The NWSL is poised for some major player returns this year.

And we got to be in the middle of it in L.A. last week.

And I want to talk about what went down.

Hello, everybody.

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

I am your host, Claire Watkins.

It is Tuesday, February 3rd.

But I did want to sit down in front of the mic and just get my thoughts,

you know, on record, on tape about what we saw at the NWSL media days last week, where we got

to sit down with some of the NWSL's top talents, take stock of where everyone's at as they

get ready for a kind of long NWSL preseason before

the season starts and get excited for a year of returns and changes and hopefully some

really, really, really good soccer. So a lot to dig in here. Hopefully people will enjoy these

notes. And so let's just let's get into it. Let's dive in.

So we have made it.

Soccer fans. The NWSL is in preseason. Players are back in market.

A bunch of teams are making warm weather training trips, the hot new things going to Spain.

So a lot of NWSL teams are going to Spain.

And I spent some time last week in L.A. doing a lot of chatting with a variety of players about

how their off-seasons are going at the NWSL media days. We got some injury updates,

a few highly anticipated returns, a surprise retirement from a legend, and just some good

in-person time to see how players are feeling after a long year and going into another long year with a lot of storylines to follow and sort of set the scene for what we're going to see in 2026.

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