How rookies navigate a world without an NWSL draft
Full Time: A show about women's soccer
The Athletic
4.8 • 808 Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Full Time, Tamerra Griffin and Meg Linehan take a deep dive into the new world of NCAA rookie free agency. Since the NWSLPA inked a new CBA with the league in 2024, which abolished the draft, what has it been like to navigate turning pro in this historic offseason?
To help with the discussion, Tamerra and Meg spoke to rookies out of UCLA, Quincy McMahon (now San Diego Wave) and Lilly Reale (now Gotham FC), soccer agent Gabriel Chapman from Inspired XI, and Gotham FC GM Yael Averbuch-West.
PLUS: Meg unpacks her reporting on the impending world-record transfer of Naomi Girma to Chelsea. And, while talking a little NWSL and English WSL crossover, The Athletic's Charlotte Harpur joins the show to give the latest on the title race, an instantly classic Manchester Derby, and what Girma's signing means.
Oh, and yes, the schedule is out. Meg says so.
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Articles mentioned on the show:
Chelsea and San Diego finalizing record $1.1 million transfer for USWNT’s Naomi Girma: Sources
Manchester City complete signing of Kerolin from North Carolina Courage
USWNT defender Naomi Girma as $1m transfer pioneer should surprise nobody
NWSL schedule release: Key matchups, how to watch and the return of Decision Day
Manchester United’s intensity forced City into the errors that sealed historic win
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HOSTS: Meg Linehan, Tamerra Griffin
GUESTS: Charlotte Harpur, Quincy McMahon, Lilly Reale, Gabriel Chapman, Yael Averbuch-West
PRODUCER: Theo Lloyd-Hughes
VIDEO PRODUCER: Lia Griffin
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Emily Olsen
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, welcome back to full-time with Meg Linnehan. I am Tamara Griffin, and I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Meg, there's so much going on, but I have to |
| 0:23.1 | quickly check in. How are you doing? |
| 0:25.4 | Wait, I enjoyed the intro today. Hey. |
| 0:28.7 | It's, you know, it's mid-January. We have an NW.Self schedule. I'm free from that, but otherwise, |
| 0:35.6 | I've been kind of consumed by Naomi Germa and jealousy that our |
| 0:41.1 | producer Theo has more snow on the ground in Texas than we do, at least in town here in Vermont. |
| 0:46.6 | Not right. |
| 0:47.7 | I mean, the people in the southeast have been having a ball with the snow. |
| 0:52.9 | I have been getting so many videos on WhatsApp of people |
| 0:55.8 | acting like local news saying their name the date what's going on like we can't tell. It's been |
| 1:00.4 | bringing me a lot of joy here in Sunny California. All right. Before we even start talking about |
| 1:07.2 | Naomi Girma, which, who is happier in the world right now than Chelsea fans, |
| 1:11.6 | East Africans, defenders? We are going to be also doing on the show today a deep dive |
| 1:17.8 | into the post-draft era. We have conversations with recent NCAA graduates, agents, general managers |
| 1:24.8 | about how they've each been navigating this post-draft era ever since |
| 1:28.9 | the NWSL announced last year that they were going to eliminate it. But back to Naomi. Meg, |
| 1:35.1 | where are we at in this? Because there's been a lot of reporting, a lot of sources being cited. |
| 1:40.4 | Where are we at right now when it comes to Naomi's transfer from the San Diego Wave to Chelsea? |
| 1:46.7 | Right now we're still waiting for it to be finalized. |
| 1:49.9 | Chelsea and San Diego Wave have agreed to terms over the transfer fee. |
| 1:54.3 | So that's $1.1 million. |
| 1:55.7 | So that was my reporting from earlier this week that Chelsea have kind of won this two horse race. |
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