Prime Video’s docuseries on the 2024 NWSL playoffs premiered on Thursday.
The discharge comes sooner or later earlier than the NWSL Problem Cup — a rematch of the 2024 NWSL championship between the Washington Spirit and the Orlando Pleasure. The Pleasure received that 2024 recreation 1-0.
The Problem Cup is the unofficial begin of the 2025 season.
The docuseries, titled “For the Win: NWSL,” follows the Spirit, Pleasure, Gotham FC, Kansas Metropolis Present, North Carolina Braveness, Portland Thorns, Chicago Crimson Stars and Bay FC as they pursue an NWSL title.
Two NWSL gamers who’re members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have ties to Utah have been among the many gamers featured within the collection: and .
Olivia Moultrie in ‘For the Win’
Within the first episode, the collection briefly takes followers into the life and residential of Moultrie, who turned the youngest participant within the NWSL at age 15.
In 2021, Moultrie filed an anti-trust lawsuit in opposition to the league and was allowed to signal with the Portland Thorns after the decide granted a preliminary injunction, because the beforehand reported.
Moultrie, who was born in Utah, is proven within the new collection enjoying a aggressive recreation of Section 10 along with her father and youthful sister.
“My household has been an unlimited a part of my journey. Like firstly, it was determining my college schedule, taking me out early, driving actually far, being keen to commute to locations that have been distant,” she mentioned within the episode.
Moultrie talked about her dad working in his automotive as a result of he would at all times be on the highway taking her to coaching classes.
“The largest change (got here) once I was capable of transfer to Portland. My whole household got here with me,” she mentioned.
The collection then exhibits a flashback to Moultrie’s NWSL debut in its place. Within the clip, she’s ready anxiously on the sideline.
“I used to be so excited, just like the ref’s like telling me to attend, and I’m like, ‘OK, can I’m going?’” she mentioned. “I didn’t even like really feel my physique. I used to be like euphoric. Listening to the group within the stadium, I used to be similar to, ‘Oh my gosh, that is so cool.’”
After a montage of Moultrie highlights, The Athletic’s Tamerra Griffin talks about Moultrie’s slot in Portland.
“After I take into consideration a metropolis like Portland and a membership just like the Thorns, I believe for a participant like Olivia Moultrie to start her profession there, and then you definitely added the management and the mentorship that she was capable of obtain from veterans like Christine Sinclair, Becky Sauerbrunn. It’s simply the legacy of the membership. It’s exhausting to consider a greater pairing,” Griffin mentioned.
Moultrie is featured all through the remainder of the episode. She speaks in regards to the Thorns’ upcoming playoff recreation in opposition to Gotham, which the Thorns misplaced.
Ashley Hatch in ‘For the Win’
Hatch’s group, the Spirit, is a distinguished a part of the collection from the onset. Which means the present contains many clips of Hatch enjoying through the 2024 season and playoffs.
However Prime missed the mark when it got here to Hatch.
Though the previous BYU Cougar performed a pivotal function within the Spirit’s playoff run, her solely interview segments included within the collection are of her speaking about opponent Gotham FC and considered one of her teammates, Trinity Rodman.
Rodman is a star on the U.S. ladies’s nationwide group and led the Spirit in scoring and made the NWSL’s Greatest XI final season. She was featured prominently within the new present.
However Hatch’s 2024 season was additionally wealthy with storylines as she made her one hundred and fiftieth NWSL look, surpassed 50 targets and moved into sixth place on the NWSL’s common season all-time scoring record.
She scored 5 targets within the Spirit’s ultimate seven common season video games after getting back from an eight-game demotion to the bench.
Regardless of the benching, she completed the season because the group’s second-leading scorer with seven targets — one objective shy of becoming a member of a three-way tie for group chief.
Hatch followers must accept watching one of many NWSL’s most underrated scorers, fairly than listening to from her in “For the Win.”
The ultimate episode of the collection begins with the penalty shootout through the semifinal match between the Spirit and Gotham, and Hatch is likely one of the first gamers to be seen.
Hatch took the primary penalty of the shootout, and in typical Hatch vogue, transformed it.
The previous BYU Cougar has solely missed one common season penalty in her profession and has made her previous 11, which is the longest streak within the historical past of the NWSL, based on .
Within the championship, followers watch as Hatch hustles, takes a beating from some tackles and fights to provide Washington an opportunity to tie the sport with two photographs.
After the primary Hatch shot, a header that hit the submit, the present cuts to NWSL and U.S. ladies’s nationwide soccer group legends Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Kelley O’Hara and retired WNBA icon Sue Fowl reacting to the close to objective whereas within the stands.
The Spirit and Pleasure unofficially kick off the NWSL season on Friday within the Problem Cup, whereas the 2025 NWSL season formally begins on March 14.
