August 28 – The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has announced its new schedule format for the 2015 season. The fixtures will begin in April and finish in September, adding in a two-week break for the group stages of the Women’s World Cup.
The schedule accommodates for the difficulties of a mid-season World Cup with a short break, but anticipates that international players will still miss 7-8 regular season club games.
However, in spite of this situation, the United States Soccer Federation, the Federation of Mexican Football and the Canada Football Association have all allocated the same number of players to the league as in the 2014 season. Furthermore, all have agreed to release their players to participate in the first 3-4 games before the World Cup begins. This entails the holding of extended international training camps that are split by the opening of the NWSL season.
Cheryl Bailey, NWSL Executive Director, said: “We have been able to find a balance with Canada, Mexico and the US that will enable the players to participate in training camps with their National Teams but will also allow them to re-join their clubs for some games prior to the start of the World Cup.”
The new schedule will allow for, on average, 5.9 games of rest between matches and an average of 1.3 midweek games this season, which is a vast improvement on the 7.8 midweek games of 2014.
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