The sign of a great footballing nation is the ability to run a duality with a national team and a decent league system. England possesses the Three Lions plus the Premier League, Germany aren’t bad on the national scene (Russia 2018 aside, lol), they boast the Bundesliga. France is supposedly World Champions, well Ligue 1… errr, it’s ok...

The US dominates the women’s game with eight major honours in the last ten years. Few argue there’s a better ladies national team than those donning the Stars and Stripes.

Using the above formula, there’s fair anticipation that US soccer can facilitate a storied as well as a competitive division for the women to play in, befitting for their national team, their accomplishments, and service to the sport/country.

Well…the… NWSL. It falls short of the mark. Which isn’t the women’s league we were all given the impression of from Bend it like Beckham, (the British movie painted an idyllic set up for ladies football in America) nor the equivalent value of the international system. In fact, in the time since the movie’s been out the league system has seen five major rehauls. That’s five times between 2002 to the present date, that the division has fallen apart and had to been pieced back together with a different initialism. WUSA, WPS, W-League, WPSL-Elite, how much more can they take?

Each of which lasted an average of 3.2 years. Meaning that each incarnation of women's league football usually opens only to close within 39 months.

What makes NWSL different? Well, for one it’s exceeded the average. In fact, it’s longevity made the above statistics better. Without its numbers, we’ve seen four major rebrands in just ten years; making the average duration much shorter. The NWSL formed in 2012, so already bests its predecessors have made it to an unheard of the sixth year.

Yet when you compare this outfit to the national…the gulf is so apparent. The national team usually play in front of crowds of ten-thousands and more. This year the attendances have been high as the supporters enjoyed this 13-game unbeaten spell the side has put together for the year, so far. They’ve beaten Brazil, England, Japan, China - the top teams of the female game.

This set of women are potentially the greatest team in female soccer history to ever walk the earth, but they do not walk the earth above it as they are goddesses.