The NWSL is back after a month-long break, and we are here to remember where we're at.

Welcome to this week's edition of The Late Sub.

I am your host, Claire Watkins.

It is Wednesday, July 30th.

And we're going to be talking about the NWSL, where we left it, about a month ago, as action picks back up this weekend.

League leaders, individual leaders,

why some teams should be poised to make some deep playoff runs, big signings, big returns,

lots of good stuff here. Let's dig in.

We are back in action. I do think the break, very good for player health and safety with all the big

tournaments happening across the globe. It was really fun to kind of take a beat, take a break,

watch the Euros, Copa America, Wafcon, all of those tournaments were really, really fun. We got to see

some NWSL stars ball out. They'll be making their way back for regular season action. I don't know if that length of a break is

amazing for narrative continuity for the NWSL, but as someone who I'm a big advocate of the summer

schedule, I like the NWSL summer schedule. I must accept this as a necessary device to make players

feel good and be able to take those breaks. The big hope is that this means that

players are not going to hit a physical wall when we could regular season gets closer to the

playoffs, deeper into the fall. I've already seen kind of we've gotten some availability again with

players this week as they ramp up for games. It sounds like the time off was very needed. And there

is this hope that the level of play will continue to rise with the amount of time that teams have had to train. And again, so a little bit of time off doesn't hurt anybody. But that does kind of mean that here as NWSL fans or even me covering the NWSL, there's a lot to remember, right? It's been a whole month, kind of see where we left off, what storylines are emerging, what maybe to look out for for the second half.

So we're going to start with just some very basic information, everything that we forgot about the NWSL because I have a short memory. So let's start with the standings. We're going to do playoff line edition here. So the teams that are above the playoff line right now going into the second half of

the end of U.S.L season, start with Kansas City, who has an eight point cushion at the top.

You have number two, Orlando, number three, San Diego, four, Washington, five, Portland,

...