Welcome back to “I’m Curious!”

Those of you who came here for soccer coverage will love this week, because it’s all NWSL after their first weekend of games.

The focus is on the season opener in DC between the Washington Spirit and the Portland Thorns and its reunion of two-thirds of the vaunted Triple Espresso from the 2024 U.S. Olympic team, but there are some notes on a the rest of the league as well.

We’ve got some fun pictures, a tight game, and a closer look at a star returning just a few months after giving birth.

Let’s get to it! Here’s the table of contents if you want to flip around.

Table of Contents

• The Most Curious Thing This Week: Sophia Wilson, Soccer Mom

• My Reporting

  • Thorn In Their Side: Spirit Shut Out in Opening Loss (Game Report)

• The Photo Bay

  • Trinity Rodman – How It Started vs How It’s Going

  • The Best View in the House: Finding Joy on the Bench

  • Red (Hal's Version): Hal Hershfelt Finds a Mini-Me

• Around the League

  • Red (Expansion Team Version): Boston and Denver Down to 10

  • NC: The Ashley Sanchez Revenge Tour™

  • KC Goals As Current Fans Honor Renee Good

• Something Good I Ate: Tea Time!

But first, here’s Peach!

The Most Curious Thing This Week

It’s… Sophia Wilson: soccer mom!

It had been 487 days since Portland Thorns coach Rob Gale substituted star striker Sophia Smith off the pitch at Red Bull Arena, just moments before the whistle blew on the team’s loss to Gotham FC in the 2024 NWSL quarterfinals.

But on Friday, Sophia Wilson was the last one off the bus after it pulled up by the entrance at Audi Field. She had to make sure the stroller was ready.

In the time since the 25-year-old last played in an NWSL game, Smith married Arizona Cardinals wide receiver and former Stanford classmate Michael Wilson, announced that the two of them were expecting their first child, and then gave birth.

In early September of last year, the Wilsons announced the birth of their daughter, Gianna Capri Wilson, Gigi for short.

And when new Thorns coach Robert Vilahamn substituted returning striker Sophia Wilson onto the pitch at Audi Field in the 77^th minute of Friday’s game, she played her first minutes as a mother.

And Gigi was there.

“It was so special Just the fact that she’s up in the stands. She did not watch, she slept the whole game,” Wilson told me postgame.

“But I think she’ll look back on this and think it’s really special and everything I do, I just do to make her proud.”

In about 15 minutes of playing full speed, Wilson made no major mistakes. She didn’t immediately dominate in the way that her accolades—the 2022 NWSL MVP award, the 2024 Olympic gold medal, the 44 goals in 75 NWSL games—might indicate. But she did register a shot on target. 

“It felt good,” Smith said postgame about her return. “I mean, I’m definitely easing into it and being patient with the whole process, but I think I felt good for those fifteen minutes and now we just build from that.”

Vilahamn, her new coach, told reporters postgame he felt that playing as a mom could help her play even better.

“A few of the players I have had, they have had a baby and they come back even stronger, even more motivated, and I think I am going to try to push her, everything I can, to make sure she gets back into the national team and make sure she can dominate this league and football for this country,” Vilahamn said.

Wilson is set to give the Thorns at least one more season. Her pro career has unfolded entirely in Portland with the Thorns, and she executed her player option, worth a reported $1 million, to extend her contract through 2026.

No matter what Wilson’s future holds, she has fans wherever she goes. As she got off the bus, fans in both Thorns gear and Spirit gear alike crowded in, hoping to get a picture with her. 

Over Wilson’s shoulder on the other side of the far barrier was 12-year-old Avery. She has played the game for six years. And when she plays, she’s a center forward, just like Wilson, her favorite player.

Avery came bundled up for the cold, windy evening, but had a bright red sign with a checklist, one that would hopefully get Wilson’s attention.

“My 12^th Birthday Checklist,” the sign began.

Electric bloom jersey? (As in the Thorns’ new-for-2026 bright red and yellow kit?) Check.

Tickets to NWSL season opener? Check. 

Photo with Sophia Wilson?

That one had not been checked off.

But as Wilson headed back to make sure the stroller was ready for baby Gigi, she saw Avery’s sign and her lips went wide into a smile.

A handful of cameras from broadcast crews and digital content creators hustled to ring Wilson as she approached the barrier. She took the sign to hold and turned her head to the side while clutching it, visibly proud to have earned a place on Avery’s sign.

She then posed with Avery for a pic, accepted the 12-year-old’s Sharpie, checked off the last box and added an autograph for good measure.

After taking a few minutes to share in the joy of the moment with both her parents and her brother, she took a moment to chat and I asked her what that was like:

“Very amazing,” she told me. “I was just kind of like, speechless.”

My Reporting

NWSL

Thorn in Their Side: Spirit Shut Out in Opening Loss

The Washington Spirit almost didn’t fail Friday night.

In the first 15 minutes of the match, they blitzed the Portland Thorns in an effort to take full advantage of starting the season at home. The ball constantly sat in the final third. But actually getting it into the 18-yard-box for good chances was a challenge.

Balls ping-ponged into potentially dangerous situations, only for a Thorns defender to find it first and clear the threat.

The Spirit defense held firm into the early part of the second half, only for one ball in the 52^nd minute to get to the Thorns’ 20-year-old goalscoring dynamo Olivia Moultrie. Just one ball that Spirit center back Tara Rudd couldn’t get her foot on, allowing Moultrie to exploit a point-blank one-on-one matchup with keeper Sandy MacIver and pot a goal. 

Later in the half, a laser from midfielder Hal Hershfelt was on track to go “upper 90,” straight into the top left corner of the net to tie the game, only for the wind to carry it up into the crossbar to deflect away from the net, instead of into it. 

It was a game of almosts, as a Spirit squad with many players coming straight back from international duty and without the connective tissue of Kansas City-bound midfielder Croix Bethune or longtime incumbent goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury on maternity leave.

The end result was a squad that started off the season on the wrong foot, playing some highly-skilled soccer that could string together plenty of progress, but just sputtered in moments where better connectivity might have allowed for one final move to either put a goal in or keep a goal out. 

“Obviously, we know that right now it’s just the beginning and always the first games are a little bit tough,” Spirit head coach Adrián González said postgame. 

He specifically mentioned that creating more chances and stronger chances in the final third would be something for the team to work on. 

“I think in that last third, we haven’t been as clinical as we wanted. I think we haven’t had maybe those chances, those clear chances, and the few that we’ve had, maybe were not good enough,” González said.

It was a sentiment that Hershfelt echoed in her comments. 

“It was our final ball and they were good at, like, either provoking us to make an early mistake or try to force something that wasn’t there, so that’s something we can definitely work on.”

Flipping the view of the pitch, over on the Portland side, the Thorns felt they succeeded in forcing those situations.

“We took the first 10 minutes to kind of settle in, and then we hunkered down,” Thorns goalkeeper Morgan Messner said.

Messner was playing in her first NWSL league game. The Spirit peppered her and the defense in front of her with three shots in the first 10 minutes, and the ball spent most of the first 15 minutes close to the Thorns’ net. But with a strong performance from the back of the Thorns defense, she walked out of one of the toughest road environments in the world of women’s soccer with a win and a clean sheet.

“We were super compact. And I’m so proud of this team defensively. I thought we were really hard to break down. Any looks they got were not super dangerous.”

Moultrie, whose goal Friday helped her pick up right where she left off after scoring a career-high 8 goals in 2025, said that losing their last game of 2025 in DC, in last year’s semifinals to the Spirit, motivated them Friday.

“[We] kind of had a bad taste in our mouths after last year, so felt that a little bit coming into this game. So yeah, just really happy to get the win in this environment. It’s definitely a difficult place to do so,” Moultrie said.

Even with returning personnel, it was particularly interesting to see the Spirit deploy players in ways they may not have been before.

In particular, defensive-minded players who were not involved in the attack as much were making an offensive impact early in the game.

From the get-go, Spirit right back Gabby Carle was much more involved in the attack than she historically has been in her previous three years in Washington.

A new sign went up in the Spirit supporters section honoring her status as a known MCAT slayer, proclaiming that “The Doctor Is In,” complete with Canadian maple leafs as the o’s in “doctor.” (Author’s note: if you subscribe to this newsletter, you got the story behind that right here first, with plenty of context from the future doctor herself!)

The 27-year-old Québécoise was playing much further up the field than she usually has, staying close to right winger Trinity Rodman in front of her, and occasionally even found her way into more central attacking positions.

“Gabby is now evolving a lot, occupying different spaces, and I think we have a great synergy on the right with her and Trin,” González said.

Hershfelt, who played almost exclusively as a defensive midfielder last season, also was getting more involved in the attack, registering two shots in the second half, including the one that rang off the crossbar.

“It’s always fun for me to have a little bit more freedom,” Hershfelt told me. “For the past couple of years, because of availability and stuff like that, I’ve had to kind of, like, sit back in that single six, which I love playing that too, I value that a lot, but it’s not as, like, fun or exciting,” she laughed.

While the Spirit attack focused heavily on the right side of the pitch, the Spirit’s debuting left back Lucia Di Guglielmo was also advancing the ball into fairly high spots.

Before we go any further, broadcasters and podcasters alike have butchered her name like it was a cut of gabagool, but being from New Jersey, it’s easy for me. It’ll be annoying for a while, so let’s get it out of the way now. Here’s how you say it:

It’s the letter D, followed by how you might describe those little plastic eyes where a black piece floats around (i.e. “googly,”) followed by the little red muppet monster from Sesame Street (i.e. “Elmo.”) Whether you say it with an American accent or an Italian one, that’s true either way.

The 28-year-old Italian offered a bright spot on both sides of the ball. On the defensive end, she finished with a team-high six clearances, plus two tackles and an interception.

“I felt quite good on the pitch, and I think I was able to take the rhythm of the match from the beginning,” Di Guglielmo told reporters postgame, adding that “I think I can improve a lot.”

Hearing Di Guglielmo describe it, the game was a first step that sounded like it was quite far from what she felt was her best. The road to her playing at her best seemed long.

“I know that I can give a lot more,” she said, “but at the same time, I know that I need, just, time to adapt step by step and I don’t want to hurry up.”

When Hershfelt and Rodman were asked about her postgame, however, they were bursting at the seams with enthusiasm.

Jason Anderson, longtime Spirit reporter now covering the team independently at the site Green Line Soccer (seriously, go follow him!), couldn’t even get the question about Di Guglielmo out of his mouth before Rodman reacted with a loud “hooo!”

“Holy shhh----,” Rodman said before catching herself from dropping a profanity.

“Guys, I thought she crushed it,” Hershfelt jumped in at about the same time.

“At halftime, I walked up to her, and I said, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m not kidding. That was the craziest performance I’ve ever seen,” Rodman said.

“She saved our ass so many times tonight,” Hershfelt said. “There was, like, three, four times in the box where she just gets that last toe in, and kind of, grabs someone or gets that final touch on the ball. She crushed it.”

For the Spirit and their fans, the best thing about having so many almosts, is that there are signs that better days may not be that far away.

The Photo Bay

Time for a new segment! It can be a bit of a challenge sometimes to fit in all of my favorite photos into each newsletter. The best photographs don’t always match the most important things to cover.

For games I’m covering with photo and video, I figured I can make a bit of space exclusively for that. So here are some of my favorite photos from the night.

Trinity Rodman – How It Started vs How It’s Going

I love this first picture here of Spirit winger Trinity Rodman, walking out before the game with a smile on her face, optimism about the fresh start of a new season just radiating off her.

Contrast it with this pic from late in the second half of last night’s game. She is pleading with referee Brad Jensen after he called a foul on Rodman during a clash with Thorns outside back Reyna Reyes.

Reyes fell to the ground in a situation with seemingly minimal contact, bringing a Spirit chance in the final third to an abrupt end. Rodman was in disbelief at the call and tried to demonstrate the action she thought the referee had mistakenly called.

It was the cap on a night where Reyes shut Rodman down. In total, Reyes had two tackles, three interceptions, a block, four clearances, and she drew two fouls.

Even in the postgame press conference, as Rodman thought through her words to skate around saying anything too untoward about the battle, she offered a bit of a grudging complement to Reyes for drawing the foul that led to Rodman’s demonstrative display of frustration.

“I think there are players that definitely, are really good at strategically falling. And I think Reyes is really good at that specifically,” Rodman said. “I think she puts her body in a perfect spot, especially if the ref’s not in the spot to see that there might have not been contact. Again, that’s something that we’re gonna have to play through, I’m gonna have to play through. I’m always gonna get mad about it.”

The Best View in the House

The moments before the start of the game are the only ones when most photographers are allowed on the field. We get to snap pics of bench players as they trickle out, then of the starters as they march out in two parallel lines, through national anthems and team photos before being whisked back off the field before kickoff.

One constant is that bench players, especially on the Spirit try their best to have some fun. They’re usually chatting each other up, messing around with each other, or occasionally crafting a group photo.

With Friday being a season opener, it was the first rodeo for several bench players. Their joy was irrepressible.

Take Madison Haugen and Molly Skurcenski. They are short-term replacement players for the Spirit. Their contracts are not guaranteed to even the end of the season. The odds of them entering the match were fairly low. But both of them were here, fully dressed in a real uniform. The dreams of being a pro were coming true right in these moments, as they got to experience the pageantry of it all for the first time as direct participants in it.

Brazilian winger Tamara Bolt made her debut late in Friday’s match. She’s played first-division pro soccer in the U.S., playing on loan for Dallas Trinity FC in the Gainbridge Super League, but with their league being much newer and with a lower level of play, this was her first time playing in a true top-flight league in the U.S.

She was all smiles ahead of her NWSL debut, with her teammate Deb Abiodun, who also spent time on loan in Dallas last season, popping up to pester her into a posed photo.

Red (Hal’s Version)

Hal Hershfelt loves the Spirit’s new cherry blossom-themed jerseys for a very visible reason.

“Personally, I love wearing green,” she said last weekend at the team’s Spirit Fest event. “My hair is red, so, I like the dark green, okay? There’s some colors that I can’t wear because I have red hair. But like, this one, I love this one selfishly because I love the colors.”

With her red hair and tattoo sleeve, the third-year midfielder is hard to miss. In Friday night’s player walkouts, each player was accompanied, as usual, by a “mascot,” a kid from a local youth soccer club. And for this walkout, Hershfelt’s companion was a younger fan, also with red hair.

While the young fan had to wear a blue and white Amazon jersey to line up with the game being aired on Amazon Prime, she was clearly very happy to have a fellow redhead to look up to. In this case, literally.

You can see that both redheads are excited to be walking out together, and I love the pictures that came from it.

Around the League: Other Takes and Things of Note

Quickly, before we talk food, here’s what I saw in the box scores.

Red (Expansion Team Version)

Expansion teams Boston Legacy and Denver Summit both decided to hit that “first red card” milestone awfully quickly and it cost them.

The Legacy’s chance at extracting a point from their opening game in front of a home crowd died after a 77th-minute red card for Bianca St.-Georges, who was sent off for a second yellow card. Playing the final minutes with 10 players, the Legacy could not counter Gotham’s lone Esther González goal and fell 1-0 in Foxboro.

Denver Summit went even faster in their opening game on the road vs Bay FC, with Janine Sonis racking up the first red in club history just 27 minutes in.

It allowed defender Joelle Anderson to score a few minutes later and give Bay a 2-1 lead that would hold for the rest of the game. Still, it was quite impressive that Denver held the margin there despite playing over an hour down one player.

In Courage Country, The Ashley Sanchez Revenge Tour™ Continues

It seems that the newest iteration of the North Carolina Courage under new head coach Mak Lind will score a lot of goals. And that attacking midfielder Ashley Sanchez may be at the start of a bit of a renaissance in this system, considering she scored both of the club’s goals in their win over Racing Louisville.

It has been a long road for Sanchez, who is entering her third season with the Courage and has seen three different coaches on the sideline and dealt with a role that shifted several times as the club tried to figure out the best ways to use her and other players.

Waaaaaaay back in Edition 1 in June of 2024, we noted how the Ashley Sanchez Revenge Tour™ pulled into DC, with Sanchez scoring the only goal in a 1-0 North Carolina win in her first game back after the Spirit dealt her away that January.

That tour kinda got derailed after that, as she scored just two goals in 2025, the lowest total of her five-season career.

With a brace on Saturday, she has already matched that total in 2026. And in a system where Lind seems eager to craft a high-powered offensive attack and identified Sanchez before the game as a player he felt was a good fit, there probably will be more where that came from.

The biggest threat to her may come from Courage goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan dumping more water on her in future postgame interviews.

KC Goals for Good

The Kansas City Current will obviously score a lot of goals, but Croix Bethune scoring in her team debut and Ally Sentnor refining her finishing to nab her first KC goal after a goal she actually scored inside the box for the US national team are two very good signs.

And speaking of good signs in KC, it meant a lot to see the team supporters section, the KC Blue Crew, hold up a tifo with two hands being held saying “Stand Together For Good.” The Current will forever be down one fan after an ICE agent killed former Kansas City-area resident Renee Good in cold blood in January. Good had moved to Minneapolis and was involved in an argument with agents during their invasion of the city earlier this year. The officer shot Good as she attempted to steer away from him in her Honda Pilot, which had a Current sticker on the rear windshield.

Something Good I Ate

A big reason why I wasn’t able to watch the games in their entirety was tea time! A couple of friends from college invited me to afternoon tea. One of them is of English heritage and loves to keep a healthy collection of teas. He decided to prepare some bites that could pair well with various teas, including biscuits and crackers, homemade jam, pickles and cucumbers, cheddar and blue cheeses, and some home-smoked salmon (which was served hot.)

It was a delightful spread picked at while chatting and playing card games with some even more delightful company.

Just a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Just a note: Any work here or opinions I express are solely mine, and do not reflect the views of my employer, my coworkers, or anybody else affiliated with me. The newsletter is not monetized in any way and everything in here is written and reported with my own resources on my own time outside of my working hours unless specifically noted otherwise. “I’m Curious” is just for me, the author, and for you, the reader. Thank you for reading. I’m glad you’re here.