Can the OL Reign finally rein in a championship this year?

Women's professional soccer returns to Seattle this weekend with the OL Reign's home opener. They take on the San Diego Wave Saturday night at 7 at Lumen Field. Fans have already outsold last year's home opener. It's the National Women's Soccer League team's third match of the season. They have one win and one loss so far.

The team has never won a championship, though they've been the Shield winners, the regular season leaders, three times, including last year. To get some insights into the Reign's prospects this year, KUOW’s Kim Malcolm talked to Oliver Hunt. He writes about women’s soccer for the sites FanSided and Women's Sports Exchange.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kim Malcolm: You previewed the season last month with a piece subtitled “the endless talent of OL Reign.” You wrote that they have all the right keys to success. Let's start there. What makes them so good?

Oliver Hunt: I think there are a lot of things that make them a really formidable team, starting mostly with the head coach, Laura Harvey. She just became the winningest coach in NWSL history as of last season. The other key to their success is their depth. The amount of talent they have is just ridiculous, both in their starting lineup, and their second-best 11. They're going to be at 100% the entire time. There's going to be no relief for teams when they're playing the Reign.

Tell us about some of the standouts on this team and their strengths.

The Reign have a lot of world-class players. Rose Lavelle has got to be one of the best midfielders in the world undeniably. She’s headed to the World Cup this summer, for sure. She just really gets everything going in the midfield. And she can pass upward to somebody like Megan Rapinoe, who's bringing that swagger to this team, who can score a baller goal almost every possible way. Then you've got Jess Fishlock, also in the midfield, a veteran of this team who has been with them the entire time. She just became the first player to have scored in every season so far, which is just an impressive statistic on its own. All of that combined really creates strong leadership.

There was some business news about the Reign this week. The team was acquired by a French football organization, the OL Groupe, back in 2020. Now we're hearing that the group has given a mandate to sell the franchise. How big a deal is that? It's potentially disruptive news at the start of the season.

It's not great timing, with the team surely wanting to focus on their home opener this weekend. But I don't think that it'll be bad for the team in the long run. They've found a home in Seattle, and the new commissioner for the league has been really passionate about making sure that bringing new ownership to the league is going to share the value that the league has already had and is very against relocation. So, I don't think that Reign fans need to worry about their team going anywhere.

Do you have any predictions for us about how the Reign will do this year?

I think the Reign can go all the way. I think that they did it last year, they want to do it again, and hopefully, they'll bring that trophy home finally.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.