Today, every young, female, soccer player’s dream is to hear her name called at the NWSL College Draft. Every year since 2013, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) holds this event at which the professional women’s soccer teams from this league select players. Now, the College Draft is not the only way to make it onto a professional team in the NWSL, but it is one of the major selection processes as many players aspire to play professionally immediately after their college soccer career has come to an end. However, other ways to be selected for an NWSL team include the Distribution process, Trades, Discovery, Waivers, Loans and Transfers, Amateur Call-up, Disabled List, Season-ending Injury Replacement, and Goalkeeper Replacement. These mechanisms are the only way in which a team can add a player to its roster, some of which I will touch on in this blog. But, I am mostly going to focus on the College Draft, especially because 2018 Draft just took place this month.

To be eligible to enter in the NWSL College Draft, one must have just finished their senior season in college or have exhausted their college eligibility – meaning they can no longer compete at the collegiate level because they have completed their four years of NCAA eligibility. Not only must a player be eligible for the Draft, but she must also register herself for the draft. A player that is not registered by January of that year will be unavailable to be selected by a team until their upcoming season is finished.

In the case that a player did not register for the draft, or in the case that a player registers for the draft but is not drafted, she can become available to teams as a discovery player. What does this mean exactly? A discovery player is a player, either international or domestic, who is not under contract with the NWSL. A team can claim the rights of such a player by adding her to their Discovery List. The salary cap for these discovery players is the same as the salary cap for all NWSL players.

So this is what your options are if you don’t get drafted at the College Draft or if you didn’t register for it… but what if you do participate in the NWSL College Draft? Well, the draft is made up of four rounds, and 10 players are selected in each round. Each team has a certain number of selections – this is determined by a combination of each team’s regular season and play off positions from the previous season. The order which the teams select players is also determined by this. The last-place team or any new team has the right to pick first.

This year, the NWSL College Draft took place on January 18th in Philadelphia Pennsylvania at the United Soccer Coaches Convention. On this day, 40 young women’s dreams came true as they heard their name, specifically chosen by a professional team that wants to pay them to play the game they love.