How the Women's Super League established itself as the go-to destination for world-class superstars

Between them, Barca and Lyon have won 10 of the last 11 Champions League titles. Lyon represent six of those triumphs and have reached another two finals. Barca, meanwhile, have four continental crowns and have been runners-up three times. It is at these two clubs where a shot at European glory is greatest.

But that, and relentless domestic dominance, is seemingly no longer enough for elite players. While those successes are incredible and moments they will always savour, the best players want to be challenged more often and the WSL is the only league in Europe where that is possible on a consistent basis.

Last season, Barcelona took 87 points from a maximum of 90 to win their seventh successive Liga F title. In all competitions, the Blaugrana lost just one game en route to a quadruple.

In France, Lyon exuded similar dominance, going unbeaten in all domestic games to win a treble. Their only defeats were in the first legs of two Champions League ties, which they ultimately won on aggregate, and the European final to Barca. Bayern Munich, too, only lost in continental competition last season, picking up 74 out of a possible 78 points to win the Frauen-Bundesliga as part of a domestic treble.

With Italy's Serie A showing promise as a league but still growing, it is England and the WSL that has the most regular and consistent top-level competitiveness that players desire.

Last season, the title was won by Manchester City, who dropped 11 points. Eighteen wins from 22 games is pretty impressive, but dropping so many points and winning the title is almost unheard of in rival leagues. In Spain, a champion hasn't dropped 11 points since the 2017-18 season, and it hasn't happened in Germany since the 2016-17 campaign. In France, adjustments have to be made to translate to three points for a win and one for a draw as the last time it happened in today’s rules was in 2003-04, when the league actually awarded four points for a win and two for a draw.

In the last eight seasons, the eventual WSL champion has dropped more points en route to the title than the title-winners in all of France, Germany and Spain six times. On the other two occasions, in the 2024-25 and 2018-19 seasons, the eventual Frauen-Bundesliga champion dropped one more point than the eventual WSL champion.

None of that is to knock the teams like Barca, Lyon or Bayern Munich, nor those before them, who have become so strong that they have dominated domestic competition. It is a credit to those clubs for investing and building incredible teams that can be such winning machines.

It has often translated into Champions League success, too, with Barca, Lyon and Wolfsburg, whom Bayern have now usurped to become Germany's dominant force, all winning European multiple titles. Meanwhile, Arsenal's continental triumph in 2025 was the first by an English club in 18 years, after the Gunners beat Umea in the 2007 final.

Chelsea have come closest to joining their London rivals in conquering Europe as an English side, but could not translate domestic dominance, amid six successive WSL triumphs, into a first Champions League crown.

At least one handicapping factor has been the competitiveness of the WSL, which means key players cannot be rested as readily. "I think when you have the Champions League and the league, for me, the level is almost the same," Sonia Bompastor, who was a Champions League-winning head coach of Lyon before joining Chelsea, told GOAL this summer, referring to the WSL’s competitiveness. It's something that has been mentioned before with regards to the men's Premier League, too.

But while that level of competition proves an obstacle for managers and teams at times, it is playing a key role in drawing elite talent to England. Being challenged and pushed every week is what top players want, and it is in the WSL that they get it.

"In my opinion, you never know what the result of the game will be," Putellas told reporters this summer, after leaving Barca to join an up-and-coming London City Lionesses side owned by billionaire Michele Kang. "It's a very competitive league, week after week."

Batlle, who previously played for Manchester United in the WSL between 2020 and 2023, made similar comments after returning to England to join Arsenal: "I was very excited to be back in the WSL. I think it’s the most competitive league and it was a challenge that I was looking for. Now, I think it’s a good time and place to be, to enjoy these next years here and compete every weekend.”

It's a consequence of the investment that is happening league-wide, rather than just at a few clubs. Barca's commitment to its women's team outpaces any other in Liga F and the same can be said of Lyon in France. It has been a point of frustration for those teams that others are not jumping to reach the bar they have set.

In France, for example, the league introduced an end-of-season play-off format from the 2023-24 season to decide the league title, one Lyon have won every year bar one since their first triumph in 2007. Ada Hegerberg, OL's star striker and the first-ever recipient of the Ballon d'Or Feminin, described the change as "terrible" when speaking to GOAL after it first played out two years ago.

"Instead of pushing and trying to meet the standards of the best, you try to pull them down in order to get some excitement in the league," she lamented. "How can you explain to the players winning this league by 11 points that you still have to play two games to decide the league? I think it's crazy that we come to this point. I don't get it."

In the WSL, manufactured drama isn't needed. Yes, Chelsea won six successive titles just recently, but only their 2024-25 triumph developed into a foregone conclusion. The four title races prior to that all went to the final day, with the destination of the trophy in 2023-24 decided on goal difference.

That's because there are some huge clubs like Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City, then teams like Manchester United, Tottenham, Brighton and Liverpool who have upset the applecart in recent times. This season alone, Aston Villa and newly-promoted Crystal Palace have taken points off of the aforementioned 'Big Three'. Almost every team is investing, growing and attracting top talent, meaning quality is spread across the league.

"It’s evolved," Batlle said of the WSL this summer, having returned to the league after three years away. "There’s loads of big players in this league and I think all the teams have stepped up. There’s loads of good clubs that are trying to invest and trying to get good teams to compete well to try to win this league.”

Leon, her Spain international team-mate who is in the league for the first time after joining London City, expressed similar sentiments in an interview with the Guardian: "The commitment the league is making - the clubs I mean - I think everything makes it very attractive to come because I have been following the English league over these years and it feels like it can’t let you relax even for a second, not in any match, not during the match. Not a single second can relax you, because the English league is much more competitive.”

So, when a player like Leon, who had spent her whole career in Spain and the last nine years at Barca, is looking to get out of her comfort zone, to go to a new country and experience a new style, it is to the WSL that she looked for that challenge, because of its differences but also because of the quality, the competitiveness and the investment.

"My body was craving something different,” Leon explained, talking about the reasons behind her move to London City. “I spent many years in a comfortable position, because playing at Barca has been absolutely wonderful and very nice; it is a style of game that suits me a lot.

"Coming to England, the football is very different from the Spanish one, at first glance. So, I think [the reason was] being able to challenge myself and see if I am capable. I am going to make an effort to adapt to this league and also to show myself that I’m able to compete in another style of play that is not the one that makes me stand out the most.”

Caldentey, who joined Arsenal from Barca in 2024 and was a key instigator in the Gunners' Champions League success in her first season, said something similar in an interview with Arseblog when reflecting on her move: "I think it was basically to go out of my comfort zone because I had been for so long in one place. Then you arrive in the best league in the world, having the highest competition every three days. It's a really good challenge."

But the WSL is not suddenly the best league in the world because top players are arriving and lifting the level. The floor is already high because the league has already been growing and, as a result, the players within it have been improving.

It is in this league that Lionesses stars like Hannah Hampton and Alessia Russo have become world-class players, and that the likes of Khadija Shaw and Yui Hasegawa have developed into some of the best footballers in the world, too. For some, players such as Vivianne Miedema and Emily Fox were already in that category before they landed in England, but few would argue that they haven't kicked on and gone up another level while in the WSL.

The NWSL, the top-flight in the United States, has a case to make when it comes to being more competitive than its English rival. This season, bottom side Chicago Stars have beaten the Kansas City Current, the 2025 NWSL Shield winners, and the Utah Royals, who are currently fourth in the standings. Third-from-bottom Boston Legacy also have a win over Utah under their belts, one that was backed up a week later with a victory over third-placed Washington Spirit. These results do occasionally happen in the WSL, but the mantra that 'anyone can beat anyone' isn't exactly true yet in England.

It's getting closer to that though, all while attracting more world-class talent than any other division in the women's game. While other leagues ponder what to do about the threat of losing its best players, the WSL is bringing in more and more talent from across the globe while also seeing big homegrown stars, such as Mary Earps and Georgia Stanway, return.

The debate can rage on, but it's becoming more and more difficult to argue that the WSL is not the best league in the women's game now. The arrivals of Putellas, Leon, Batlle and more only serve as confirmation.