The 2025 NWSL season opener hasn’t been easy for the North Carolina Courage. After starting with a 1-1 draw against Racing Louisville, they suffered a 1-2 defeat against Seattle Reign on Matchday 2. Ironically, the team that outplayed them featured one of their former players, Lynn Biyendolo, who, despite now representing the opposition, still hopes to see them “get back” to their best.

Before you end up thinking that the USWNT star has still some strings attached to her former side, then we’d like to stop you right there. On the pitch, she may be a professional soccer player, plying her trade for the Reign after having arrived this year from NJ/NY Gotham FC. However, off the pitch, she transforms into a soccer analyst and speaker per se.

Precisely, she is one of the co-hosts of the Good Vibes FC segment from The Women’s Game podcast segment. Alongside the forward is also her former USWNT teammate and lead of the show, Sam Mewis who touched on the topic of NC Courage. That only saw Biyendolo elaborate more as she began, “I think that North Carolina needs to step it up a bit.”

“With the talent that they have on that field and just knowing historically—I know, we obviously were on the team—they’ve been in the playoffs, in the top four [but] in the past couple of years, there’s been a drop-off. They need to get back to that and then they have the players to do it. This is a moment for them to just step it up and get some goals, get some wins,” added the former Williams.

In a way, Biyendolo is right for the very team that she represented for over five years between 2017 and 2021. For context, the last time the Courage was seen lifting any trophy was back in 2023. Now one would argue that a couple of years of failure isn’t such a big deal. But that’s exactly the kind of repo and expectations they have managed to build over the years of success!

2× NWSL Champions (2018, 2019, runners-up in 2017), 3× NWSL Shield winners (2017, 2018, 2019), and 2× NWSL Challenge Cup champions (2022, 2023)—that’s how dominant the Courage have been over the past few years. But since then, the spark seems to have gone and it’s exactly what Lynn Biyendolo would like to see. Perhaps that would at least see Sean Nahas and Co. get a special tag that she recently gave to one of her arch-rivals.

Lynn Biyendolo gives ‘underdog’ tag to Orlando Pride

Earlier, the Seattle Reign star noted on another episode of The Women’s Game podcast that if she were in Orlando Pride’s locker room, she would view the upcoming season as both a challenge and an opportunity. Lynn Biyendolo compared their situation to her own experience with North Carolina Courage after winning the Shield and Championship.

“I know anybody who is an OG NWSL fan is gonna hate when I say the word ‘underdog’. But I think in North Carolina, obviously it got to the point where we were not the underdogs but we always had that mentality. Orlando does have that mentality because of their history,” Lynn remarked.

Sure, everyone knows that Pride’s path to success was anything but smooth. They were struggling both on and off the field with ownership changes and frequent coaching shifts. But in recent years, especially the 2024 campaign where they secured the Shield with an all-time high 60 points lead, followed by a Championship win, they have somehow find a way to fuel their own underdog approach.

Sure, a recent setback saw them fall to Washington Spirit in the NWSL Challenge Cup final. However, they have started the new season in dominant fashion, crushing Chicago 6-0 in the opener and securing a 2-0 win over Gotham. So this brings up a question: Can Orlando Pride retain its dominance in the coming years? And on top of that, can we expect NC Courage to break through from their tough times? We’d certainly like to know your take in the comments.