Imagine a cursed franchise or suffering fan base — say, the Cleveland Browns, to name one easy example. Now imagine that team putting together the best season in league history, rattling off 23 games without defeat.
What sounds unthinkable is reality for the Orlando Pride in 2024. The franchise that was once the laughingstock of the National Women’s Soccer League is now the team everyone is chasing heading into the playoffs, and it is one of the best sports stories of the year.
“People wrote us off,” Orlando coach Seb Hines said after his team clinched the NWSL Shield in October, marking its 23rd match without a loss. “People didn’t want to come to the club. People had no hope with this club.”
Hines isn’t exaggerating. Waves of players have left Orlando in recent years amid ongoing tumult, and years of poor performances made the team an afterthought even in a small, 14-team league. That dire history is what makes this year’s run even more remarkable. Among the Pride’s league records are an eight-game winning streak this year and an unbeaten streak that reached 24 games including last year’s finale. Their 18th win of the season on Saturday also set a record — one that the Washington Spirit would match later that night — as did reaching 60 points.
“Pride is a dangerous thing, so I don’t want to talk about how proud I am of it, but I will say what this staff and group of athletes has accomplished is exceptional — it’s extraordinary,” said Haley Carter, Orlando’s VP of soccer operations and sporting director.
Carter joined the club in early 2023 and helped map out a long-term plan to revive its fortunes. Without question, Orlando is ahead of schedule. Now comes a test that many more seasoned teams have failed: Ahead of Friday’s quarterfinal with the Chicago Red Stars, can the Pride back up the best regular season with a championship?
Still, the fairy-tale campaign will still go down as arguably the best in league history alongside the 2014 Seattle Reign (who went 16 games unbeaten to start the season) and the 2018 North Carolina Courage, who only lost once in 24 matches. The 2024 Pride bested North Carolina’s previous points record by three, albeit in two extra games.
There is a distinct difference between those two Shield winners: the 2014 Reign fell short in the NWSL Championship, while the Courage backed up its dominant regular season with emphatic playoff victories and a title. How will the Pride be remembered?
“Reality is, we’ve got to win a championship,” Hines said ahead of the regular-season finale.
Whatever happens over the coming weeks, the success of this season finally looks like the turning point for a much-maligned franchise on and off the field.
The team is gaining relevance locally after years of playing mostly in front of empty purple seats at home. On Sept. 28, the team defeated the Houston Dash in front of 17,087 fans, the most since its inaugural game in 2016 in a larger stadium down the road.
Facilities have improved through the years, and players want to be there. The Pride took over and renovated the training grounds of the co-owned Orlando City SC in 2020, giving them their own practice fields, gym, and facility. Pickett left the Pride right when those were being opened. She remembers sharing facilities with the men’s team and youth clubs, and dodging divots on the fields as they trained.
“I think overall, the NWSL is moving in a really positive direction,” Pickett said. “To stay at the top and to hold the standard that we’ve created, you have to continue to move forward. And if you’re lacking, then no one’s going to want to go to your club and you’re going to suffer from that.
“So, I think the whole trajectory of NWSL is moving forward and getting better. And that’s what I feel like Orlando had to do.”
It all adds up to a culture shift in Orlando. Carter admits that “culture” is a “buzzword,” but she sees the tangible shift in it from players who are “proud to play for the badge” for the first time. Pickett describes a locker room free of egos despite its success.
Consistency is a challenge in the NWSL, a league where winds shift quickly, and team fortunes can yo-yo drastically from season to season. Last year’s champion, Gotham FC, finished in last place in 2022 amid a record 12-game losing streak. Last year’s Shield winners, San Diego Wave FC, finished 10th of 14 teams this season.
“Building something great takes time,” Carter said. “It’s exceptional to see the kind of success that we’re seeing in the kind of timeline that we’re seeing it in. But keeping that moving forward, the focus is not on wins and losses — and it’s never been on wins and losses. It’s been on doing things the right way and making sure that we have the right people in place that are going to support the vision.”
Orlando’s 23 games without defeat this season is a record that will likely stand for a long time. What’s next is the question, and reverting to the past cannot be the answer.
