This week, we start with a quick review of a number of leagues in Europe that finished their 2022-23 seasons in May, including Ukraine, France and England. We also feature an in-depth look at Scotland's Premier Women's League 1, including the top scorers and imports on each of the 12 teams.

We begin with TribalFootball.com's profile of Kaloyan Petkov, who guided BIIK of Shymkent, Kazakhstan to domestic and WCL success for a decade and is now in his second season with Lithuanian powerhouse Gintra Universitetas.

In upcoming weeks, we will look at the final results for Germany, Netherlands, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Italy and Spain and the UEFA Women's Champions League.

Kaloyan Petkov—Eastern European club master has moved from Kazakhstan to Lithuania

Kaloyan Petkov (50), a native of Bulgaria who won ten consecutive championships in Kazakhstan with BIIK Shymkent and had two stints in charge of Kazakhstan's national team at the same time, moved to Gintra of Lithuania in early 2022. Gintra won the A Lyga title last season and he is trying to replicate for the Baltic side what he did with BIIK in terms of being very competitive in the UEFA WCL, as Gintra advanced to the Round of 16 only twice in 18 consecutive seasons prior to his arrival and only thrice made it past the Qualification Round of the European tournament. BIIK Shymkent made the WCL Round of 16 in four of his ten seasons with the Kazakh club. In 2018-19, they almost made it three seasons in a row as they famously defeated Barcelona 3-1 at home in a Round of 32 first leg tie.

They were defeated in the return leg 3-0 in Barcelona, but an early BIIK goal in the second leg would have given the Kazakh side a 4-1 aggregate lead, but the referee waived off the goal; he was seemingly the only one in the stadium or on television that saw an infraction. Barcelona won the tie 4-3 aggregate win and went all the way to the Women's Champions League Final that season, only to lose to Olympique Lyon of France 4-1 in front of almost 20,000 fans in Budapest.

I have known Kaloyan since he was an assistant coach with FC Indiana over a decade ago; he then went to Russia with FC Indiana head coach Shek Borkowski with WFC Zvezda of Perm. Borkowski was let go mid-season after the team stuttered in the WCL and Petkov finished the season in Russia as head coach and then stayed two more seasons, while Borkowski then took over Haiti's national team, laying the work for the team's 2018 U-20 WWC Finals spot in France and then the very well-deserved, yet still not seen coming by many, full national team making the 2023 Finals this summer.

In 2022, Ginta won the Baltic Women's Cup for club teams in 2022 under Petkov, defeating fellow Lithuanian side Zalgiris Kaunas, Estonia sides Flora Tallinn and Saku Sporting and Latvian sides SFK Riga and SK Super Nova.

Petkov is seeing the growth of the women's game in Europe outside of the major markets of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain as well as Norway and Sweden, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe as more men's sides explore adding a women's team. He is supportive of this, but wants to see the resources applied to the women's teams so that they are professional in approach. That includes dedicated medical and coaching staff; in some situations he sees physios or coaches who work other part- or full-time positions and treat the women's job like a gig economy job (Uber driver, freelancer in technology, etc.).

Other issues that are critical to driving professional standards for women's football in the region include: access to top quality fields and travel (he still sees teams in the UEFA Women's Champions League travelling hours by bus for games rather than flying), support with visas for international imports and other important issues. Without this supportive background, an import from another country in Europe, North or South America or Africa may come to Central or Eastern Europe for a season, but not stay at the club and quickly put out word to other prospects, who they know, to avoid that team or even the country. Particularly for the Baltic nations but also countries such as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and other Central and Eastern European nations, imports are vital to growing the game, and he has long imported players from Africa, North America and other Eastern European nations when he was in Kazakhstan and now at Gintra.

With the struggles in the global economy and particularly in the U.S. with growing inflation and loan interest rates, he is finding that player contracts are rising by up to 50% above where they were a few years ago, but he is seeing this increase at least partially offset with more revenue from transfers. After he left BIIK, the Kazakh side transferred Ugandan international forward Fauzia Najjemba (19) to Dinamo Moscow early in 2023, for who she has scored two goals in six matches so far this season, and Zambian international midfielder Grace Chandra (25) to Madrid CFF for the 2022-23 season and she had three goals in 26 games for the fifth-place side in 2022-23; many expect her to be on Zambia's WWC debut side this summer. Another Zambian international, Racheal Kundananji, who also played for Petkov at BIIK, was transferred in the Fall of 2021 to Eibar in Spain for one season; she moved last summer to Madrid CFF, was second in the league this season with 25 goals. In the team's last game of the season, Kundananji scored a brace to lead her side to a 2-1 upset at home of Champions Barcelona, their first league defeat in almost two years (see more next week in our two part review of 2022-23 European league seasons).

Petkov has six Americans and two Nigerian imports this season on his Gintra side:

• American goalkeeper Madison Less (25), who moved from Petkov's BIIK after the 2021-122 season and played at the University of Cincinnati.
• American defender Shannon Aviza (24), who played four years at Syracuse University and her last season at St. John's University, both in New York State.
• American defender Emily Goodson (23), who played at Regis University in Denver, Colorado.
• American defender Samantha Rossette (25), who also joined Gintra after a year with BIIK in Shymkent; she played at the University of Virgina. Villanova University and Downtown United S.C. of New York City in the summer WPSL.
• American midfielder Hannah DeBose (26), who played collegiately at the University of Central Florida.
• American midfielder Athena Kuehn (23) joined Gintra from Sporting de Huelva of Spain, after playing at the University of Minnesota for four years and her last season at Louisiana State University as well as in the WPSL for the Colorado Pride.
• Note: American forward Miracle Porter (24) recently moved to Glasgow City of Scotland in February, 2023. She won a league and Baltic Cup title last season for Gintra after playing with Stade de Reims in France in 2021-22. She played collegiately at Florida Atlantic University.

From Nigeria, Gintra has two forwards:

• Vivian Ikechukwu (25), also moved from BIIK; she is expected to be on Nigeria's WWC Finals side this summer and played for her country at the 2014 U-17 Women's World Cup Finals in Costa Rica. She played for Besiktas of Turkey for six months this Spring.
• Oluwadamilola Koku (20)—she came from Rivers Angels and won a league title at home.

Gintra is in a battle this season with MFA Zalgiris of Vilnius, who led the table w a 6-1-0 (W-T-L) record for 19 points over Gintra (4-2-0) for 14 points but with a game in hand entering the last week of May. On May 27, Gintra reduced the deficit to only two points with a 3-2 away win over Zalgiris.

For Zalgris, their imports include: American Rachel Emily Hawkins, who played at Franklin College in Franklin Indiana, Gabon international Aristelle Luise Yog-Atouth, who played in Turkey with Dudullu Spor and Canadian Jullien Ramirez, who played at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Ramirez spent two seasons in Germany with FC Victoria 1889 in Berlin and FSV Babelsberg.

Kaloyan Petkov continues to be a leading developer of women's football in Eastern Europe and his grasp of players around the world is unprecedented. A few years ago, before the 2021-22 WCL Qualification Round in Glasgow, he said that he was very impressed (and worried) about their recent teenage signing from Costa Rica— Priscilla Chinchilla (see more below in the Scotland season review). Chinchilla, who was barely known by CONCACAF followers at the time, scored the only goal of the game to knock BIIK out of the tournament and has since been a major scoring factor for Glasgow City and her country. Petkov is beloved by his players and they talk about their individual improvement under him as well as for their team. He is a strong acquisition by Gintra and always one to follow in his travels.

European League reviews

Ukraine

In spite of the war with Russia, the 12-team Women's league is still running and the 2022-23 season came to an end on May 26; after 22 matches, FK Vorskla/Zhytlobud-2 Kharkiv won the league with 66 points over Krybbas of Krivoy Rog (57 points), while Kolos Kovalivka (49 points) pipped Shakhtar Donetsk (48 points) for third after Kolos defeated home side Shakhtar 2-0 on the final matchday. The top two teams go onto the 2023-23 UEFA Women's Champions League competition.

At the other end of the table Ateks Kiev had only one point all season for a lone tie in 22 games, scoring only eight times and surrendering 189 goals—including 23 in their last game of the season against the champions for their worst defeat of the season—their relegation had unfortunately been long assured.

France

Once again it was Olympique Lyon and PSG battling for the Division 1 Feminine title, with OL winning its 16th title in 17 years from a 20-1-1 (W-D-L) record for 61 points, with PSG—compiling a 17-4-1 record for 55 points this season—interrupting Lyon's title run in 2020-21. There was a gap in the 12-team league with a trio of teams in a close race for third and the last UEFA Women's Champions League spot for 2023-24: Paris FC (42 points), Fleury 91 (39 points) and Montpellier (37 points), while Soyaux (6 points) and Rodez (12 points) were relegated. Dijon (15 points for tenth place) secured their top league spot for next season as they defeated Montpellier 2-1 at home on the last matchday on May 27. For Dijon, Roselord Borgella (30), a Haitian international forward who had three goals on the season, and Swiss international forward Meriame Terchoun (27), both had a goal and an assist against Montpellier, with Terchoun's goal being her only tally of the season in 18 games.

Haiti had three of the top 18 scorers in the league with Melchie Dumornay (19) of Stade Reims with 11, Nerilia Modesir (24) of Montpellier with 9 goals, and Batcheba Louis (25) of Fleury 91 with 7 goals. The Golden Boot winner was French international Kadidiatou Diani (28) of PSG with 17, followed by FC Paris's duo of French U-20 international Mathilde Bourdieu (24) with 13 and full French international Clara Mateo with 12—the latter tied for third with former French youth international Maelle Garbino (26) of Bordeaux, who won a runners-up medal at the 2016 U-20 WWC in Papua New Guinea. Other import top scorers besides the Haitian trio were Ivory Coast international Amenan Rosemonde Kouassi (21) with 10, Danish international Signe Bruun (25) and Polish international Ewelina Kamcyk (27) both had 8 goals, and Swiss international Ramona Bachmann scored seven goals for PSG.

England

Manchester United, coached by former Orlando Pride and Birmingham City head coach Marc Skinner, led the table at times during the final stretch of the season, but were overtaken by Chelsea, with a 2-0 Blues win over third place Arsenal on May 21 particularly impactful, while United bested derby foe Manchester City with a second half injury time goal by Lucia Garcia (24), a Spanish international forward who moved this season to United from Athletic Club Bilbao and had seven goals in 19 games. Chelsea won the title for the fourth straight season (the 13th title for manager Emma Hayes in her 11 seasons with the club), finishing with a 19-1-2 record with 58 points, with Man United second on a 18-2-2 record for 56 points. Arsenal, despite a season wracked with ACL injuries to key players such as Dutch international Vivianne Meidema and English internationals Leah Williamson, Beth Mead and Austrian international defender Laura Wienroither, ended up with the third allocated spot for next seasons UEFA Women's Champions League tournament—despite losing their final match of the season on May 27 (2-0 at home to Aston Villa). The Gunners finished even on points with Manchester City with 47 but had a better goal difference on the season (+33 vs. +25). Aston Villa finished fifth with 37 points. Arsenal drew 60,000 to their dramatic Women's Champions League Semifinals second leg, a 3-2 loss to Germany's Wolfsburg in extra time in the match and 5-4 on aggregate.

At the other end of the table, Reading goes down to Division 2, replaced by Bristol City, who pipped Birmingham City to the WSL 2 title (48 points vs. 47 points), despite losing their last game to Birmingham 2-0 away.

Ex-Houston Dash and English international Rachel Daly of Aston Villa led all goal scorers (22 goals), taking over from Jamaican international Khadija Shaw—who led the goalscoring table for most of the season (finishing with 20 goals)—by scoring seven goals in three consecutive games in late April/early May, with braces away against Tottenham Hotspur (3-3) and Manchester United (3-2 loss at home) and a hat-trick in their 5-0 dismantling of Reading; Daly then added one goal in the following two games to end the season, a 3-3 tie with Liverpool and home and 2-0 defeat of Arsenal in London.

English international Beth England of Spurs (third with 14 goals), former English U-17 international Leah Galton of Man United (who went to college in the US. and played two seasons with Sky Blue FC in the NWSL) and English international Alessia Russo (also of Man United) both had ten goals (tied for fifth) and Australia international Sam Kerr of Chelsea finished fourth with 12.

Other imports among the top 12 goal scorers included Norwegian international Frida Maanum of Arsenal, fellow Norwegian international Guro Reitan of Chelsea and ArsenalLiverpool's American forward Katie Stengel, who were all tied for seventh with nine goals, while Arsenal's Swedish international forward Stina Blackstenius had eight league goals—she also had a good WCL season with five goals in their last five tournament matches as they fell just short of making their second ever Final game— as did Spanish international Lucia Garcia (24) of Manchester United and Danish international Pernille Harder of Chelsea, who both also had eight goals to tie for tenth in the table.

Chelsea won the double for the third consecutive season by defeating Manchester United 1-0 in the FA Cup final on May 14th on a goal by Australian international Sam Kerr in the 68th minute. Manchester United will rue its missed opportunities and they had a goal ruled out in the opening minute as Ella Toone was ruled just offside. The game attracted a record 77,390 fans at Wembley. breaking the world record attendance for a women's domestic club fixture for the 60,739 at a 2019 match between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona in Spain. Baroness Campbell, FA director of women's football, said: "To break the world record is a massive statement and a wonderful marker as to where the women's game has come in this country. I've said before that we've come a long way, but we've still got an incredibly long way to go and we know that. But it's another marker in the sand that the game in this country is now alive and well, flourishing and growing." Among the crowd were thousands of children, many of whom were taking in a match for the first time at England's home of football.

Tickets sold out for on May 3, over a week before the match and was a first for Wembley since it started hosting the Women's FA Cup Final in 2015. The 77,390 attendance is almost double the 49,000 seen last year when Chelsea defeated Manchester City 3-2 after extra time.

Scotland

Glasgow City won the Scottish Women's Premier League 1 championship with 83 points over Glasgow Celtic (81 points) and Glasgow Rangers (78 points) in a tremendous race to the title and also the important second spot for UEFA WCL ambitions, which combined points from the 12 team first round and then the 6 team Championship Round. Celtic qualified for the Women's Champions League next season for the second time ever—after losing both games in the first round in 2021-22 against Levante of Spain (1-2) and FC Minsk of Belarus (2-3)—with the second 2023-24 WCL slot for the nation. Glasgow City won the title for the 15th time in 16 seasons, replacing Rangers, who won the title last season. City clinched the title with a 1-0 road win at Ibrox Stadium against Rangers on May 21, the last matchday of the season, with a 92nd minute goal from Scottish international forward Lauren Davidson (21). Celtic recorded a 2-0 win at home at Celtic Park the same day over Hearts, with goals by English import defender Caitlin Hayes (27) in the first half and compatriot Natasha Flint (26) in the second half, who started the season with Leicester City in the WSL1.

Scottish full international Lauren Davidson (21) of Glasgow City led the first round's goal scorers with 22, which determined the six teams in the Championship Round and six for the Relegation Round. Australian native Jacynta Galabadaarachchi (21)—who played at home with Melbourne City and Perth Glory before joining West Ham United in England in 2019-20 and then going on loan in 2020-21 to Napoli of Italy—was second with 14 goals and is in her second season with Celtic (See more on her in our feature last year in: The Week in Women's Football: A-League & Matildas; chat with NZ's Gabi Rennie; Chelsea star Sam Kerr on FIFA - Tribal Football). Amy Gallacher (24) of Celtic and Kirsty Howat of Rangers (25)—both Scottish youth internationals—were tied for third with 12 goals along with two imports: Canadian full international Clarissa Larisey (23) of Celtic—who moved further east for the 2023 Swedish Damallsvenskan season and has 3 goals in 10 games thus far with top of the table side Hacken—and Republic of Ireland international Emily Whelan (20) of Glasgow City. Three of the five next top scorers (placed seventh through eleventh in the scorers' table) were imports, including Jamaican international Kayla McKenna (26) of Rangers with 11 goals, Priscilla Chinchilla (21) of Costa Rica and Glasgow City and her club teammate Kinga Kozak (20) of Poland each with 10, along with Scottish international and Rangers Liz Arnot (27) and Scottish native Dannielle McGinley (28) of Dundee United, who also had 10 tallies, while in twelfth place was Scottish youth international Eilidh Adams (19) of Hibernian, who had nine goals.

The top six sides from the first round: Glasgow City (62 points), Celtic (56 points), Rangers (55 points), Hearts (40 points), Hibernian (32 points) and Patrick Thistle (31 points), went into a round robin second stage with home and away matches against the other five sides. The bottom six from the first round of 22 games did the same: Motherwell (30 points), Spartans (26 points), Dundee United (17 points), Aberdeen (15 points), Hamilton Academical (13 points) and Glasgow Women (0 points).

The second round's top 15 scorers—including both the Championship and Relegation Groups matches of 10 games for each team, led by Rebecca Galbraith (33) of Spartans with 10 goals—were from Scotland except for the Celtic pair from England: Natasha Flint (26) with five goals and Caitlin Hayes (27) with four, which is more reflective of the teams' use of imports as most of them this season in Scotland were with the top three sides, all from Glasgow. After the top three, we did not see many imports for the other nine sides (see more below).

Last place and ultimately relegated Glasgow Women finished the season with 0 points from 32 games—scoring only 9 with 150 goals allowed; their only import was American defender Caitlin Farrell (25), who played 3 games for the Orlando Pride in 2019, retired from the game in 2020 and was working as a paralegal before returning to the professional game.

Hamilton (27 points and eleventh place) will have to play the second-place team in the Scottish Premier League's Second Division—Gartcarin of Airdie—after tying 10th place Dundee United on May 21 (1-1) and just missing assured survival by two points. Hamiton had only one import in 27-year-old German forward Josephine Giard, who had nine goals in 27 games this season.

Dundee United (29 points for tenth overall) had 22-year-old goalkeeper Lauren Perry from Northern Ireland as their only import; she did not receive any game action this year but has been capped at the senior level by the Irish.

Aberdeen (30 points and ninth in the combined table after the Championship and Relegation rounds) had two imports: Elena Karrainen (28) of Finland, who played with the national U-17 side and has played just under 250 minutes in 12 games in the SWPL1, and Nadine Hansen (29) of the Netherlands, who spent three seasons in the WSL and the English Championship with Aston Villa; she had one goal in 19 matches this season.

Eighth place Motherwell (47 points) had Northern Ireland youth international forward Kaitlyn Canavan (22) as their lone import; she played in only three matches this season.

Spartans, who topped the Relegation Group with 54 points for seventh place in total across the 2022-23 season, was an all-Scottish side with no imports.

Among the top six teams playing in the championship group, finishing in sixth place with 32 points, Patrick Thistle's lone import was Imogen Longcake (23), a forward from England, who had two goals in 17 matches with the club. She played in college in the States at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and with Newcastle United and Middlesbrough at home.

English native Imogen Longcake signed for Partick Thistle Women's FC on January 20, 2023 following a stint on trial with the team and was the only import on the side this season. (Photo Courtesy Patrick Thistle).

Finishing in fifth place with 39 points, Hibernian of Edinburgh's former U-17 and U-19 Norwegian international goalkeeper Benedicte Hansen (25) played in 30 games this season. She played last season with Verona in Italy and spent time in Iceland with Selfoss, Bristol City in the WSL and at home with Sandviken and Arna-Bjornar. Her backups at keeper were Daniela Kosinska (22) of Poland, who played in two games this season, and Ailey Tebbett (24) of the U.S. (ex-University of Florida), who did not appear in any matches. Tebbett is in her third season in Scotland after first joining Kilmarnock in SWPL2 in 2020-21. The following season, she joined Motherwell in SWPL1, before making the switch to Hearts last summer.

Five of Hibernians' imports come from England including forward Katie Lockwood, who scored six times in 16 games this season after scoring four goals in 26 matches for Orebro in Sweden in 2022. She has also played in Cyprus with Apollon and collegiately in the States at Eastern Florida State (Community) College, where she was the national junior college player of the year in 2017, and then went onto play at the University of Alabama and finally at Campbell University in North Carolina.

Other imports for Hibs were defender Liana Hinds (28) of Trinidad and Tobago, who moved to Scotland for the 2022-23 season after playing for IBV of Iceland; she had one goal in 24 matches. She grew up in the U.S. and played at the University of Connecticut and also in Sweden in 2019 with Sundsvall. Swedish youth international forward Nor Mustafa (21) had three goals in 26 matches and played with West Ham in England and last season in France with Le Havre. American forward Crystal Thomas (29), ex-Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit and who played in Norway and Australia, had four goals in 10 games. She played collegiately at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. as well as for the U.S. at the U-20 and U-23 levels.

For the other major Edinburgh club, Hearts (fourth with 49 points), their likely WWC Finals starting defender Ciara Grant for the Republic of Ireland scored five times in 30 games. English-born Jamaican international defender Vyan Sampson (26) joined Hearts after two seasons with Charlton Athletic in the Championship (second division) in England; she had one goal in 22 matches. In midfield, Hearts' imports were Clarah Connor (27) of Northern Ireland and Grennan Davies (23) of Wales, both youth internationals, while Davies also came on as a substitute in one full international against Italy (a 2-0 defeat) in 2019. Forward Georgia Timms (25) of England, who joined Hearts this season after two seasons with Lewes in the English Championship (second division), had eight goals in 2022-23, while New Zealand international Kathryn Rood (30)—who was born in England and also moved north from Lewes for 2022-23—chipped in five goals; she has not played for the Football Ferns since 2021.

Third place Rangers' (78 points) New Zealand international goalkeeper Victoria Esson (32) has played in 12 games this season for the 2021-22 Scottish league champions, after moving from Essen of Germany last summer; she previously played three seasons with Alvadsnes of Norway beginning in 2019, following club play at home in New Zealand. Scottish international goalkeeper Jenna Fife (27) played 20 matches; she is in her fourth season with Rangers after six seasons with Hibernian. Three imports come from CONCACAF: American defender Maddie Noff (27) was transferred from the Kansas City Current in September of 2022 for a fee, after playing minimal minutes for Kansas City/Utah across four years. Noff played in 19 games this season—more than double what she did in the NWSL (8 games). American defender Hannah Davison of the U.S. had two goals in 27 games—both coming in a 4-0 win over Hibernian in February—she also scored last August in Ranger's debut season in the UEFA WCL, in a 4-0 win over PAOK of Greece. Davison also played for two seasons in Sweden with AIK and previously was with the Chicago Red Stars. Jamaican international forward Kayla (McCoy) McKenna (26), who had 11 goals in 20 matches for Rangers in her second season at the club, is from Illinois and played at Duke University; she played one game for the Houston Dash in 2019-20 and with the U.S. at the U-23 level before joining Jamaica. She was named to Jamaica's 2019 WWC Finals team for France but a knee injury kept her at home.

Other Rangers imports came from England, France, Finland and the Netherlands, with first year players Lisa Martinez (22) of France scoring six times in 13 games (ex-Soyaux and Montpellier and who played for France at the U-17 and U-19 levels) and Finnish full international Jenny-Julia Danielsson (28), who had five goals in 23 games after moving from AIK in Stockholm.

For Glasgow Celtic Women (81 points for second place) there was also a strong CONCACAF presence (four players) with Mexican international goalkeeper Pamela Tajonar (38)—who joined Celta after eight seasons in Spain with Villarreal, Logrono, Barcelona and Sevilla—prominent in the side by starting in 29 of Celtic's 32 matches. I have known the much-travelled goalkeeper since her days with FC Indiana in the WNY, when she helped the club win the 2007 WPSL Championship. She also played with the Western New York Flash for one game in 2013 as well as in Sweden. Tajonar was on Mexico's squad at the 2004 Olympic Games Finals in Greece, the 2011 and 2015 Women's World Cup Finals as well as four Pan American Games teams. American defender Taylor Otto (25) had two goals in 26 games after playing the past two seasons with Racing Louisville; she played collegiately at the University of North Carolina and for the U.S. U-20 and U-23 national teams. Midfielder Hannah Kerner (26) played in 11 games after playing in Sweden, Finland and France over the past three seasons; she was originally on the Orlando Pride roster in 2019 after playing at the University of Virginia. Forward Katherine Loferski (25) played collegiately at Florida State University and spent last season in Finland with Aland United; she scored three goals in ten matches for Celtic.

From Asia, Celtic has Jacynta Galabadaarachichi (see more above), who across the two portions of the season had 15 goals in 30 matches, Shen Mengyu (six goals in 28 matches) and Shen Menglu (3 goals in 27 matches), both of whom were Chinese youth internationals. Mengyu last year became the first ever Chinese women's player to sign professional forms in the U.K. and just missed out on making China's 2020 Olympic Finals team in 2021. She played for China in the FIFA U-20 WWC in France in 2018. Menglu signed a two-year contract with Celtic after coming from Atletico Ouriense in Portugal; she started playing for Sporting Lisbon in Portugal at the age of 19.

Midfielder Shen Menglu of China had three goals in 27 matches in her first season in Scotland with Glasgow Celtic. Photo courtesy Celtic F.C.

From Oceania, Olivia Chance (29) of New Zealand, who has played in Australia with Brisbane Roar and in England and Iceland, is viewed as likely to be in the co-hosts' WWC Finals team this summer. She had one goal in 19 matches in 2022-23.

Republic of Ireland international defender Claire O'Riordan had three goals in 29 matches with 22 starts in her first season with Celtic after moving from Duisburg in Germany, where she played for four seasons (three in the Frauen Bundesliga and one in the second tier) and had six goals in 17 games in the German second division in 2021-22. O'Riordan scored the winning goal in Celtic's 3-1 win over Glasgow City at Celtic Park on May 11 in front of a record SWPL crowd of 9,553 and then the winner again three days later in a crucial penultimate game win over Hibs 2-1 in Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh. Lauren Davidson (see above) opened the scoring for City in the first half but Celtic fought back in the last 30 minutes of the match with goals by Natasha Flint, O'Riordan and Katherine Loferski.

Caitlin Hayes of England had 12 goals this season for Celtic in her first season while fellow English native Lucy Ashworth-Clifford (23) had four goals after moving from Lewes in the English second division. The other two English imports: Olivia Fergusson (28) scored three goals after moving from Coventry United following last season and Natasha Flint (26) had seven goals in 14 games after starting this season with Leicester City in the WSL.

Champions Glasgow City (83 points) for the 2022-23 season had three Americans, three imports from the Republic of Ireland, two from South Africa and one each from Costa Rica, New Zealand, Poland, Spain and Sweden. From South Africa, international Linda Motlhalo (24) had three goals in 16 games after moving from Djurgarden of Stockholm, where she played from 2020-2022; she also played in China with Beijing Phoenix and a year with the Houston Dash in 2018, when her former national team head coach and now Ireland head coach—Vera Pauw—brought her to the team, and Aliyaah Allie (19) played in only three games in her first stint abroad; she played at home for the U-17 and U-20 South African women's national teams and at JVW Girl's Academy in Johannesburg—JVV stands for Janine Van Wyk, the former Glasgow City defender and South African national team defender and captain (36), who has over 180 caps for her country.

Ireland's Emily Whelan (20) had 14 goals overall to finish second in team goal scoring behind Scottish international Lauren Davidson, who had a fantastic 28 goals in 31 games (see above). Whelan hasn't played for Ireland's WNT head coach Vera Pauw since the WWC Qualifiers in November of 2021 but could be pushing for a WWC Finals spot with her scoring—she played last year with Brimingham City in the WSL. Costa Rica's Priscilla Chinchilla was third with 12 goals in 27 matches and Kinga Kozak of Poland (see above) had 11 goals in 29 matches.

The three Americans on the side were forward Miracle Porter, who joined this season from Gintra (see above in the section with the profile of Kaloyan Petkov) and had one goal in six matches. Midfielder Peyton Perea (26), played 4 games with the North Carolina Courage over 3 seasons and spent time with Saint Teresa in the Spanish second division. Defender Erin Greening (25) scored 3 goals in 14 games after playing for Klepp after previously playing for the Orlando Pride for two seasons—she played collegiately at the University of Colorado.

Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham is on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.

Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey