— Paul Riley is fond of nicknames. The North Carolina Courage manager has cheeky monikers for most of his players: Lynnie (Lynn Williams), Jess Mac (Jessica McDonald), Hatchy (Ashley Hatch), Mac (McCall Zerboni), Sully (Denise O’Sullivan), Hammy (Kristen Hamilton), Sammy (Sam Mewis), and so on. With players having identical given names, like Abby Dahlkemper (AD) and New Zealander Abby Erceg (Kiwi), the pseudonyms are more functional.

Riley has taken to referring to his Courage collective as “junkyard dogs,” a testament to the team’s self-ascribed tenacity. It’s a trait certainly seen in the team’s relentless offense, stingy defense, and the hard-nosed game of players like Zerboni, who had the second-most duels (333) in the NWSL while leading the league in fouls conceded (46).

The Courage takes their competitive sword and Supporters Shield to Orlando, Fla. this Saturday for the NWSL championship against the Portland Thorns.

Notwithstanding Riley’s attempts at self-fulfilling branding, watching the 2017 NC Courage is more akin to a ballet, a choreographed spectacle where every possession is a prelude to synchronized sublimity. Each element of the larger performance comprises a distinct pas de deux: Williams and Hatch/McDonald in the attack, Mewis and Zerboni in the center of the formation, Erceg and Dahlkemper in central defense, and Taylor Smith and Jaelene Hinkle mirroring at fullback.

The Courage aren’t here to play stall ball or grind out draws. Their fearless routine is audacious, unpredictable, and occasionally chaotic: the team gave up a total of five goals over their 16 wins, yet surrendered 16 goals in its seven losses.

Indeed, the troupe doesn’t always hit their marks. The best team in the NWSL has the worst pass completion rate and the second-to-lowest shot accuracy. It didn’t score the most goals in the league, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying – the Courage is the only team to attempt more than 300 shots. But it delivers more crosses and corner kicks than anyone else, all while surrendering fewer goals, earning more clean sheets, and facing over 20 fewer shots than any other team.

Like any dance team, the whole of the Courage is greater than the sum of its parts. Seven members, including Mewis, are current contributors to their respective national teams. Yet, the team boasted no NWSL players of the month and only one of 22 players of the week. At the same time, their 14 selections to the six teams of the month this season topped the league.

“Everyone here knows that the team is the important thing,” Zerboni says. “In the past, I’ve played with very, very great players, but sometimes with that comes a chip on their shoulders. Because everyone here is humble, hard-working, and selfless, then it creates a very accepting, thriving, and improving team environment.

"When you feel you belong, and when you feel you you’re good enough, and when you feel you’re part of something and not outcast or different, that can go a long, long way in somebody’s heart. And when your heart’s in it, you’ll run through a wall for it.”

Despite the change in name and locale last offseason, the 2017 Courage are sometimes derided as a derivative transplant, pilfered from the remains of the Western New York Flash. Fourteen players who appeared for last year’s NWSL champions made the trip south to Cary when Steve Malik purchased the Flash nine months ago.

But while many performers are the same, their roles have changed. Smith went from a super-sub forward for the Flash to a U.S. Women’s National Team regular at fullback. Erceg and Dahlkemper have both settled back into their natural center back positions. Katelyn Rowland, who appeared in only six games for the Flash last year, is now the starting goalkeeper. Liz Eddy started every game last year but only played in two this year; on the other hand, Kristin Hamilton didn’t start any games in 2016 yet made the XI 12 times this year. And league MVP finalist Sam Mewis, who missed six games for Olympic duty last year, hasn’t missed a single match in 2017.

“As I have played in the [NWSL] for two years, I realize how special and important and great playing for your club can be,” Mewis said prior to this season. “The club hasn’t overtaken [playing for] the country. It’s just also become important to me … It’s so fun. We get to travel the country, we get to play soccer for a couple of hours a day, then we hang out. It’s kind of like being in college, except it’s definitely more adult because you are not drinking nearly as much and you don’t have school to worry about.”

According to Zerboni, this year represents the most “joy” she has experienced as a pro player, who is playing her sixth championship final dating back to her rookie season with the Los Angeles Sol in 2009. Her performance this season has sparked as yet unrealized chatter that she merits her first national team call-up. It’s a far and unexpected cry from her career nadir of being traded from Portland following her 2015 season.

“Being a women’s professional soccer player in this country is a journey,” Zerboni said. “Back when I was playing for the Portland Thorns in 2015, I considered myself home. That’s where I bought a house, that’s where I consider my home, on the west coast. When I got traded away from that situation, part of me did think, ‘Is this it for me? Do I want to stay home or keep playing?’ Something inside me said keep going, and a few trades later I landed on the best squad I’ve ever been on.”

The Courage and Thorns split their two regular seasons meeting this year. But both teams’ memories are still frozen in the amber of the Thorns’ home loss to the Flash in last year’s playoff semifinals, a 4-3 extra time classic that saw Riley ejected whilst besting the team that sacked him a year earlier. The Thorns sport no fewer than five players with U.S. national team experience, including Tobin Heath, Lindsey Horan, Meghan Klingenberg, Allie Long, and Emily Sonnett, along with Canadian legend Christine Sinclair, who led the team in goals scored.

With a victory this Saturday, either the Thorns will win their second NWSL title, or the Courage will replicate their WUSA namesake’s championship in 2002, the Triangle’s last professional women’s soccer crown.

“I think it’s probably the best two teams over the season going to the final,” Riley says. “I’m not sure that’s ever happened in the NWSL, but I these are the best two teams going to the final this year.”

The Courage are bound for the NWSL’s big dance hoping to earn the label “league champions.” But the ensemble isn’t quite ready to abandon their other nicknames.

“We are the underdog; whether I say it or not, they believe that in the locker room,” Riley says. “That’s what we understand, and that’s what our reminder wall says. We’re also the junkyard dogs, and we’re not going to give that title up until it’s all said and done.”