It’s about time! This is what I’ve been saying all along!”

Now that this chapter of the U.S. summer of soccer has ended, there is an urgent need to keep the party going. The post-World Cup blues are real, and no league is better positioned to fill the void and establish itself as the best professional soccer league in North America than the National Women’s Soccer League, which resumed play for the latter half of its season on July 3.

With the women’s World Cup kicking off in Brazil in less than a year — followed by the 2028 Olympics and 2031 Women’s World Cup, both of which will take place in the U.S. — there is arguably no better time to crash this party and lock in for the long haul.

On the sporting side, there’s plenty to adjust to in the NWSL after the summer break. And for the league’s more seasoned followers, a healthy dose of deja vu.

Australia’s all-time leading goal scorer, Sam Kerr, and U.S. captain Lindsey Heaps are back in the league, for starters. The pair, both aged 32, signed with Gotham FC and the Denver Summit, respectively, and have made their debuts in the past week. If their performances are any indication, both look capable of wrapping themselves back in the same stardust they left behind when they departed for Europe.

Kerr joined Gotham, reigning league champions, from Chelsea in the Women’s Super League, where she played for six and a half years and won a slew of trophies, primarily under Emma Hayes, who is now the U.S. women’s national team head coach. Kerr last played in the NWSL for Sky Blue FC, now Gotham, from 2015 to 2017 and left as the league’s top regular-season goal scorer, a title she still holds with 77 goals. Amid the scramble of suitors eager to acquire Kerr after her tenure at Chelsea drew to a close, Gotham came out on top, announcing her signing on June 17.

How fitting that Kerr’s second act in the NWSL took place at the Queens Classic, a landmark rematch of the 2025 championship against the Washington Spirit at Citi Field in Queens. With 42,175 people in attendance, the event drew in the second-largest crowd in NWSL history and became the most-attended women’s sporting event in New York City. Kerr subbed on in the 64th minute and nearly scored with her first touches in the game.

Heaps’ lead-up to her debut with the Summit required more patience from fans. The Mile High expansion side signed Heaps, a native of Golden, Colo., on Jan. 12, but she was determined to see out her final season with French side OL Lyonnes.

Heaps moved back home after the European season ended and took the pitch at Centennial Stadium on July 18. She started Denver’s match against the Portland Thorns, which was Heaps’ last NWSL club before she departed for Lyon. She wore the captain’s armband, as she often does on the USWNT, and played a critical role in the Summit’s upset of the three-time NWSL champions 2-1 before a sellout crowd of 12,372.

Other novelties after the summer break require a subtler adjustment of the eye as players moved within the league.

Ally Sentnor traded in the Kansas City Current’s teal blue for Angel City’s rose gold, while Kennedy Fuller departed the Los Angeles club and moved up the coast to Bay FC. Equally surprising was Angel City’s dismissal of manager Alex Straus. Like many of the club’s acquisitions, Straus’ had been lauded as a definitive step in the right direction for a team that has largely underperformed. The same could be said of Sentnor’s quality versus her impact in high-stakes games as she settles into her third NWSL club in the same number of seasons.

Fuller is expected to represent the U.S. at the U-20 World Cup in Poland this September and should get substantial playing time to continue preparing for that at Bay, who are also struggling to establish themselves after a breakout inaugural season that landed them in the playoffs in 2024.

Not all NWSL stars have returned from the summer break. On July 3, Chelsea signed Japanese forward Manaka Matsukubo from the North Carolina Courage on a five-year deal. The Courage are clinging to a playoff spot as the No. 8 team and have lost two of their last three matches since Matsukubo left.

A candidate for NWSL MVP last season with her five goals and four assists, 21-year-old Matsukubo joins a Chelsea side desperate to recover from a turbulent 2025. With an attack that now includes her, fellow Japanese player Maika Hamano, Alyssa Thompson of the USWNT, Colombian striker Mayra Ramirez and Lauren James, they just might.

There has never been a shortage of storylines or characters in the NWSL. The onus has always been on the league and the clubs that comprise it to properly elevate and market these narratives if a profit is to be made.

Right now, the stakes are higher than they have ever been to invite, compel, and convert so many newborn American soccer fans at once. The extent to which the NWSL capitalizes on this will be just as important to track as the new star players moving into and out of the league.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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