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Days in first place: NWSL Shield and playoff races, 2015 to 2025

The longest anyone has led an NWSL race without winning it: San Diego Wave FC ended 38 of the 2022 NWSL race's 66 playing days in first place, 58% of them, and finished behind OL Reign. The longest unbroken spell of that lead covered 21 playing days, from May 7, 2022 to June 17, 2022. At the other end of the same race, OL Reign won it having led on three of those 66, never more than two in a row. Both lists below rank by the share of a race's playing days a team spent in first place. How that is counted is spelled out under the lists.

Companion pages: Closest NWSL races and Biggest NWSL comebacks and collapses.

Longest leads lost

  1. San Diego Wave FC led the 2022 NWSL race on 38 of its 66 playing days, 58% of them, and finished behind OL Reign.
  2. Portland Thorns FC led the 2023 NWSL race on 28 of its 56 playing days, 50% of them, and finished behind San Diego Wave FC.
  3. Washington Spirit led the 2016 NWSL race on 24 of its 48 playing days, 50% of them, and finished behind Portland Thorns FC.
  4. Chicago Red Stars led the 2015 NWSL race on 21 of its 52 playing days, 40% of them, and finished behind Seattle Reign FC.
  5. Kansas City Current led the 2024 NWSL race on 28 of its 79 playing days, 35% of them, and finished behind Orlando Pride.
  6. Portland Thorns FC led the 2019 NWSL race on 20 of its 62 playing days, 32% of them, and finished behind North Carolina Courage.
  7. Orlando Pride led the 2025 NWSL race on 19 of its 81 playing days, 23% of them, and finished behind Kansas City Current.
  8. Orlando Pride led the 2021 NWSL race on 13 of its 59 playing days, 22% of them, and finished behind Portland Thorns FC.
  9. Chicago Red Stars led the 2017 NWSL race on 3 of its 48 playing days, 6% of them, and finished behind North Carolina Courage.
  10. Seattle Reign FC led the 2018 NWSL race on 3 of its 55 playing days, 5% of them, and finished behind North Carolina Courage.

Winners who led least

  1. OL Reign won the 2022 NWSL race having led on 3 of its 66 playing days, 5% of them, and took first place for good on October 1, 2022.
  2. San Diego Wave FC won the 2023 NWSL race having led on 12 of its 56 playing days, 21% of them, and took first place for good on October 15, 2023.
  3. North Carolina Courage won the 2019 NWSL race having led on 19 of its 62 playing days, 31% of them, and took first place for good on September 11, 2019.
  4. Portland Thorns FC won the 2016 NWSL race having led on 17 of its 48 playing days, 35% of them, and took first place for good on September 25, 2016.
  5. Seattle Reign FC won the 2015 NWSL race having led on 23 of its 52 playing days, 44% of them, and took first place for good on July 26, 2015.
  6. Orlando Pride won the 2024 NWSL race having led on 44 of its 79 playing days, 56% of them, and took first place for good on July 6, 2024.
  7. Portland Thorns FC won the 2021 NWSL race having led on 37 of its 59 playing days, 63% of them, and took first place for good on July 18, 2021.
  8. Kansas City Current won the 2025 NWSL race having led on 67 of its 81 playing days, 83% of them, and took first place for good on May 11, 2025.
  9. North Carolina Courage won the 2017 NWSL race having led on 43 of its 48 playing days, 90% of them, and took first place for good on August 5, 2017.
  10. North Carolina Courage won the 2018 NWSL race having led on 52 of its 55 playing days, 95% of them, and took first place for good on March 31, 2018.

How these lists are ranked

Everything on this page comes from the same season files the charts draw, with standings read as each day ended. All 10 charted NWSL races from 10 finished seasons enter: every Shield and playoff race from 2015 to 2025. The 2026 season joins these lists when it ends. A team's time in first place is counted once per season, at its longest, whichever of its charted races it came in.

Longest leads lost is the club that ended the most of a race's playing days in first place and did not finish first. Any club in the race qualifies, not the runner-up alone, because a club can lead for four months and finish fifth.

Winners who led least is the same count for the club that did win, ranked from the fewest days up. Each row closes on the day that winner took first place for good, which the comebacks page ranks on.

Only days this race's teams played are counted, the same rule the closest races page counts closeness over. A strike or a pause freezes the standings, and a leader sitting out an idle stretch would collect time on top for nothing.

The ranking is by share rather than by the raw count, because a league's seasons are not all the same length and a short one would otherwise win by being short. Seasons cut short by a strike or a stoppage are ranked on what was played, which is the same rule and the reason for it. The count and the total are printed beside the share, so the order can be checked; where two rows print the same whole percent, the unrounded share put them in that order.

A day two clubs end level at the top is a day in first place for both of them, which is what holding first place means in English. In this league level means level on the table itself: a club level on points but ahead on the league's tiebreakers ends the day in first place alone, as the league's own table has it. So the two counts of one race can add up to more than the race's playing days. A day on which a club still to play its first game is on top, alone or level with others, counts for nobody, because that club was up there without a game. Races whose top two the standings cannot separate appear on neither list: with no winner, the data can name neither the club that lost a lead nor the club that kept one.

A lead measured in days and a lead measured in points are different questions, and the two lists often disagree about which season was the bigger collapse; the comebacks page ranks the same blown leads by size. Only finished seasons are ranked; every irregularity in the record is listed in the data notes.