Rose Lavelle

If it gets done...

You have to bring Rose Lavelle home, though.

That's the one thing.

No doubt.

It makes a lot of sense to add a women's professional team here to the city.

And so I hope this gets done.

If it gets done, you have to bring Rose Lavelle home, though.

That's the one thing.

Building pathways for women in sports by investing in the players, leagues, and their fans helps shape a brighter future for the next generation of changemakers.

That's even more important with Asia Wilson, Rose Lavelle, and Katie Ledecky continuing to inspire younger, ever-larger numbers of women to get in the game, regardless of the sports they choose to do.

According to research conducted for the study, 70% of Gen Z women play this sport through high school or their secondary education, an increase from the 62% among baby boomers.

But it also found participation rates of those everyday athletes are still less than those among males in all the countries analyzed.

Keep in mind, the last time a Spanish player didn't win it, you have to go all the way back to 2019, Megan Rapinoe.

Uh, one American player nominated this time around, Rose Lavelle.

Yeah, I, I think that this is still, when it comes to US players, there is still a stench of the previous, uh, of the last World Cup that didn't go well.

And until that's gone, and I know we've had Olympics and everything like that, but let's be honest, it really comes down to the, uh, the World Cup and the expectations.

And so I, I don't think that this, the women's Ballon d'Or, is going to reflect the quality that exists until we kind of rectify the situation [laughs] when it comes to the, uh, the women's national team here.

So that, that it's only Rose Lavelle, fine, whatever.

I mean, I...

There, there have been times over the years where people have looked at the women's side of the Ballon d'Or and looked at it as, well, it's just an, an afterthought type of, uh, type of situation.

Mind you, she spent half of her season with Angel City, then goes to Chelsea, plays in Champions League, does well, scores a bunch of goals, and Lindsay Heaps, which I love we're getting four Americans on this list.

Huge snubs because there's only one American nominated for this, which is Rose Lavelle, which credit to Rose.

I absolutely love that for her.

So deserved.

Right.

Well, let's take a look at the Americans that are nominated, though, if I'm correct.

I think we're going to look at Rose Lavelle here, who incredible season with Gotham led them to another championship after being traded over from Seattle Reign.

And to me, just one of those players that's – a creative genius in the middle of the pitch.

And then they find ways within their system to take teams down.

As we know, throughout this season, Rose Lavelle has really been their lockbreaker.

And her absence in the last few weeks as she's dealing with a head injury has been deeply felt.

Now, Washington, on the other hand, right now feels more like you're playing like an elastic rubber band, which is that you can push it in a bunch of different directions.

And it might just win them the shield for the first time in club history, but it's a wild ride every time and you never know exactly what's going to happen.

Now, as compared to Gotham, who we have spent a lot of time on during this podcast season because they are one of the most interesting teams in the league, a little bit in their struggle period right now, a tiny, tiny little struggle period building character as their availability report remains very long and their margins a little bit short, as I mentioned at the top of the show.

I think we've seen the additional absence of Rose Lavelle going through concussion protocol on top of all of the other injuries and some of the transfers out that the bats have been dealing with this year does seem like maybe one absence too many, especially when it comes to goal scoring, which as we know, places latent pressure on, on the back line when they're not able to do what they need to do up in the front.

She is the key.

But we do have some soccer news for you.

So Rose Lavelle, one of the premier faces and names for the U.S. Women's National Team and, of course, Cincinnati native.

Well, she has been named a finalist for the 2026 Ballon d'Or And this is big.

This is major news.

Things just didn't look good going into this one.

Rose Lavelle ultimately could not play, still going through the concussion protocol, and that's fine.

Let her rest.

Concussions are very serious.

If she's still feeling any symptoms, obviously you have to keep her out.

I just think the last game and a half where you really saw how much this team missed Rose Lavelle in the attack and this one really cemented, How much they miss Rose Lavelle in that attack and in general there are some questions that are really starting to arise out of this Gotham attack and sure it has looked pretty good at times you know Sam Kerr has come in and has not really been the spark that this team has needed.

And of course, Rose Lavelle missing about two and a half games now is not what this team needed.

But if you look all the way back to July 26th, when Gotham played Bay FC and won 1-0, since that game, Gotham has only scored more than one goal in a game.