Table of Contents
Day 14 — Women Abroad | 15 November 2026
Clara Luvanga scored the goal that sent the Washington Spirit to a third straight NWSL Championship on Saturday. The 21-year-old Tanzanian striker pounced on a misplaced Utah back-pass early in the second half at Audi Field and finished for a 2-1 semifinal win over the Utah Royals. It was her second game-winner in as many playoff rounds, and it is the reason this tracker starts with a final already booked.
Sportblot has tracked African men in Europe every Monday since 2 November. From today, African women in the world's two richest leagues — the NWSL in the United States and the Women's Super League in England — get the same treatment, every Sunday. Same standards: every number verified at the time of writing, every money figure labelled Disclosed, Reported or Estimated, and nothing published that cannot be checked.
The weekend in the NWSL: Luvanga decides it
Washington's semifinal turned twice in the first eight minutes. Cloé Lacasse put Utah ahead in the second minute, bending a corner directly inside the near post — the fastest goal in NWSL playoff history. Sofia Cantore levelled six minutes later, finishing a low Trinity Rodman cross. The winner came in the 56th minute, when Nuria Rábano's back-pass fell short of goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn and Luvanga, who had also played the pass that set up Cantore's equaliser, raced through to finish.
The Spirit will host the NWSL Championship at Audi Field on Saturday 21 November at 8pm ET — their fifth championship appearance and their third in a row. Their opponents will be decided this afternoon.
That second semifinal, Gotham FC against the Kansas City Current, kicks off at 3pm ET today at Icahn Stadium on Randall's Island, and had not been played when this article was published. Gotham, the Shield winners and No. 1 seeds on 61 points, moved the tie out of Sports Illustrated Stadium because of poor pitch conditions. Kansas City, the No. 4 seeds on 53 points, arrive on a five-match winning streak, having beaten Angel City 1-0 after extra time in the quarter-final on a Michelle Cooper penalty. Gotham beat Seattle Reign 1-0 in theirs.
The tie is, in part, a test of the best defence in the league against its best attack. Gotham kept 14 clean sheets in the regular season. Kansas City scored 54 goals, the most in the league, and two of the players who made that happen are the two names this tracker will follow most closely in the run-in: Temwa Chawinga, the Malawian forward, and Haley Hopkins, who finished the regular season with 12 goals each. Chawinga is also a finalist for the NWSL MVP award, which she has won in each of the last two seasons; the winners are announced on Wednesday 18 November.
The season in numbers: Banda's 17, and the three games she never got
The regular season ended on Decision Day, 1 November, and its scoring race tells the story of the African season in the NWSL. Ashley Sanchez of North Carolina Courage won the Golden Boot with 20 goals, tying the single-season record Chawinga set with 20 goals in 25 games in 2024. Second in the race was Barbra Banda of Orlando Pride, with 17.
Banda's number comes with a caveat the record books will carry. The Zambian forward missed Orlando's final three games because of CDC restrictions that prevented her from re-entering the United States for 21 days after playing an international match in Uganda on 8 October. Orlando, who lost 1-0 to Seattle Reign on Decision Day, finished 11th on 36 points and missed the playoffs. Banda's chance to chase Sanchez, and a share of the record, ended at an airport rather than on a pitch.
Her compatriot Racheal Kundananji's season ended differently. She scored three goals for Bay FC in 2026 — against San Diego Wave, North Carolina Courage and Orlando Pride — and then, in October, Bay FC announced her transfer to the Chicago Stars. She leaves as Bay's all-time leader in scoring and assists, and the player whose reported $788,000 move from Madrid CFF in early 2024 was, at the time, the highest transfer fee ever paid for a women's footballer. Banda's own move to Orlando followed four weeks later. The record has since moved on; the two deals remain the moment African women's football entered the transfer market's top tier.
The weekend in the WSL: Nnadozie stands, Brighton fall
Matchday 10 of the Women's Super League was spread across the weekend, and the African story of it was in goal at the Amex. Chiamaka Nnadozie, Nigeria's first-choice goalkeeper and the 2025 CAF Goalkeeper of the Year, started her tenth straight league game for Brighton & Hove Albion against Liverpool on Saturday and played all 90 minutes of a 3-0 defeat. She denied Vivien Endemann from close range twice, but Beata Olsson scored in the 4th and 78th minutes and Cornelia Kapocs added the second in the 48th. Brighton and Liverpool both sit on 11 points from 10 games; Liverpool are eighth on goal difference, Brighton ninth.
The rest of Saturday's results reshaped the top of the table. Chelsea beat Manchester City 1-0 at Stamford Bridge, Sandy Baltimore scoring in first-half stoppage time, and City goalkeeper Ayaka Yamashita was sent off in the 75th minute. Chelsea go top on 26 points, one ahead of City, whose 17-game unbeaten run in all competitions is over. Manchester United beat Crystal Palace 2-0, captain Maya Le Tissier marking her 150th appearance for the club with a goal, and Elisabeth Terland adding the second; United are fourth on 18 points. Tottenham Hotspur and Everton drew 0-0.
Three fixtures were still to be played when this article was published: West Ham United against Charlton Athletic, Aston Villa against Birmingham City in the derby, and Arsenal against London City Lionesses in the late kick-off — the club of Nigeria defender Rofiat Imuran. Their results will be carried in next week's edition, not guessed at here.
Who this tracker follows
The opening roster is deliberately short, and it will grow as the season is verified week by week. In the NWSL: Temwa Chawinga (Kansas City Current, Malawi), Barbra Banda (Orlando Pride, Zambia), Racheal Kundananji (Chicago Stars, Zambia), Clara Luvanga (Washington Spirit, Tanzania) and Aissata Traoré (Bay FC, Mali). In the WSL: Chiamaka Nnadozie (Brighton & Hove Albion, Nigeria) and Rofiat Imuran (London City Lionesses, Nigeria).
Two departures shape the list. Toni Payne left Everton for Inter Milan in July 2026, on a two-year deal to June 2028, so she leaves the WSL column and this tracker will not follow her in Italy. Asisat Oshoala, who spent two seasons at Bay FC, was transferred to Saudi Arabia. Both were part of the first wave of African women in these leagues; the tracker records who is here now, not who used to be.
Why a weekly record matters
For years, African women's football has been covered in bursts — a WAFCON, a World Cup, a transfer record — and then left alone between tournaments. The club week, where careers are actually made, went unrecorded. That gap is the reason this tracker exists.
The evidence for it is already on the page. A Tanzanian 21-year-old has decided two straight playoff games in the NWSL. A Malawian is chasing a third straight MVP award. A Nigerian goalkeeper has started every league game of the season for a WSL club. A Zambian finished second in the Golden Boot race despite missing the final three games of the season. None of that happened at a tournament. It happened on ordinary league weekends, and it will keep happening.
Sportblot will carry the record every Sunday from here: every appearance, every goal, every clean sheet, every transfer — verified, labelled, and in one place. The men's tracker made the case that African players abroad deserve a weekly account. The women's game has now made the same case, louder.
Sportblot will carry the women's tracker every Sunday. Next edition: 22 November 2026, after the NWSL Championship and WSL Matchday 11.
