Photo credit: Kirby Lee | USA TODAY Sports
Let’s get this out of the way: Everyone finds something to hate about the National Women’s Soccer League schedule. It is a rite of passage for every coach to dissect the list of games that lands in their inbox and opine that their team absolutely has the worst travel schedule, or the least balance to spread out back-to-back opponents or who knows what — maybe the font used for the document. The schedule is a rallying cry.
Much of those feelings are entrenched in the league’s culture due to a decade of frustration around the schedule. It always gets released later than anyone wants, creating logistical annoyances for coaches, players, fans and media alike.
It always has some point of congestion in the calendar that drives coaches nuts. In most years, that has included an unnecessary slew of midweek games that made teams play three games in seven days, with travel. The NWSL rectified some of those issues in recent years but effectively repeated them by staging a drawn-out…
