The National Women’s Soccer League has completed its 11th year of operation, which makes it a good time to look back at 11 memorable trades that have helped shape the league.
The NWSL is no stranger to blockbuster deals, some of which have lived up to their billing while some have fallen flat (remember Sydney Leroux to the Flash for a first round pick and the rights to Abby Wambach?). Still others have helped set precedents that live today.
Between now and the end of the year, The Equalizer will bring you one memorable NWSL trade per day.
You can find the entire series here.
No. 8 – Chicago Red Stars trade Savannah McCaskill, Yuki Nagasato, the No. 5 pick and an international roster spot to Racing Louisville FC for protection in Expansion Draft
Parsing out the winning and losing side of this deal is tricky, but it makes the list for one reason: It rewrote the rules on how Expansion Drafts are handled in the NWSL. Rory Dames was one of the more shrewd trade operators in his days in charge of the Red Stars, and when he went to the league with the idea of getting ahead of the Expansion Draft, there wasn’t anything in the rules telling him he couldn’t do it.
“You don’t know ’til you ask,” he said at the time.
