Smith and Coffey earn NWSL Best XI First Team Honors
And Weaver is snubbed...
Yesterday the NWSL announced their Best XI First Team and Best XI Second Team. Sam Coffey and Sophia Smith both claimed spots on the first team, but a noticeable player was missing: Morgan Weaver.
The Best XI First Team and Best XI Second Team are based on a weighted voting scale comprised of players (50%), owners/GMs/coaches (20%), media (20%) and fans (10%).
Coffey is a finalist for NWSL MVP and is one of two Thorns FC players to start and play in all 22 regular season matches. She also tallied eight assists, the most in the league.
Smith is the 2023 Golden Boot winner, and she’s also up for NWSL MVP. In her 2022 season, she earned an NWSL Best IX first-team spot as well as MVP honors. This season, Smith led the league with 11 goals in 16 matches, while also tallying five assists.
Weaver scored 10 goals this season (including the Challenge Cup) and was also crucial in her distribution on the pitch. Her speed lent to her success on the wing, and she stepped up while other players were away during international duty. She was named to the 2023 UKG NWSL Challenge Cup All-Tournament Team in September, but not honored in the Best XI. She was also awarded the Rose City Riveters Supporters Player of the Year. Evan Davis of the Equalizer has a pretty compelling article too if you need more evidence.
The Rest of the Best IX Teams are as follows:
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Morgan Weaver surely did more for her team than Alex Morgan this year. Although their goal and assist stats are fairly close - Weaver had 7 non-penalty goals, Morgan 5, while Morgan had 5 assists and Weaver 4 - Weaver, to my eye, did a lot more to unlock defenses. Alex has more history in the league and better name recognition - just a tad - so she probably got votes because of that.
Hopefully Weaver's time will come. She took huge strides forward last offseason and I'm hopeful she'll do that again this year, in which case it will be impossible to ignore her.
Moscato left Tigres with the intention of coaching in the NWSL.
She's Canadian, and a longtime CWNT teammate of Sinc's.
Just sayin'...