Welcome to this week’s edition of Goalside Gossip!

It was a loud weekend in the NWSL. Utah and North Carolina both put five past their opponents, Kansas City stretched a league record home unbeaten run, and the two expansion sides traded goals in Denver.

Off the pitch, the league walked away from streaming partner Victory+ as that company's finances came apart, and it is reportedly planning its earliest season start ever for 2027. Elsewhere, Kansas City's Vanessa DiBernardo opened up about coming back from maternity leave, and Cameroon's Gabrielle Aboudi Onguene made WAFCON history in Casablanca.

Let's get into it.

Game Summaries (NWSL):

News:

The Utah Royals ran riot at America First Field on Sunday night, beating Portland 5-1 for their tenth win of the season, the first time the club has hit ten since 2019.

It did not start that way. Portland's Sophia Wilson scored the fastest goal in the NWSL this year just 34 seconds in. Utah answered through midfielder Cece Delzer, who chipped home an equalizer in the 35th minute and added a second early in the second half for her first career brace.

Attacker Cloé Lacasse was the engine behind all of it, laying on three assists and becoming only the second player in league history to record three in a single half. She also broke Utah's single season record for goal contributions, a mark that had belonged to Christen Press since 2019.

Late goals from Brecken Mozingo, Kiana Palacios, and a Kate Del Fava header rounded out a new franchise record for goals in a single match.

Kansas City stretched their league record home unbeaten run to 26 matches, though they had to settle for a 1-1 draw with Angel City at CPKC Stadium.

The visitors went ahead in the 14th minute through rookie forward Taylor Suarez, who found the bottom corner for the first professional goal of her career. Kansas City hit back 12 minutes later when Haley Hopkins volleyed home a cross from Izzy Rodriguez.

The Current had the better of the second half but kept running into Angel City goalkeeper Angelina Anderson, who finished with six saves and denied Croix Bethune from close range in the 76th minute.

It was a night of milestones in Kansas City regardless of the result. Midfielder Debinha made her 150th regular season start, the first Brazilian to reach the mark in league history, and defender Elizabeth Ball made her 100th appearance for the club.

The North Carolina Courage snapped a three match losing streak in emphatic fashion, hammering the Orlando Pride 5-0 at WakeMed Soccer Park for the largest margin of victory in the NWSL this season.

Evelyn Ijeh led the way with the first hat trick of her career, and the first by a Swedish player in league history. She had two by halftime and completed it in the 70th minute.

The tone was set inside four minutes when Lauryn Thompson became the youngest player in Courage history to score a regular season goal, teed up by fellow 18-year-old Erica Meg Parkinson in just the third teenager to teenager goal the NWSL has ever seen.

Ashley Sanchez capped it in stoppage time with her tenth of the season, keeping her near the top of the Golden Boot race, while goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan kept a comfortable clean sheet.

The NWSL is reportedly planning to open its 2027 season on February 11, the earliest opening day in league history. Clubs would report for preseason in January, and the playoffs and championship would still land in November.

The reason is congestion. The 2027 World Cup in Brazil runs from June 24 to July 25, and the league would pause for close to two months in the middle of the season to accommodate it.

Reports also point to 15 home matches per club and four midweek games each, plus a mandated week off in early June.

The shift comes just months after the NWSL Board of Governors voted in April to keep the spring to fall calendar through 2030, citing confidence in the league's momentum. This change would leave that framework intact and simply move the start forward by about a month.

NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke has said any calendar conversation has to start with player health and safety, facilities, and professional standards.

Two weeks ago we wrote about Victory+ as the free, ad supported platform betting that dropping the paywall would grow the NWSL's audience. That bet has collapsed.

The league terminated its months old deal on July 30, effective immediately, and moved its remaining matches to NWSL+, the league's own free streaming platform.

Multiple reports point to missed rights payments as the reason. The NWSL was the third partner to walk in roughly two weeks, following the NHL's Anaheim Ducks and MLB's Texas Rangers. Victory+ approached all three about renegotiating and was turned down.

The fallout reached the top. Co-founder Neil Gruninger was removed as CEO and reassigned within parent company A Parent Media Co., replaced by board member Jon Spencer.

The company is now stepping back from big rights fees toward a revenue sharing model built on ad supported deals. Worth noting for NWSL fans: five clubs, including Washington, Gotham, Angel City, Orlando, and Bay FC, still hold separate regional deals with the platform.

Kansas City Current midfielder Vanessa DiBernardo is back on the pitch after 385 days away, having given birth to her daughter Charlie Mae in January. She returned on July 10 against Orlando, coming on in the 82nd minute.

The 34-year-old says she feels strong, and credits the time she was given to rebuild properly. Everyone's birth is different, she said, so the approach was to listen to her body and go at her own pace.

The trickier part was tactical. She missed preseason entirely, which meant learning head coach Chris Armas's system on the fly in the middle of a campaign.

Her return says something about where the league is. The 2024 CBA, which runs through 2030, guarantees base salary during maternity leave and adds stipends for childcare, travel, and fertility support.

There are now nearly 30 active mothers across NWSL rosters, the most in league history, including Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson. DiBernardo, who has been in the league since 2014, remembers when starting a family meant retiring. The point now, she says, is proving you can come back and still be as good as you were.

Cameroon forward Gabrielle Aboudi Onguene has become the first player ever to appear at eight editions of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations. The 37-year-old passed Nigeria's Onome Ebi, who had seven, when she came on late in Cameroon's 2-1 win over Mali in Casablanca.

She has been a constant for the Indomitable Lionesses since her debut in 2008, playing at every WAFCON Cameroon has qualified for since.

Her career highlights include Cameroon's only goal at the London 2012 Olympics, a run to the Round of 16 at the 2015 World Cup, and Best Player of the Tournament honors at the 2016 WAFCON on home soil.

These days she is as much a mentor as a forward. Head coach Dimitri Lipoff says her experience is invaluable to the squad, and younger teammates like Monique Ngock treat her as a living legend.

Onguene credits her longevity to discipline, diet, and rest, and says she plays not for the records but because it is still the childhood dream.