Women's Premier Soccer League Elite

History

Inaugural season

Main article: 2012 Women's Premier Soccer League Elite season

For the 2012 season, the league featured former WPS teams, Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, and Western New York Flash, in addition to many WPSL teams primarily located in the northeast and midwest regions of the United States. Six of the eight teams were considered fully professional{{Cite web |access-date=February 17, 2012 |access-date=February 17, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140716054448/http://www.soccernation.com/new-elite-league-cms-2329 |archive-date=July 16, 2014 |url-status=dead |access-date=February 17, 2012

2012 Teams

League expansion

Before the announcement of the formation of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), a Western conference of the league was planned to begin competition in 2013. Five teams - the San Diego WFC SeaLions, the Los Angeles Vikings, the California Storm, the Bay Area Breeze, and an unnamed team from Seattle - were reportedly committed to joining. Three other cities - Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston - had also voiced interest in joining WPSLE.

Hiatus

The Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars and Western New York Flash joined the NWSL for the 2013 season. Also, the New England Mutiny, New York Fury, and Philadelphia Fever opted to return to the WPSL.

Originally, it was leaked that five teams were slated to join the ASA Chesapeake Charge and FC Indiana in the 2013 of WPSL Elite. Later, the WPSL Elite website revealed six teams - the Charge, FC Indiana, the California Storm, the Houston Aces, Jersey Sky Blues, and the San Diego SeaLions - would take place in the "WPSL Elite League Cup", a series of games played in addition to regular WPSL games; the Houston Aces even had these games on the schedule page of their website. However, organization apparently fell through, and the WPSL-Elite was ultimately disbanded.{{cite web | access-date = June 9, 2013}}

Of the six teams, two (Indiana and Jersey) did not rejoin WPSL for the 2013 season. The other four all won their respective divisions and made it to their regions' respective finals (as did the New England Mutiny). There were unfulfilled plans to revive the WPSL Elite for the 2014 season.{{cite web | access-date = October 2, 2013}}

Possible revival

Before the 2015 WPSL season, the Real Salt Lake Women advertised that they would be participating in a 12-team WPSL Elite with 10 regular season games per team.{{cite web | access-date = January 25, 2016}} Like the suggested WPSL Elite season suggested by the Houston Aces in 2013, though, the season did not appear to materialize. However, after the regular WPSL playoffs, a WPSL Elite Final was played between RSL Women and the San Francisco Nighthawks, which was hosted and won by RSL.{{cite web | access-date = January 25, 2016}} No official qualification to the match was ever announced, and the match score was not published on the WPSL site for weeks.{{cite web | access-date = January 25, 2016 | access-date = January 25, 2016}} RSL and Houston would join the newly formed United Women's Soccer before the beginning of its inaugural 2016 season,{{cite web | access-date = February 18, 2016}} joining former WPSLE member the Mutiny in the new league. FC Indiana similarly joined UWS the following year.{{cite web | access-date = December 14, 2016}}

Organization

Playing structure

The Elite League featured a standard home-and-away double round robin format, with a separate postseason from the regular WPSL playoffs. The Elite League's playoffs involved four teams in two-leg aggregate series.

References

References

1. Dure, Beau. (May 18, 2012). "Women's Professional Soccer folds". [[ESPN.com.
2. [http://chicagoredstars.com/goalkeeper-jamie-forbes-leading-from-the-back/] {{dead link. (January 2019)