Ranking EVERY NWSL MVP Candidate | Barbra Banda, Trinity Rodman, Rose Lavelle & MORE | Plus Rookie of the Year Favorites

The Late Sub with Claire Watkins

Just Women’s Sports

Sports, Soccer

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2026

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Claire breaks down the NWSL MVP race with Orlando's Barbra Banda leading the way. If the race ended today, she's taking it. A WILD golden boot race with Ashley Sanchez, Olivia Moultrie keeping Portland at the top of the table, and Rose Lavelle Leading Gotham. Plus NWSL Rookie of the Year watch! This episode is presented by Ally Bank, member FDIC Chapters 00:00 Introduction 04:14 Barbra Banda 06:05 Olivia Moultrie 07:58 Rose Lavelle 09:52 Ashley Sanchez 12:25 Trinity Rodmans 12:47 Dudinha 14:16 Taylor Flint 18:29 Rookie of the Year Watch Just Women’s Sports is the leading digital media platform dedicated exclusively to women’s sports. In a world where women’s sports have been historically underfunded and under-promoted, Just Women’s Sports exists to shine a light on all the stories, athletes and moments that define and fuel the space. Through original podcasts, premium video programming, social media, editorial content, a newsletter, and exclusive merchandise and live events, Just Women’s Sports is committed to making it both easy and fun to be a women’s sports fan. Add us on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justwomenssports/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/justwsports Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@justwomenssports?

Transcript

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0:00.0	The end of USL is seeing one of its most parody-rich seasons in the years in 2026, and I want to talk about some of the players who are keeping that engine running.
0:10.1	Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's edition of The Late Sub, presented to you by Ally Bank.
0:15.2	I am your host, Claire Watkins. It is Wednesday, May 6th. And because we've seen a lot of competition so far in the NWSL without too many conclusions,
0:24.6	sort of team-wide, I want to jump into individual performances because we're starting to see some pretty concrete trends
0:31.6	on who we could talk about as some early MVP front runners, some rookies who are doing really, really well,
0:36.6	and maybe what we'd like to see as the season progresses, and we start to see teams start to figure each other out. Let's dig it.
0:48.9	So the end of USL is mostly a quarter already through its 2026 regular season with teams sitting
0:56.4	somewhere between six to eight games played with all this midweek schedule trying to get
1:01.1	a lot done before the men's world cup kind of alleviates play for a whole month.
1:06.2	And we've seen a lot of really nice individual performances as teams start to figure each other out.
1:13.8	This has been a high parody season thus far. And as we know, the most competitive league
1:18.4	already in the world. For example, the NWSL has already achieved what's colloquially known
1:24.2	as the circle of parody in its fastest time. Others shout out to Walt Mildon on Blue Sky in which every team has actually beaten one
1:32.8	other team who beat another team to form a downstream that creates a perfect circle,
1:38.2	which is a good visual indicator of just how competitive this season has been so far of
1:43.1	like the rain, louisville who beat
1:44.9	Orlando who beat angel city who beat chicago who beat boston who beat denver who beat gotham you
1:50.1	you can get the idea that every team has looked competitive in a similar way against a lot of
1:56.5	other teams even as we are starting to see some teams rise to the top. So rather this week than make any grand statements about where teams are going,
2:04.6	because I think we're still going to see some highs and some lows.
2:07.5	And on any given weekend, it seems like it could be one team's day, which I really love.
2:10.9	That's nice to see.
	...

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