In 2025 the NWSL debuted a new feature of the regular season named the ‘Good Behavior Reduction’ where players who went five games (entering by 80:00 and playing 10 minutes) could see a reduction in the number of yellow cards counting toward their accumulation total.

Once a player has five accumulated yellow cards, they must sit out the next regular season match and in previous seasons, the accumulation warnings came into play during the final matches of the regular season. 

Over the season, 216 players received a card, 143 players earned a Good Behavior Reduction leading to 194 Good Behavior Reductions over the regular season. 

Thirteen players received 5+ yellow cards and 5 players were able to have reductions to avoid serving an accumulation suspension. Comparatively, during the 2024 season, 18 players served accumulation suspensions. 

Additionally, 17 players finished the season with four yellow cards, but were able to reduce the stress of a potential accumulation suspension with a Good Behavior Reduction. Only two players reached four yellow cards without a reduction by the end of the season. 

When did players receive yellow cards?

Looking deeper into the data, after a player had been carded, they were most likely to receive another card after reduction or games without the minimum number of minutes — which is pretty understandable. 

 

Looking at when during the cycle of Good Behavior, players were most likely to receive another yellow card three matches into the five matches required, while 13 players over the course of the season got all the way to the potential reduction match before acquiring an additional yellow card. 

 

Overall Trends

Obviously, when looking at the cumulative number of yellow cards and reductions over the entire season, reductions don’t start coming into play until Matchday 6 when we start to see an uptick and the gap between the two lines continues to widen with time. By season end there were 2.4 yellow cards for every reduction. 


Looking at a per-team breakdown, Utah had the most yellow cards of any club (54), and although Bay FC is the closest in 2nd with 46, they also had the most reductions with 20. 

North Carolina had the fewest yellow cards with only 22, while Racing had the worst reduction rate with 39 yellows and only 11 reductions (28.2% conversion rate). Portland had the best Good Behavior reduction rate, converting 55.2% of their yellow cards into reductions (16 reductions from 29 cards).  

The Good Behavior Reductions will be continuing in the 2026 season…