Head coach Matt Potter, who guided the team to last year’s final, was fired three games into the 2023 season in an announcement made on the morning of a road game that he had traveled to with the team. The Current said the firing was due to “leadership issues” between Potter and management, and not player related.
The biggest issue with the Current this season has been on the defensive side of the ball, a trend that began before Potter’s departure. Kansas City has been horrendous defensively, and while their struggles have been exacerbated by injuries to Elizabeth Ball and Alex Loera, and a significant dip in form from goalkeeper Adrianna Franch, much of this was predictable.
The offseason signings of midfielders Debinha, Morgan Gautrat and Vanessa DiBernardo loaded up the middle of the park. They, along with defensive midfielder Desiree Scott — another player sorely missed due to injury — were always going to have to take on defensive responsibilities to mitigate a lack of depth in the back. The offseason departure of Kristen Edmonds is a more significant loss than it was made out to be. Quite simply, this team needs to find or develop center backs, the latter option hardly being helpful in the near term.
Saturday brought more woes. First came Racing Louisville midfielder Savannah DeMelo’s opening goal in the 12th minute, a reward for high pressure that came in a moment of complacency for the Current. DiBernardo plays a risky, slow ball back to rookie defender Croix Soto, who plays an even riskier, slower ball back to goalkeeper Cassie Miller. DeMelo runs past all three and scores by way of blocking Miller’s clearance.
https://youtu.be/V7Yklo8Dn6g?t=128
Fourteen minutes later, Kansas City got exposed on a counterattack. Louisville needed only two passes on the ground to put DeMelo in behind 2-v-1 with Kirsten Davis, who guided the ball in for a second tally. Rookie center back Gabrielle Robinson steps extremely high and DiBernardo lets DeMelo get on her blind side around midfield. It was a textbook transition from Louisville, and it was hardly an isolated event.
Three days earlier, in Louisville, Racing Louisville scored its first goal of the night under ludicrous circumstances. With, literally, the first kick following the erasure of a would-be Racing equalizer via VAR, Franch shanks a goal kick right to Jordan Baggett, and DeMelo buries the shot.
https://youtu.be/vt6Hm7xwX0k?t=173
Five minutes later, DeMelo scored her second goal on a mis-clearance from in the box by center back Addisyn Merrick.
Kansas City remains in obvious limbo with an interim coach, Caroline Sjöblom, still in place under that tag.
Sjöblom recently abandoned the three-back system that clearly was not working, but it has not solved the Current’s issues. They have conceded 16 goals in eight games this season and have not settled on a consistent, starting back line. It’s a tall order for rookie center backs to start in a transitional league so loaded with attacking talent. Kansas City’s struggles are also not entirely on them, nor the back line specifically. The Current are enduring a dip in form across the board, from an unclear goalkeeping situation to only eight goals scored in eight games.
Kansas City can kiss goodbye another run at the Shield this year, now 10 points adrift of surprise league leader NJ/NY Gotham FC (a worst-to-first story of its own right now). There is time to turn things around and make up what is currently a five-point gap to the playoff line, but it looks grim following a three-loss week.
Last year’s run from the Current saw the team challenge for the Shield despite a goal difference of zero. Those fine margins are not breaking in favor of Kansas City this year.
For all the hype about this Current team getting better in 2023, this team is precariously close to dragging itself through a lost season.
Eye-catchers: Gotham goes top
Count me among the skeptics that Gotham can sustain this run of form, and among those ready to give credit to their early-season success. Going into Lumen Field and defeating OL Reign, 4-1, is a marker of a result. Gotham was disciplined defensively, with a narrow shape that cut out the Reign’s central playmakers, and they pounced in transition. Lynn Williams is the best offseason in the league so far.
Eyebrow-raisers: The sloppy back pass
First came the DeMelo goal on Saturday. Fifteen minutes later, Houston Dash defender Natalie Jacobs played a poor ball back toward her goalkeeper and Alex Morgan chased it down for a carbon-copy goal of the DeMelo tally, to give San Diego Wave FC an early lead. Later in the game, Dash defender Katie Lind passed the ball out of bounds over her own endline, leading to the corner kick that brought the Wave’s third goal.
https://youtu.be/8O2HhiTDgmA?t=40
On Sunday, in Seattle, Reign defender Lauren Barnes scuffed a back-pass right to Williams for Gotham’s second tally. At the same time in Portland, the Red Stars played with fire trying to possess out of the back and got burned several times.
Tactical trends to watch
We’ve talked in this space often about Emily Fox’s propensity to make underlapping runs inside, and it was more prevalent than ever on Saturday in the North Carolina Courage’s scoreless draw with Angel City FC. Pay attention to the Courage in possession and see they build with three. Central midfielder Meredith Speck flares out wide and Fox pushes high and central to affect the game. This is a nuance that has developed with Fox on the U.S. national team as well. It provides her team with more numbers in central areas, although there is an inherent risk of exposure in the event of a turnover.
Surveying stadiums
One thing that has gone well in Kansas City is sustained crowds. Another announced crowd of 10,000-plus turned up on Saturday, bringing the team’s regular-season average attendance to nearly 11,00 fans per game.
Next year, the Current will open a riverfront stadium downtown, the first such stadium built specifically for an NWSL team. A crowd of 11,000 would mostly fill the place, and it would surely be a rocking atmosphere. There’s a lot to like about what’s happening there off the field. The Current’s front office will be hoping for a turnaround in team form, too, to drive hype and scarcity around tickets to the new building.
What VAR we talking about?
San Diego’s second goal in a 3-0 victory over the Dash. Jacobs goes down in the box with an apparent injury that looked to be the result of inadvertent contact with Wave midfielder Sierra Enge on Wave corner kick. The ball pops out to the top of the box and play recycles, and Enge finishes the shot.
Play is supposed to be stopped immediately if a head injury is suspected, but head official Elijio Arreguin did not appear to recognize Jacobs had gone down.
The video review then took five minutes, which is way too long. Some of that time would have passed anyway because of Jacobs receiving treatment, but these are the moments that will need refining. It should not take five minutes to check a goal without even going to the monitor.
They said that
Halftime interviews have been a logistical headache for the NWSL this year, but they have delivered some gems. Lynn Williams provided another one on Sunday about her team’s success in Seattle:
“Not surprised at all. I feel like everybody else is surprised, but we’re not.”
https://twitter.com/AttackingThird/s...21128844902400
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