The 2025 season is set to kick off soon and Sounder at Heart is back with another year of fantasy soccer coverage. This year we will once again have a few different MLS fantasy leagues to join as well as an NWSL league at ShePlays. And, as with last year, I'll be bringing you weekly updates and advice on the upcoming MLS games. I had a lot of fun with you all last year and look forward to another year of telling everyone to just captain Messi.
MLS Fantasy
In case you are not familiar, MLS Fantasy is run through the MLS website and mobile app (which as of writing is not working yet). You pick a team of 15 players – 11 starters and 4 bench players – with a starting budget of $100m. Leo Messi is the most valuable player, starting at $10.0m, and the lowest value players are set a minimum $4.0m price. You can transfer players freely from week-to-week and values rise or fall based on their performance (with your team value rising or falling accordingly).
Scoring is based on goals and assists scored or conceded as well as a variety of “bonus point” categories (such as passes completed, clearances, and crosses). It seems scoring is more or less the same as last year. Rosters have “rolling lockouts” which means a player can be removed or added up until their scheduled kickoff time. This allows for some advanced tactics by selectively picking certain players that play early or late each week, which you can learn about in great detail from the always knowledgeable MLS Fantasy Boss website.
This year we are back with another Sounder at Heart Open League for anyone to join. Just follow that link or enter code: NPPW9L7S when searching for a league. Last year we had what I believe was the largest league on the website, full of Sounders fans and some friends from across the country. Feel free to join, invite your friends, invite your neighbors, heck maybe even make a second account to run a team just for fun!
We are also running some leagues for Discord members (which you can join by signing up as a Supporter or above), a Discord Open League with prizes for the top year-long players and some Head-to-Head leagues with playoffs to the extent there is interest. For our Discord members, head over to the #fantasy-league channel to join us.
NWSL Fantasy
As with last year, we are back on the ShePlays website. Their version of fantasy soccer has some big differences from the MLS version: (1) you take point deductions for transfers beyond one free change each week, (2) player prices stay the same all season long, and (3) rosters lock at the beginning of the week for all teams. This means rosters need to be planned potentially months ahead of time to try and avoid needing to make big changes week-to-week. The website is run by a dedicated group of nonprofit volunteers based in Australia and you can read more about their plans and changes for the year here: 2025 NWSL Fantasy Launch.
Once you have set up your team (I recommend the video at the link above to help walk through the process) you can join our league with the code "rovalks" here. I highly recommend everyone interested in NWSL or fantasy soccer in general give it a try. The rule variances from MLS gives you a different set of challenges to navigate, harder in some respects and easier in others. There is a balancing act in when it is worthwhile to take penalties to make needed or advantageous transfers, while some cheap players establish themselves as roster mainstays for nearly every player (such as Croix Bethune last year). Come join us! If there's enough interest, I will do some more NWSL analysis in my coverage.
