Women's soccer in the United States
Women's soccer in the United States has developed quite differently from men's soccer. Until the 1970s, organized women's soccer matches in the U.S. existed only on a limited basis. The U.S. is now regarded as one of the top countries in the world for women's soccer, and FIFA ranked its national team #1 in the world after its back-to-back Women's World Cup victory in 2015 and 2019. The highest women's professional soccer league in the United States is the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), which was established in 2012 as a successor to Women's Professional Soccer and was run by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) before becoming independently governed in 2020. The league began with eight teams and reached its current (and largest) membership of 12 teams in 2022, with the Los Angeles-based Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC being the most recent entries in 2022. , the NWSL season runs from March to November. Each team then plays 22 regular-season games, with each team playing all others once each at home and on the road. After the regular season ends, six teams advance to three rounds of playoffs. This schedule may be adjusted in years of