“Why not us?” was the question Utah Royals players asked themselves in the huddle and the world in press interviews after they upset the San Diego Wave in last week’s NWSL quarterfinal.
The existence of the question acknowledges the Royals’ place in the NWSL’s landscape: Utah is a smaller-market team that does not spend as aggressively as some of the NWSL’s most ambitious clubs. The Royals don’t have a bona fide international star like the league’s most high-profile clubs.
Eight months ago, Utah was a dark horse for the playoffs as a team that had found stretches of success without any consistency over the past two years. “Why them?” was the better question to ask in March.
But now the Royals are two wins away from becoming one of the most unlikely champions in NWSL history. Utah has done more with less by focusing on collective team balance, optimizing each player, and establishing a clear identity.
Regardless of what happens in Saturday’s semifinal against the Washington Spirit, their qualification for the semifinal should serve as a model for other NWSL teams aiming to compete against the odds. The Royals have found a competitive formula in a time when parity is eroding in the NWSL, and the same teams are consistently challenging for trophies.
Utah was the No. 7 seed heading into last week’s quarterfinal against the No. 2 seed Wave, their first playoff appearance in franchise history. Royals goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn put in an all-time playoff performance in net — on the same field where she won the 2023 NWSL Championship with Gotham FC — and the Royals stymied the smoothest attacking team in the NWSL to hold on for a 1-0 victory.
San Diego head coach Jonas Eidevall said before the match that it would be a clash of styles. It was really a clash of ideology. The Wave are a possession-hungry team with stars ranging from veteran French midfielder Kenza Dali to emerging talents like breakout forward Melanie Barcenas, whom the team signed in 2023 as a 15-year-old. San Diego is a high-profile market that has attracted stars like Alex Morgan and now, Catarina Macario.
The Wave committed approximately $8 million to Macario in the biggest cumulative deal in league history. They also used the NWSL’s new High Impact Player rule to sign Macario (who is yet to play due to injuries); Utah, meanwhile, has not utilized the new High Impact Player mechanism, which allows teams to spend above the salary cap on star players.
Attacking midfielder Mina Tanaka is the closest thing Utah has to a global star. She is a World Cup and Olympics veteran for Japan who led Utah with nine goals this season. Tanaka’s resume is one that commands deep respect, and she has been one of the best players in the league this season.
For better or worse, however, the NWSL is a league built around headline acts. Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman transcends soccer and pop culture. The High Impact Player rule is colloquially known as the “Rodman Rule” after the league ratified it in time to retain her and pay her more last offseason.
USWNT teammate and Portland Thorns forward Sophia Wilson is one of the other faces of the league. International players like the Kansas City Current‘s Temwa Chawinga or the Orlando Pride‘s Barbra Banda have electrified the league and provide near-weekly highlights of individual brilliance.
Utah’s success, however, has been collective. Sporting director Kelly Cousins and head coach Jimmy Coenraets have built a team that has embraced its challenger mentality and is greater than the sum of its parts.
Winger Cloé Lacasse‘s 18 goal contributions (eight goals and 10 assists) tied for the sixth most in the NWSL this season. She added the game-winning assist in the quarterfinal to that tally. Lacasse joined Utah in 2024 after a season as a role player with Arsenal and years in lower-profile European settings.
Utah forward Cece Delzer bounced around several NWSL teams before joining Utah. She is tied for 12th in the NWSL in chances created this year, per ESPN Research. Both Delzer and Lacasse have been crucial to Utah’s success on both sides of the ball.
The Royals are at their best when they are high pressing as a collective unit, and Lacasse, Delzer and NWSL veterans like Paige Cronin lead that effort. Center back Kate Del Fava is a microcosm of the entire team. She was a second-round draft pick in 2020 with the original Royals franchise before it folded. Del Fava was a gritty defender who received minimal attention in her first few years in the league.
This season was her third straight “Iron Woman” year (playing every minute) and her consistency led to her first call-up to the U.S. national team in October.
Last week’s quarterfinal was the perfect test for Utah’s shared success. Tanaka missed the match due to a setback with a hamstring injury that kept her out of the final weeks of the season. Utah had lost five games and drawn one in six previous games this season without Tanaka.
Forward Kiana Palacios stepped up to score in Tanaka’s absence, on an assist from Lacasse. McGlynn had the game of her life, and she got help from her defenders in the opening minutes when Del Fava and Cronin combined for a double clearance on the goal line after McGlynn was beaten.
Coenraets managed that quarterfinal to perfection, dropping Utah’s usual high pressure off slightly to clog up the midfield that San Diego so often dominated. He and McGlynn said after the match that the decision to drop off was made collectively with input from players.
Coenraets and Cousins are part of the Royals’ recipe for success. Coenraets took the head coaching job midway through 2024, initially as interim coach after Amy Rodriguez was fired that summer. Coenraets was the league’s youngest coach, and Utah was the hottest team in the NWSL in the final months that year. The Royals repeated that Jekyll-and-Hyde performance in 2025, struggling out of the gate before picking up results in the back end of the season.
Cousins stayed the course with Coenraets, and the team bought in to put together its best and most complete season in 2026. They were in contention for a top-four finish and a home playoff game until the final weeks of the season. Utah being the No. 7 seed might be a disservice to how good the team was for most of the season, even if they struggled to pick up points against the eventual playoff teams.
Seeding rarely matters in the NWSL playoffs, anyway. Gotham FC won two of the past three NWSL Championships as the lowest seed in the field each time. Utah has an opportunity to pull off a similar feat this year as the No. 7 seed.
Logically and statistically, Washington is a better, more talented team than Utah. The Spirit will be at home on Saturday at Audi Field — “Rowdy Audi” — arguably the most intimidating environment in the NWSL. Washington has finished second in the regular season and runners-up in the playoffs each of the past two seasons.
The Spirit, who have world-class talent like Rodman and plenty of relative depth, will be especially motivated to break through that wall and win another title since the NWSL Championship will be held at Audi Field on Nov. 21.
All those odds stack up against Utah. They are the obvious rebuttals to the Royals’ rhetorical question, “Why not us?” However, Utah’s win over San Diego was further proof that what the Royals are building has merit.
Whether or not it leads to another shocking upset this year, the ingredients are there for a competitive team that knows its identity and signs players who fit within that structure. Plenty of other NWSL teams could learn from them.
