At the risk of eating crow, and I will gobble it down if I’m proven wrong, I think there is a good chance the initial reactions to the news that dropped on January 8th, about the possible transfer of Sam Coffey to Manchester City, is reading the situation way off. I am not trying to scold anyone in noting this. I actually think many of the reactions make sense in terms of raw, emotional reactions. But I don’t think many of the concerns or criticisms they express are accurate. Okay, I may be scolding you all a little, but I’m old, and that’s what olds do. Also, I certainly need this reminder myself, so it’s a self-scold as well.

Beyond Sam Coffey, you know, let’s talk some soccer. The Clausura season for Liga MX Femenil kicked off last weekend, so let’s also give that a quick review.

This past Thursday, Tom Garry broke the news that Sam Coffey was in advanced talks for a transfer to Manchester City. Fans responded with shock and disbelief. As is the wont of sports fans everywhere, especially when on the internet, speculation on what brought this about went into overdrive. A few hours later, Jeff Kassouf reported more details on the rumored transfer. Kassouf’s piece added some important information, even if provisional. Still, details are mostly thin, and the added details did little to stem the speculation and criticism, just shifted it’s nature and focus.

Trying to Make Sense of the Move

One of the reasons this rumored transfer is so shocking is that it makes no obvious sense. At the start of the 2025 season, Sam Coffey began a new contract that was set to expire at the end of the 2027 season. With Christine Sinclair’s retirement at the end of the 2024 season, Sam Coffey became the club’s captain. She had a stellar 2025 season, and was widely regarded as a potential MVP. Why in the world, with a new head coach arriving and key players returning, would the Thorns transfer away such a key player?

Let’s start by getting some of the criticism out of the way. When the news initially dropped, a lot of comments criticizing NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman, the concerns over the salary cap, and the High Impact Player rule were common place. But even before any real details were known, these issues were pretty clearly unrelated to this transfer. At bottom, the issues arising from the Trinity Rodman contract saga and the debate over raising the salary cap versus something like the HIP rule are not present in this deal. Trinity Rodman is out of contract. Sam Coffey is not.

Of course, if I’m being honest, I don’t think these initial criticisms were actually motivated by the details of the Sam Coffey deal. The shock of the news just offered another opportunity to air grievances, and I understand why people took it. Still, it is important to remember that, whether or not those concerns and criticisms are valid, on their own, they are not supported by what we know of this Sam Coffey move.

To try and understand what may be happening here, let’s take note of some of the facts we have on record.

What We Know So Far

Through reporting on the day, we don’t have a lot of information, but we have some key details to help narrow the likely course of action. Drawing from Garry’s initial article, Kassouf’s additions, and reporting from Emma Sanders with the BBC, we can state the following are known or reported facts:

With these facts, we have a lot answered. We know why Manchester City. We know what’s driving Sam Coffey. We know a floor on the transfer financials. We’re really only left with one major hole in the situation, it was our original question. Why would the Thorns go along with this deal?

A Criticism I Think is Absolutely Valid

One criticism that I think is valid is that the reported transfer fee is too low for Sam Coffey. As Chris Rifer noted, the $800k is a high fee for a defensive midfielder and in the top 10 transfer fees for all women’s soccer players. While this is true and makes a pretty good argument that $800k for Sam Coffey is a good deal, I think it’s pretty clear that Sam Coffey is worth more than $800k for the Thorns, and with two years remaining on her contract, the Thorns are in no way obliged to accept $800k for Coffey.

Again, I basically ascribe to this criticism. I don’t think the Thorns should have accepted anything less than $1 million. But before we even consider further, there are important elements to remember. Most importantly, the transfer isn’t final. It was reported as “at least” $800k. It was also reported that the move will likely have performance-based addons and could very well end up being higher than the reported $800k. I can sit here and say the Thorns shouldn’t have settled for less than $1 million, and the final fee may end up above a million when all is said and done. So, at the very least, criticism of the transfer fee needs to be considered premature until the actual fee is known.

Still, even if we assume the final fee ends up being $800k, does this mean Jeff Agoos, as Thorns GM, was naive or incompetent in these negotiations? Based on the known facts, that’s a hard sell. Here me out.

Which Throats Are Cut in a Cutthroat Business?

Returning to our key question, what we’re wondering is why the Thorns would make this deal? Some possible answers:

Again, the reporting doesn’t allow us to know the answer, but we can certainly eliminate some of them. We can pretty quickly eliminate the first possible answers. The club clearly value Coffey, and there’s no reason for the Thorns to be selling now to avoid losing her on a free when they’ve got her under contract for two full seasons.

The third answer is possible, but doesn’t seem likely. The club had a successful 2025 with a young squad and a number of players returning from injury or maternity leave in 2026. They made a relatively big-money deal near the end of the 2025 season that saw them get $600k and MA Vignola for Hina Sugita. They signed Shae Harvey out of Stanford to help reinforce that position. They biggest area of need is central defense, and the area with the most to potentially deal, if desperate, is in the forward line. So it’s hard to see why the Thorns would need this extra money, and if extra money is needed, there are other avenues for getting it. To be clear, none of what I wrote above eliminates this as a possibility, but I do think it gets at why it is less likely than other possibilities.

So, that leaves us with the two most likely candidates. To review, I want to start with a line from Jeff Kassouf’s reporting. He notes: “One source added that Coffey's desire to experience playing in Europe, not money, is a driving consideration in the expected move.” This line stands out to me because it is not clear for whom Coffey’s desire to experience playing in Europe is.

Obviously, it’s a driving cause for Coffey. Also, it’s certainly not a driving cause for Manchester City. They didn’t catch a stray comment in a presser and show up to give Coffey the chance to come play in Europe. But I think there’s genuinely a good reason to think this is actually a statement about the Thorns motivation.

Why does this matter? Because it puts some context into the reported transfer fee and helps us differentiate between the final two options. Certainly, it is still possible that the Thorns were approached by City and negotiated an $800k deal so long as it happens at the end of the season. They could be aware of Coffey’s desire but not be factoring it into the negotiations. It’s just that the line above makes way more sense if it includes details about the Thorn’s motivation.

If the Thorns were looking to honestly find a deal that fulfilled Coffey’s desire to experience playing in Europe, then we have to think of the actual fee as $800k + performance addons + doing a solid for a top talent.

Does this mean the criticism that the transfer fee is invalid? Certainly not. Personally, I’m not entirely sold on the deal. A talent like Coffey is hard to come by, and giving her up early is debatable. Is it naive? That’s a strong possibility, but that rests on the presumption that maximizing profit/performance are the most important factors of assessment. Is it player-forward? Most definitely. Going back to Chris Rifer’s point, $800k is in the mix as a good deal for a good DM. The idea that the Thorn’s world accept that deal for Sam Coffey, knowing that Coffey worth more but taking it to help facilitate something Coffey wants is very much in line with something many of us seem to want from the league - care for the players.

Where Am I Left?

This isn’t a done deal. Once over, the story may look very different, and the initial criticisms and concerns may prove valid. The jaded takes may prove spot on. But right now, if we take off our jaded shades and assess this rumored transfer based on what we know, although it has room for criticism, that criticism seems centered on decisions that are to the benefit of the player’s wishes, and I think it’s important we recognize that.

Look, sports fans are jaded. We regularly put ourselves in the place of the players, coaches, and general managers; and proclaim that decisions they make are bad and that we’d have made better decisions. It’s never going away. Also, with women’s sports in particular, there is a tendency to doubt the motivations and qualifications of men operating within the women’s sports, and this is very much warranted. The Kansas City Current appear to have appointed their manager because a guy called a guy he knew, and that first guy recommended a third guy. None of these guys have extensive experience in women’s soccer. But there’s a difference between being cautious and being jaded.

Being jaded is fun and cathartic, at least in the short term. But it can also blind us to positive movement. It’s fine if our initial response to something is a bit jaded, but if we genuinely care about women’s sports and want to see it grow, we have to be able to set that jadedness aside. Set aside those presumptions of incompetence. Jaded, self-assured criticism certainly keeps one above the fray, and we all dabble in it from time to time, myself included. But being above the fray is another way of saying you’re not in the fight. If you want to be in the fight, you have to be able to set that jadedness aside to better see the actual battlefield.

Full disclosure, I am a Thorns fan, but I can assure you that doesn’t incline me to give the benefit of the doubt to the Thorns leadership. Even though I’m currently way more okay with this move than I was when the news first dropped, it only serves as a good indicator that Jeff Agoos (and the Thorns, in general) are have some decency in their modus operandi. This doesn’t secure Agoos’s future or insulate the organization from criticism. From a soccer operations perspective, they have a lot of work to do to keep the club competitive. If that doesn’t happen, Agoos has to go. But if Agoos took a little less money to help a transfer get over the finish line for Coffey’s benefit, I think I’m okay with a little less cutthroat in my team and league.

Does This Mean the League is Off the Hook?

Certainly, I am suggesting that the ills of the league are not the driving force behind this transfer, at least based on current information. But does that mean the league can breath a sigh of relief knowing that the criticism it has been getting around HIP and the salary cap weren’t at fault here? Absolutely not.

If all pans out, and it is confirmed that the driving force behind this transfer was Sam Coffey’s desire to play in Europe and the Thorns found a good-enough deal to make it happen in lieu of waiting for the perfect deal; the league still needs to be on alert. No, I don’t think we want our clubs bullheadedly getting in the way of players making moves they dream of, but that means the league could lose players to Europe for reasons outside of money.

This is important for two reasons. First, it drives home the fact that playing in Europe carries a mystique, a prestige that does not currently exist in the NWSL. For sure, players around the world want to play in the US because it is where so many great players play. But “playing in Europe” is a prestige beyond that. When considering retaining domestic players or signing international players, the league will also have to consider this prestige as part of the threat the growing European leagues pose to NWSL’s potential dominance. The wealthier those clubs and leagues in Europe get, the more NWSL will have to spend to both compete and outprice prestige. Just because a reasonable adjustment to the salary cap probably doesn’t impact the Sam Coffey deal doesn’t mean the allure of playing in Europe won’t require extra money keep or capture the next big name considering an offer from Europe. If the league ignores or dismisses this lesson, they could be in a world of hurt.

Shifting quickly to another topic, Week 1 of the Clausura season of the Liga MX Femenil kicked off in Mexico last weekend. The first round of fixtures didn’t produce many surprises, but it did produce a lot of goals. The lowest total goals in a match was two. Four matches featured 5 goals scored, and the Toluca-Tijuana match was a barnburner with 8 goals.

Chivas got the action started with a 2-0 win over Atletico San Luis. The action ended on Tuesday evening with the most surprising result, as Mazatlan came back twice to beat FC Juarez by a score of 3-2. For those unfamiliar, Mazatlan went the entire apertura season winless, so getting that first win out of the way in Week 1 will be a huge relief to the club.

Highlight of the Week goes to Aby Martinez of Mazatlan. It may not be the fanciest goal, but Aby Martinez’s winner broke a long winless streak for club, and those kinds of goals don’t get much prettier.

From the perspective of aesthetics, the goal of week was definitely Eugenie Le Sommer’s third of the night- a lovely chip from 20 yards out that hits both posts before going in the net to complete the Toluca striker’s hat trick.

The assist of the week goes to Monserrat Saldivar, whose wonderful through ball found Scarlett Camberos, who finished to double Club America’s lead just before the half, a goal that would prove to be the match winner.

Lowlight of the Week?: Professional athletes wow us with their impressive play, but they can also make us laugh, purposefully or not. Poor Eve Perisset provided Necaxa’s lone goal via an unfortunate rebound off her face and into her net.

The full results of a Week 1 action:

And the league table after Week 1:

Week 2 officially kicked off on Friday evening. As always, a number of the matches are streamed live on YouTube. Some matches to watch out for this weekend:

Saturday, January 10, 4:45pm eastern: Cruz Azul vs Chivas
Saturday, January 10, 6pm eastern: FC Juarez vs Club Leon
Sunday, January 11, 7pm eastern: Rayadas vs Necaxa
Monday, January 12, 7pm eastern: Toluca vs Atlas

I hope you all find some good footy action this weekend, and we’ll be back next week with something. Cheers!