Five months after U.S. Soccer and the women’s national team completed often contentious negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement, the players and the federation have fallen out again over an old grievance: artificial turf.

The dispute has an immediate cause: The women are angry that they will close their 2017 schedule with four of their final nine matches on artificial turf. But the disagreement also suggests a persistent disconnect between the team, which is the reigning Women’s World Cup champion, and the federation, which finances the squad’s budget, pays its players’ salaries and sets its schedule.

Arrangements for several of the games on turf fields, including Tuesday’s 5-0 victory over New Zealand in Cincinnati and next month’s visit to New Orleans, were finalized after the completion of the collective bargaining agreement. And while the players were made aware of the reasoning behind each venue choice months ago — a transparency written into the new labor agreement — they contend that continuing to play on turf violates the spirit, if not the letter, of their new deal, which includes language assuring that natural grass would be the “preferred” surface for matches.

“We just finished the negotiation process and this was something that was very important to us,” midfielder Megan Rapinoe said this week. “We finished the deal and felt good about it — and then we turn around and we have three games at the back end of the year on turf. That doesn’t signal to us that the progress we wanted and talked about with the federation is being made.”