We have two different NWSL competitions happening on Saturday between the 2022 Challenge Cup final and the second weekend of the 2022 regular season. As far as NWSL betting lines go, though, that’s sort of irrelevant.
Legal sportsbooks in Canada and the United States have action on just one of today’s matches, sadly. Thus, bettors need to look to the late match as their opportunity to make some money on NWSL bets today.
North Carolina Courage v Washington Spirit, 1 p.m. EDT
First off, let’s talk about the Challenge Cup final that pits two teams in great form; the North Carolina Courage and the Washington Spirit. Although Paramount+ will offer coverage, bettors can also watch this match on broadcast CBS.
Counting all appearances, the Spirit are unbeaten in their last six games against the Courage with three wins and three draws. Before that run, however, the club from the US capital lost 10 of 11 matches against the team from Cary.
This is the fourth final in an NWSL competition for North Carolina after reaching three straight Championship matches between 2017 and 2019. With this match, the Courage tie Portland Thorns FC for the most appearances in an NWSL final.
The Spirit arrive at the final after the longest PK shootout in NWSL history which came after a no-call on a handball in the box that should have given OL Reign a free kick near the end of stoppage time. While there’s no guarantee OL Reign would have scored on that chance, the end of that match will always be controversial.
Debinha, who scored in the match on Wednesday against the Kansas City Current, has scored in six matches in a row for North Carolina, tying Abby Wambach and Kim Little for most consecutive games scoring.
Key for the Spirit will be Ashley Sanchez, who had three shots on target in the semifinal and is the player with the most appearances with at least three shots so far in 2022 with four. Unfortunately, as of the time of this writing, none of the usual Canadian/US legal sportsbooks were offering this match.
San Diego Wave FC v NJ/NY Gotham FC, 10 p.m. EDT
This will be San Diego’s inaugural regular-season home match, having played away last weekend. Gotham has eight wins in the Pacific Time Zone in its history, the most of any NWSL teams from outside said time zone.
After a victorious debut in the regular season against the Dash, San Diego will try to become the third NWSL to win their first two matches: Sky Blue did it in 2013 while the Courage repeated the feat in 2017.
Gotham also won their first match of the regular season, continuing an unbeaten streak in regular-season openers of nine matches (four wins and five draws). That’s both the longest active streak in the league and the longest for the club in its history.
Jodie Taylor scored the 32nd goal of her career in her debut for San Diego. That means she has scored in two of her club debuts. She also did it in 2018 for OL Reign. Meanwhile, Midge Purce has scored for Gotham in their inaugural regular-season matches for the second consecutive season and is the only player to score in multiple openers in the club’s history.
BetMGM, Caesars, FanDuel, and PointsBet all have the Wave as a slight favorite on their 3-way moneylines. The best action there is between FanDuel and PointsBet, which both have San Diego +155. The best Gotham line is +180 at PointsBet. A draw would pay out +230 at either BetMGM or FanDuel.
