ShePlays NWSL Week 2 Team

Ok. Let's do this. Let's look at my GW1 team and try to figure out which two (kidding myself that I'll limit it to two) transfers ahead of GW2.

Week 1 Starting XI

Pauline Peyraud-Magnin

Benched by Denver

Janine Sonis

Started in midfield (yay!). Provided an assist (yay!). Sent off after 27 minutes to wipe out all of those fantasy points (boo!). Unavailable in week 2 (boo!).

Gisele Thompson

Looked good as ACFC steamrolled the Stars. Unforetunately, Shores looks like the better pick. Not just because she scored a goal, but she also took half the corner kicks.

Izzy Rodriguez

The Current weren't at their best, and I'm not sure we'll see them at their best under Armas. However, Izzy got into the attack and had her share of set pieces.

Jaedyn Shaw

I'm guessing there weren't that many points here, but I'll wait until ShePlays gets the data for this game posted. I expect I'll be left wanting more from a $600k player.

Leicy Santos

Oof. Rough outing for the Spirit, and for Santos, who never really seemed to be on the ball. We shouldn't expect her to all of a sudden be Croix Bethune, but I did expect more of the game to run through her.

Ally Sentnor

Played her version of a 9 and got a goal. No complaints from me.

Croix Bethune

The entire KC frontline tried to be too cute at times, but while Croix wasn't deployed through the middle (and Debinha soaks up a lot of the attack) she did score. Hopefully there's more to come from her as she gets more comfortable in her new side. Also, they get Chicago next so any Current you have on your team is captainable.

Dudinha

Off night from her. Spent a lot of time wide open on the weak side and rarely received the ball. Her value is going to come from goals as she doesn't have the routes to points some other players do (set pieces, defending, etc). I won't move her before the Wave's gameweek 3 match against Chicago, but I'm not sure she's the best pick I could have made from the team.

Riley Tiernan

This was odd. Spent the match as a "chalk on the boots" winger and wasn't involved in any of Angel City's four goals. Is this going to be her role, or was this some one-off thing? As one of my fantasy forwards, I didn't like it one bit.

Rosemonde Kouassi

Oof. Rough outing for the Spirit, but Kouassi did accumulate ten points. I think I may be irrationally unhappy with her performance because I made her captain over Sentnor at the last minute. She does look like she can get points from lots of anciallary actions even if she's not the Spirit's main goal threat.

Week 1 Bench

Sandy MacIver

Looked fine, if a little over-caffinated against Portland. Thrilled with a starting keeper at the basement price. Going to have to start her going forward if PPM is Denver's backup.

Sydney Collins

Bargain backup and sure starter for Bay (named captain before the season). I like that she was pushing forward from fullback. I will be interested to see if she earned any points for it. She's the easy answer to my Sonis problem for week 2.

Bárbara Olivieri

Benched by Boston. Yikes!

Amanda Gutierres

Benched by Boston. Yikes!

Sonis is my most obvious transfer out candidate. I love the idea of an out-of-position (OOP) fantasy player, but she misses week 2 and then Denver play Gotham, the Spirit, and Seattle. She's also pricey at $350k. Which would go a long way towards upgrading another spot with my second transfer.

Who to bring in? I was impressed with Avery Patterson, and have always been a big fan of hers. Shores, as I mentioned above, looked great. But I don't think I want to double-down on Angel City defenders. I was really impressed with Reyna Reyes (and MA Vignola was even better) but the Thorns fullbacks are $250k each (as is Patterson), which doesn't give me much money to spread around. Another constraint is that I'm out of Spirit and Current spots. Unless...

Let's say I drop Sonis to Lucia Di Guglielmo. Then I would have to sell Santos, but I could afford any midfielder bar Kenza Dali. While I don't love Portland's upcoming matches (Seattle, @San Diego, KC, @Courage) I might still expect Olivia Moultrie (another long time fave) to score points.

Sidebar 1: I was hoping I could just bring in my Boston players this week against Houston. However, both of them were benched against Gotham. I don't know that I can start them in my fantasy team until I see them starting IRL. Even then, doubt has been planted and if there's one thing that will kill a fantasy season, it's doubt. On the other hand, they're pretty cheap. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sidebar 2: The new ShePlays platform has thrown us a planning curveball: formation choice is now intertwined with transfers.

Your bench is made of up one player from each line (gk, def, mid, fw). In a 3-4-3 that's four df, five mids, and four forwards. If I were to switch to a 4-4-2, my squad now MUST carry a fifth defender and only three forwards. So for my two free transfers, one has to be adding a defender. Likewise, if I switch back one has to be on adding a forward. There's no ability to play different formations without making at least one transfer and losing a player on your current squad. That makes it difficult to change formations week to week, or really ever, without very careful planning. I would like to play a 4-4-2 this week, with the players I have, but burning transfers to get there isn't viable. So whichever formation you played in week 1, you're all but stuck in it for a bit. Managing your squad just got a lot more complicated.

Sidebar 3: One additional consideration when making this week's transfers is that our Round 2 team might be the team for the midweek "bonus" rounds 1 and 2. I'm waiting for confirmation on this as ShePlays originally said it was our round 3 roster that would count. I expect it makes more sense for them to carry the round 2 team through the midweek games than to close round 3 midweek. Hopefully we'll know the answer before the deadline. If I learn anything, I'll share on Bluesky.

Assuming our round 2 team plays in the bonus rounds, I'm interested in Orlando (home to Denver then at Chicago in bonus round 1). We'll have the lineups for the Denver match as it's 5pm (PDT) on Friday. So if we look at the above moves (Sonis and Santos out) I can cheap out at those positions with Di Guglielmo and Gia Corley (@Utah, Portland, Chicago -- two outta three ain't bad) and use the money to move from Tiernan to Barbara Banda. That would be three transfers, and cost five points. But if we're getting extra games with this roster (especially if I can get any extra matches against Chicago) I think it's worth the cost.

This has been really long, and probably the only useful bits were the sidebars about the new game's meta changes. I hope this helped you with your thoughts in some way, and I'll be sure to keep you updated if my plans change.