Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Total Soccer show and this week's episode of The Big Thing.

Every week, we bring you a deep dive into a major story in the soccer world.

This week, we're taking a look back at the NWSL's regular season and looking forward to the postseason.

To help me look in both of those directions, hopefully without hurting our next too much, I'm joined by a returning guest, backheel.com's Ariana Cascon. Ariana, thanks for coming on the show. How are you? Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm doing well today. How are you? I am well, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to come and do this.

I know you're working am well. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time

out of your busy schedule to come and do this. I know you're working and writing and doing all

sorts of those kinds of things. Like I said in the intro, we're going to talk about a bunch of

on-field NWSL stuff. And before we get to that stuff, it is important to note, Ariana, that players and

staff members and employees and families and media folks and really so many other people are acutely feeling the weight of the Sally Yates report and sort of the aftermath of that report that was published last week.

So we're not going to you and I get into the latest fallout from that report on this show.

Instead, we're choosing to spotlight many of the players and teams who have done some

great work on the field this year and to give credit to those players who really had the

end of the regular season overshadowed, justifiably so, but by no real fault of their own.

So the athletic, the equalizer, Henry Bushnell at Yahoo, ESPN, and tons of other folks

around the media landscape are really

diligently covering that story. And in the fallout from last week, Sally Hates report, so go check

out their coverage because that stuff is important. But like I said, we wanted to shine a light

on the field with the playoffs, pretty much breathing down our necks at this point to talk about

some of the work that these players and teams have done this year. So with all of that stuff being said, Ariana, let's get to a little bit of a regular season recap. So maybe our first segment and most of the second segment, if not all of it, are going to be looking back at the regular season. And then we'll finish out with some awards talk and look ahead to the postseason as well. So let's start with this.

Ariana, what was the best thing that you saw on the field in the NWSL this year?

For me, I think maybe the expansion team's really bawling out. I mean, we saw a 17-year-old come in and score three goals in three starts for the San Diego wave. You know, they were at the

top of the table for a large stretch of

...