Seattle Reign Set to Bond in Coachella in Latest Step Towards 2026 Season
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Seattle Reign forward Maddie Dahlien runs during a game against Bay FC on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025 at Lumen Field in Seattle, Wash. (Maddy Grassy / Reign FC Communications) [/caption]
The Seattle Reign are in California to train with around half of the NWSL's 16 sides. The team flew out on Sunday after a few weeks of training in Tukwila, punctuated by a return of five USWNT call-ups for the final week.
In Coachella, coach Laura Harvey's squad will be focused on improving their chance generation, as Seattle finished among the league's least productive offenses in 2025 — the squad ended in fifth place and lost to Orlando in the first round. The Reign will have a friendly against Angel City FC on February 21 at 1:30 PM (to be broadcast on FOX 13), and team media staff confirmed two closed-door scrimmages will take place during Seattle's time at the invitational.
With chances to compete against new competition forthcoming, Harvey and USWNT call-ups in forward Maddie Dahlien and defender Jordyn Bugg spoke to The Spectrum last Wednesday about how they plan to get their offense on track. Dahlien, 22, stunned the league in her rookie season as all four of her goals changed the results of games in late situations. She, alongside fellow Reign midfielder Sally Menti, made her USWNT debut during a friendly during last month's international break.
"Definitely a surreal moment for me to get my first cap, and to play among such amazing players and to play alongside amazing people was a really fun experience," Dahlien said.
Her 22 shots on target accounted for over a fourth of Seattle's second-to-worst 84 in 2025, netting Dahlien a spot among Rookie of the Year finalists. But her 0.18 goals per shot on target rate was among the league's less efficient scorers.
"Consistency for me is the biggest thing," said Dahlien, of what she wants to improve on for year two. "I think I had ups and downs throughout last year, so just being a really consistent player on the team. But we're a really young group, so really starting to mesh and keep building on the connections we started last year."
On that note, the Reign have gone all in on a squad that went from 13th place in 2024 to fifth in 2025 by retaining 22 players. Averting the awkward process of learning a new system, Harvey is instead focused on getting the Reign to double down on their chemistry, drilling deep passing into the box at the end of practice after small-sided games.
"Creating more chances is chemistry," Dahlien said. "Building on each other's movements … moving off each other, I think chemistry will be the biggest thing for our attack, and it's looking good so far."
Bugg, 19, has become a staple of sorts already in the national team's backline with six appearances in less than two years. The NWSL Defender of the Year finalist was dealt the flu early in USWNT camp and missed the first game. While she came back to the Reign with a residual cough last week, it was a confidence boost for all the players involved, including midfielder Sam Meza and keeper Claudia Dickey.
"I think that it's just great to show the league that we can have so many great players that can play at such a high level," Bugg said.
Bugg, along with defenders Phoebe McClernon and Madison Curry, had to attack each game with a high work rate as Seattle's offense sputtered often. The result was a Seattle defense that dealt with plenty of shots on target (114), but allowed just over one in every five of them to result in a goal — the second-best rate in the league.
Plenty of that credit ought to go to Dickey, whose 88 saves at a 76.7% clip led the league, but the winning formula needs some tweaking.
"I think it definitely helps us," said Bugg of the renewed emphasis on offensive generation. "It keeps their defense off of us because we're creating more attacking opportunities, so they have to sit back and respect our forwards. … We have such great forwards, and I think we're learning to use them well."
As the team gets started in California, Harvey's goals for the squad's progression are clear. She'll be looking to test her team against outside competition and push Seattle outside its comfort zone well before the season gets started.
"It's a collective effort to have more and more (offensive) opportunities, and we're just encouraging (the team) to take risks right now, because that's where you're going to learn. If we don't do it now, we're never going to do it," Harvey said.
With the squad's first NWSL game looming on March 20 and the first friendly under two weeks away, Dahlien is glad to run it back with a squad she's accustomed to.
"It's really motivating, and I think also we owe a lot to (management) for their support and trust in us as a young group," Dahlien said. "I think we have the talent and the players to go far, it's just building those connections on and off the field."
