Katarina Mikario is coming to the NWSL for the first time. And as excited as I am just about that, I'm even more excited to see some of the tied turn in terms of U.S. Women's National Team players kind of staking their claim to the end of USL. We've got a lot to dig into here. I want to talk a little bit about last year, a little about this year. We're going to talk about the hip rule. We're going to talk about salaries. We're going to talk about competition. And we're going to talk about these U.S. players, both the veterans and the upstarts, that I think are going to create a very dynamic end of USL after maybe a year of a lot of questions. Let's dive in.

So very exciting news early this week on both the end of USL and the US Women's

National Team Front.

Sportico first broke on Monday that US and Chelsea forward,

Katerina Macario will officially be joining the San Diego Wave on a massive

eight million, around eight million five-year contract, officially ending her time in Europe

and setting up a long-awated NWSL debut.

Shout out, I believe, to Jeff Kassa, ESPN for first reporting that connection between

McCarrio and the wave.

After I think early, there were some talks of maybe her looking at joining Bay FC.

It makes sense.

Those are her two touch points in California.

Those places both feel like home to Macario.

This is a big deal.

Even if, you know, Katerina Macario's availability questions

remain after a few years of injury issues. And maybe also, I always want to like be conscious

of the fact that maybe I actually personally am stuck a little bit sometimes in the Katerina

Macario of 21 and 22 or even how she was the

best soccer player coming out of NCAA in 2020. She's an incredible talent when she's healthy.

She fits a clear need for the wave after some of their other attacking additions going into

this season. This kind of puts all of the pieces together. This is a huge

influx of a notable player, someone with hopefully a very bright US Women's National Team

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