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While the Portland Timbers have been making waves in the last few weeks with regards to an ever changing roster, as well as some juicy rumors, the Portland Thorns FC and their respective league have also been making waves as they prepare to get everything in order for next year's kick off. Here's what has happened in the last few weeks:
Merritt Paulson hints at Portland Thorns head coach
With a tweet sent out yesterday, Merritt Paulson stated:
Look forward to announcing @ThornsFC head coach tomorrow. Hint - same initials as Timbers coach. Like the CPs here.
As many have pointed out this could very well be Chris Petrucelli or Cindy Parlow as Grant Wahl has also pointed out. We'll see later today though.
UPDATE: Cindy Parlow has been announced as head coach of the Thorns. Read more here.
Salary cap revealed?
A post from the Kansas City Examiner has it that the NWSL's salary cap will be $200,000/season to spend on non-subsidized players. This means any player who is not a Canadian, US, or Mexican international will have to fall under that cap. If that seems like a tight budget it is and it's far lower than the former $500,000 figure that was blowing around last summer.
This is obviously not confirmed. For what it's though, the official Portland Thorns website has linked to this article as well.
College Draft... Save the date!
According to that same Examiner article, the college draft for players will take place during the same week as the MLS SuperDraft at the very same event in Indianapolis. Which makes sense since it's a college-run event anyway. No word yet on how the whole thing will pan out.
Once again, this is from an unconfirmed source.
National Team Players
Not much news here. We still don't know when the draft will be held for the subsidized team players just yet, however, a small bit of good news is that it appears Mexico has upped their commitment to the league offering 16 players instead of the previously announced number of 8, I believe.
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We'll have more once the Thorns' coach is announced later today.
What do you think of the latest developments?