Orlando Pride protects Alex Morgan, Emily Sonnett in NWSL expansion draft

The Orlando Pride will protect U.S. national team stars Alex Morgan and Emily Sonnett along with nine other players in the NWSL expansion draft next week, the club announced Thursday.

Each team in the league is allowed to protect 11 players — including two U.S. national team players — in the expansion draft, which will take place on Nov. 12.

Expansion club Racing Louisville will be limited to selecting two players from each NWSL club to build its inaugural roster.

The Pride protected list reflects a balance between the three position groups, protecting four defenders, five midfielders and two forwards. The club will not protect any goalkeepers in the draft.

The club is leaving stars Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger unprotected in the draft, along with other team mainstays such as Toni Pressley, Alanna Kennedy and Emily van Egmond.

For coach Marc Skinner, the draft presented a challenge trying to protect his star players and the young talent he hopes to build the foundation for a winning club.

“It was a balance between winning now and the future plan," Skinner said. “I think that’s really important. You’re never going to please everybody, you’re not ever going to please every player because you can only protect 11 players. ... You can’t protect all of them and I think it’s about keeping the core that you want safe to ensure that you kind of have a balance and a vision for the future.”

When it came to U.S. national team players, Skinner faced major restrictions. NWSL rules specified he could only protect two of his four national team players.

A key to any expansion draft is hedging your bets. As a result, Skinner is willing to make a gamble — leaving the two players he values the most unprotected.

Skinner sees Harris and Krieger as the heart of his team. They’re his captains and the leaders who helped keep both the Pride and Skinner together throughout a challenging 2020 season. But ultimately, he didn’t think either of them made sense for Louisville to take with one of their two national team picks.

There were two factors that Skinner considered in protecting players, particularly major stars like the Pride’s U.S. national team players — personal value and tradable value. Although he personally values Harris and Krieger highly, he also understood the high trade value of a young player like Sonnett and a megawatt superstar like Morgan.

Louisville can also only take one U.S. national team player from each respective team. As the only married couple in the league, it seemed impractical to Skinner for a team to try to split Harris and Krieger up.

“I look at Ash and Ali and for me they’re the most important people for the Orlando Pride," Skinner said. "I love them to bits and they’re my captains for a reason. But if you look at where they’re at in their lives and where they’re at in their careers and what they still want to achieve and so on then, you know, I’d hope that Louisville would look at that and go, ‘It’s not really a viable option for us to take those players.’”

Skinner said he spoke with Louisville coach Christy Holly ahead of the submission deadline for protected lists in the hopes of understanding his process and potential needs in the draft. He also said he’ll create an “attractive offer” to further prevent Louisville from taking either Harris or Krieger away from Orlando.

The Pride will also protect returning four players — Marta, Sydney Leroux, Claire Emslie and Marisa Viggiano.

Since her signing in 2017, Marta has become the core of the Pride’s offense, scoring 23 goals in the last three seasons. Leroux made her return in the NWSL Fall Series after nearly two years away from the game due to pregnancy and the pandemic, and Skinner expects her to quickly return to her place as one of the most dangerous strikers in the league in 2021.

Skinner said Emslie never reached her full potential after signing with the Pride midway through the 2019 season. The Scottish winger has shown her creativity on the attack while on loan to Everton in England this year, scoring a pair of goals.

Viggiano is a midfielder Skinner hopes to build the future of the club around. The coach describes her midfield vision as “genius," a view that was bolstered by her two goals in the NWSL Fall Series.

Skinner additionally protected two experienced players who have yet to debut in Orlando after signing for the 2020 season — Jade Moore and Ali Riley.

Moore is a regular feature for the English national team, and she’ll bring a much-needed physicality and distributing discipline as a holding midfielder that the Pride has previously lacked. Riley, meanwhile, gives continued depth and experience to backline that led the league in goals allowed in 2019.

The Pride also protected three rookies — defenders Courtney Petersen and Phoebe McClernon and midfielder Taylor Kornieck.

Kornieck was the Pride’s top draft pick in 2020. Although she has yet to debut for the Pride, Kornieck spent the latter half of the 2020 season on loan to MSV Duisburg in Germany, where Skinner has been pleased with her performance and growth.

The Pride’s second first-round pick from the 2020 draft, Petersen featured in all four matches in the NWSL Fall Series. She provided consistency at outside back, and Skinner feels she can grow into the position to offer depth when players like Ali Krieger and Emily Sonnett are away on international duty.

McClernon is the surprise of the group. Skinner says there were debates among the coaching staff and front office about whether to protect the rookie over Australian stars Alanna Kennedy and Emily van Egmond, and he recognizes the choice might not sit well with Pride fans.

The defender was a second-round draft selection out of Virginia for the Pride, and she was not signed to a contract before the NWSL Challenge Cup this summer.

Like many of her teammates, McClernon went abroad for the rest of the season, playing for Vaxjo in the Swedish league, where Sonnett and Riley also are on loan. Although she remains unsigned, Skinner says she performed highly this year and believes has potential to become an understudy Riley on the backline.

“I think Phoebe McClernon has a lot of value that people won’t even under understand yet," Skinner said. “For me, she has the attitude, the commitment, the physicality. We all agree as a staff that she will be a real big kind of player that we would like to grow and invest in.”

The NWSL Expansion Draft will take place on Nov. 12. Read here for a primer on what Pride fans can expect from the expansion draft.

Orlando Pride’s protected list:

Defenders (4): Courtney Petersen, Ali Riley, Emily Sonnett, Phoebe McClernon

Midfielders (5): Marta (INTL), Jade Moore (INTL), Marisa Viggiano, Taylor Kornieck, Claire Emslie (INTL)

Forwards (2): Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux

Unprotected Pride players

Goalkeepers (3): Ashlyn Harris, Erin McLeod, Brittany Wilson

Defenders (5): Ali Krieger, Konya Plummer, Toni Pressley, Carson Pickett, Shelina Zadorsky

Midfielders (4): Chelsee Washington, Alanna Kennedy (INTL), Camila (INTL), Emily van Egmond (INTL)

Forwards (1): Kristen Edmonds

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