Stoney was largely successful in two and a half years in charge
In a stunning move, the San Diego Wave fired head coach Casey Stoney on Monday.
Paul Buckle will serve as interim head coach while the club searches for a permanent successor to Stoney.
Stoney has been largely successful during her stint with San Diego, leading the team to the playoffs in its expansion season of 2022 while being named the NWSL Coach of the Year.
Last year, the Wave took home the NWSL Shield for the top regular-season record in the league, while the team started 2024 out by winning its first trophy, the Challenge Cup.
The ex-Manchester United boss has been less successful in 2024, with the Wave sitting ninth in the 14-team NWSL midway through the season.
Stoney’s last game in charge was on Saturday, as the Wave drew Houston 0-0 to extend their winless run to seven games.
Still, Monday’s move essentially came of the blue, especially because Stoney signed a new contract in January through 2027 with a mutual option for 2028.
“We are immensely grateful to Casey for her commitment to our club and the positive impact she has had both on and off the pitch.” said club president Jill Ellis in a statement.
“Over the past seasons, Casey has guided us to significant milestones, and her contributions have been instrumental in laying a strong foundation on which to build. The decision to part ways was very hard and not made in haste, but given the ambition of this club, and where we are in our season, we felt a change was necessary at this time.”
The move to fire Stoney came just two weeks after San Diego hired Camille Ashton as the club’s new general manager and sporting director. Ashton joined after serving in a similar role with the Kansas City Current.
Ashton and Ellis will now be tasked with finding a long-term successor to Stoney.
A little good news, a little bad news for both the Wave and the USWNT
The San Diego Wave are set to welcome multiple U.S. women’s national team players back from injury, including star defender Naomi Girma.
Wave head coach Casey Stoney said that Girma would be available for Friday’s game against Bay FC, with the 23-year-old apparently having recovered from a thigh injury that sidelined her for San Diego’s last three matches.
“Naomi and Abby will be back,” Stoney told reporters during a Wednesday press conference, referring to Girma and another USWNT center back, Abby Dahlkemper. The latter has been out for roughly a month, also with a thigh issue.
Girma is considered a lock to start for the USWNT at the Olympics, but has now missed time over muscular injuries twice in the last six weeks. USWNT interim coach Twila Kilgore had to substitute Girma in April’s SheBelieves Cup win over Japan after the defender pulled up with an apparent hamstring strain.
Dahlkemper, meanwhile, faces a battle to make Emma Hayes’ final 18-player roster for this summer’s Olympics, with multiple players vying to partner Girma at center back. Candidates like Tierna Davidson and Alana Cook have both lost time to injuries of their own this year.
Hayes will begin her tenure as the U.S. manager in the coming weeks, with friendlies against South Korea on June 1 and June 4 representing the one and only set of matches before the Olympic roster is announced.
Shaw questionable, Morgan remains out
The Wave had further updates on USWNT regulars, but the news for Jaedyn Shaw and Alex Morgan was more mixed.
Shaw limped off in the final seconds of Sunday’s 1-1 draw with NJ/NY Gotham FC with a possible ankle injury, and per Stoney, her status is still up in the air.
Stoney said Shaw is “day-by-day at the minute, so we won’t know [until Friday’s game],” leaving open the possibility that the star attacker could make a quick return from an incident that initially looked more worrisome.
Morgan, meanwhile, remains out with an ankle injury suffered during a loss to the Orlando Pride on April 19.
“Alex is still out,” said Stoney. “She’s been running. She’s been doing technical work this week. She’ll be available when she’s available.”
For her own part, Morgan last week posted on social media that she hopes to return “very soon.”
San Diego has two NWSL matches before Hayes is expected to announce her squad for the games against South Korea: Friday’s clash at Bay FC, and a trip to face Angel City FC on May 23.
According to Stoney, Morgan will be “week-to-week” going forward, an indicator that the injury may keep Morgan on the sidelines for a bit longer.
It’s a busy month for San Diego, who have five games in the next four weeks. The knock could also jeopardize Morgan’s availability for Emma Hayes’ first USWNT camp, with the team facing two matches against South Korea on June 1 and June 4.
Morgan faces something of a battle to make Hayes’ final 18-player roster for the upcoming Paris Olympics. The USWNT star has been a fixture with the team for over a decade, taking part in four World Cups and three Olympiads in her sterling career.
However, with Catarina Macario healthy again and Sophia Smith recovering her confidence after a post-World Cup dip, there is a very real chance that Morgan could end up watching the Paris games from home.
“It’s important that while she’s trying to get to the top, she enjoys the journey to the top”
Jaedyn Shaw’s first U.S. women’s national team camp is, per the San Diego Wave attacker herself, all about learning as much as possible.
The 18-year-old is one of the new names on USWNT interim coach Twila Kilgore’s first roster for an upcoming pair of friendlies against South Africa on September 21 and 24. According to Shaw, the objective is to ease in, gain her footing in a new environment, and take plenty of lessons from her first senior-level camp.
“I’ve always loved high pressures moments,” Shaw told reporters on Thursday. “I have been told that this is a no-pressure camp, just getting my feet in the water and kind of enjoying the experience, and that’s something that I’m really taking to heart. I’m just trying to go and learn as much as I can, gain as much as I can from this experience.”
Shaw added that getting the call was “an amazing, happy moment for me,” but noted that she can’t afford to lose focus between now and when she steps on the plane to Cincinnati.
“I kind of had to bring it down a bit, to make sure that I’m still focusing on what I have going on in front of me with [San Diego] and the game coming up on Saturday,” said Shaw.
Still, there was time for a little excitement, especially from her family.
“First person I called was my mother,” said a laughing Shaw, “She was practically crying through the phone, per usual.”
San Diego manager Casey Stoney called Shaw “a quality player with huge potential and a huge amount of talent,” and added that the call-up was “deserved” in her eyes.
“It’s a great opportunity for her to go in without any pressure,” said Stoney, whose own international career spanning 130 caps began with a first cap at the same age as Shaw. “Being in a senior environment is very different than being in a youth environment. I think she’ll go in and she’ll show her quality. It’s just for her, going in and soaking it all up, soaking in the experience.”
While much of that will of course pertain to improving her craft as a player, Shaw said she’s also had plenty of more practical questions for her Wave teammate Naomi Girma.
“I feel like I’ve already like bombarded [Girma] with a bunch of questions,” said Shaw. “One of them was seating arrangements, on the bus, in the meetings. That was something that I know a lot of teams, you kind of have [assigned seats]. I know we do, like I have my front row seat…I was like, ‘Where do I sit?’
“I think another thing was, how do the training kits fit, so I know what size to get? And then there was like, if I need to bring a notebook, what do you pack? Like that kind of stuff. Literally not even soccer-based. It’s just stuff off the field.”
Shaw highlighted the World Cup stretch as a particular moment of growth as a player, with the Wave leaning more heavily on her with international attacking players like Alex Morgan and Sofia Jakobsson heading off to the World Cup.
“I think, for me this season, at least when all of our international girls left, I had to kind of take a different role and be okay with playing different positions, or taking more of, I guess a leadership role,” explained Shaw. “Kind of — not putting the team on my back — but allowing myself to carry more of the weight than just coming in as a young player and doing whatever.”
Mandatory Credit: Troy Wayrynen-USA TODAY Sports
Per Stoney, helping Shaw take that next step has been “an absolute dream” because the youngster’s focus level is so high.
“Jae’s unbelievable,” said Stoney. “She has nothing in her mind other than being the best player in the world: ‘What am I going to do to make myself better?’ You know, she’s a dream to manage, in that sense, an absolute dream. She’s very coachable, she wants to be the best.”
The Wave head coach noted that after last season’s emphasis was on “building [Shaw’s] physical capacity” as she adjusted to the exhausting speed of play in the NWSL, the focus has shifted to the technical side.
“She’s been utilized in [all] top four positions: wide left, wide right, [No. 9] and also as a [No. 10],” explained Stoney. “I think now, she’s played more of a 10 role, it’s how she can position herself between the lines, how she can face forward. Because once she gets to faced forward with the body position, her ability to play a through ball is some of the best I’ve ever seen. She sees things other people don’t see.”
Still, despite Shaw’s rapid rise, Stoney says it’s important that the Texas native maintains a process-oriented focus rather than only concerning herself with results.
“She’s got a lot of maturity in certain ways, in terms of wanting to be the best, but also remembering she’s still 18,” said Stoney. “I think it’s important that while she’s trying to get to the top, she enjoys the journey to the top.”
What does it take for a teenager to shine in NWSL? We tried to find out
NWSL’s history with truly young players is, thanks to under-supported clubs and a lack of guardrails, a messy one.
As with many situations pertaining to the NWSL during its early years, teams — and the league itself — were unprepared to take on the challenge involved, but also simply lacked a clear plan on how to incorporate players outside of the draft system.
While teams seemed to grasp what it could mean for them on the competitive side — both the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit moved mountains specifically to be in position to acquire Mallory Swanson, for example — the league was far less prepared for how much the non-soccer side matters.
Swanson’s experience is instructive. Then 19, Swanson, née Pugh, would lead the 2017 Spirit with six goals, but was largely left to her own devices two time zones away from home. Between injuries and little club-level support at a team running on a minor-league financial plan, Swanson’s development path seemed to plateau at a moment when she was largely expected to be U.S. Soccer’s Next Big Thing.
In retrospect, Swanson’s growth being hampered was hardly a surprise given the Spirit’s multipleoff-fieldissues during her time with the club.
Considering the state of the entire league, the series of public missteps, and the multiple investigations involved, it’s safe to say this wasn’t one bad environment. Frankly, it’s not clear that any NWSL club in this time frame was an appropriate environment for a player like Swanson to walk into. The entire league simply was not ready to provide what was required of it.
As Swanson approaches 25 years old, she has reached the level of being one of the best attackers on the planet. Things eventually worked out. However, her path here wasn’t easy, and a major factor was an NWSL club whose on-field ambitions surpassed what their off-field capabilities would actually allow for.
To be sure, there are success stories: Ellie Carpenter’s time with the Thorns — who for all their failings in player safety still had a much more substantial infrastructure than any other NWSL club in that era — became a near-instant starter and is now a fixture for Lyon and Australia.
Back with the Spirit, Trinity Rodman declared for the draft and was immediately one of the NWSL’s best players. The Spirit took some lessons from how they had failed Swanson, having a more robust plan in place to give her a better situation away from the training field. Rodman ended up winning a title and making the NWSL Best XI in 2021, and has broken through with the USWNT over the last year-plus.
Still, with no NWSL rules on how these situations worked, the process is different every time. Swanson’s path to the NWSL was convoluted: the Spirit made multiple trades to obtain the top spot in the Distribution Ranking Order, a mechanism which no longer exists, and she missed the first five games of the season because the league simply didn’t have the wherewithal to come up with a more timely method to get her on a team.
The complications for players just trying to get into the league continued: Olivia Moultrie getting a contract from Portland involved a public pressure campaign and a court case that saw NWSL on one side and one of its clubs (as well as a player who wanted to be in the league) on the other. Even after a judge ruled in Moultrie’s favor, NWSL rules still ended up putting her into an ad hoc discovery process that saw OL Reign acquire her rights before trading them to Portland (for far below market value).
(Photo by Amanda Loman/Getty Images)
The outcome was what the player, her family, and the club wanted. Moultrie has proven her mettle, and even for the defending champions, the 17-year-old gets regular playing time as the team’s attacking midfielder. She’s a serious contributor (three goals and four assists in 17 games last year) for a powerhouse. It’s just that, as with Swanson, she faced plainly unnecessary obstacles that seemed rooted in a lack of preparedness and infrastructure.
Jaedyn Shaw’s path into the league was only slightly less rocky. The Texan, then 17, joined the Spirit in the 2022 preseason and trained with them for months while Washington tried to pursue some backchannel diplomacy aimed at a new method for young players to enter the league.
The campaign didn’t change enough minds, and once again NWSL held a mid-season discovery process to sort the situation out. Sources at the time told Pro Soccer Wire that at least six NWSL clubs submitted bids — Washington and San Diego being the only two ever publicly revealed — and that a weighted lottery placed the Wave atop the discovery list. Another potential star player’s career course was charted by a confusing, opaque method.
In a call with Pro Soccer Wire from San Diego, Shaw took a moment to choose her words before discussing how much of a problem it would have been if she had been denied entry into the league last year.
“It would have been definitely really hard for me,” said Shaw. “I would have been basically with the Spirit for a whole year, and being in that environment, knowing that I can handle it, knowing that I can do it every single day and play at that level, and then just being told no…that definitely would have been hard for me to deal with.”
It’s hard to dispute Shaw’s read on her ability to compete. She scored in her professional debut, and has been a regular starter for a San Diego side that competed for the NWSL Shield last season. In the Wave’s 2023 opener, Shaw scored a splendid goal, while coach Casey Stoney experimented with a formation change designed to make the 18-year-old more of an attacking centerpiece.
With multiple clubs now well-staffed enough to both scout the youth ranks more thoroughly and able to create an infrastructure to truly support teenage players, the situation was only going to repeat itself with more frequency. Shortly after the 2022 season ended, NWSL announced that it had created a new way for young players to join teams. The Under-18 Entry List specified both how young players could end up with a specific team, and installed some common-sense safeguards to prevent teams from choosing short-term competitive needs over a player’s well-being.
For example, the new rules prevent teams from trading or waiving a player before they turn 18 without the consent of both the player and their legal guardian. Under-18 Entry List players can’t be selected in expansion drafts, and their initial contract must run through the season in which they turn 18. If a team wants to make the commitment, the rules oblige them to truly take a longer view, in exchange for removing the bizarre paths to entry players in this age group have had to endure.
So far, the new rules have been applied twice, both for 15-year-old prospects: Washington signed Chloe Ricketts, while the Wave followed shortly thereafter in signing Melanie Barcenas. Both clubs had these players on their radar well before the establishment of the league’s rules, meaning that clubs have essentially been waiting for NWSL rules to catch up.
The time appears to be now, and the league — as it emerges from numerous debacles — has entered a new era.
Resources have changed the game
That era contains a need to balance multiple thoughts: player safety, development, the attention that comes when a younger player signs with a pro team, and the day-to-day process of trying to win games in an endlessly competitive league.
Speaking to Pro Soccer Wire just a couple of weeks before Barcenas signed with the club, Stoney said that when the opportunity to sign Shaw arrived, “as a club, we were like, ‘we need to make it happen,’ because she was such a talented young player.”
What followed was both pursuing the nuts-and-bolts of signing a player, but also showing that they could meet the requirements NWSL said had to be in place: housing for Shaw and her family, “a separate locker room, making sure that every player and every member of staff was qualified for SafeSport to make sure we could bring minors into the environment,” said Stoney. “Making sure we had all the policies and procedures in place, making sure that we were looking after the California law side of things as well.”
(Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
Shaw said that the team brought her in for meetings with Stoney, club president Jill Ellis, and general manager Molly Downtain to talk through the normal things a player wants to know about when signing with a new club (team philosophy, training ground, etc.) and also go over how things would be for her in specific circumstances.
“It was just what to expect, basically. They didn’t want me to just come here not knowing exactly what’s going on, and just being completely new to this to the area and everything,” said Shaw, who added that the major offseason change for her was limited to moving to a “more permanent” home in San Diego after the team had set up something more short-term last year.
A major difference between San Diego and NWSL teams circa six or seven years ago? Ownership groups that can afford to create a larger club infrastructure. Shaw said that upon arrival, the Wave had everything in place, rather than trying to build the plane while mid-air.
“I think that the Wave have a lot of resources,” said Shaw, listing off the team’s coaching staff, trainers, and a mental well-being coach the club has made available for the entire squad. “I’m comfortable having that relationship with them and being able to express what I need as an athlete, and what I need as a person from them.”
Spirit president of soccer operations Mark Krikorian told Pro Soccer Wire that a club’s commitment when signing such young players has to start with safety, and that teams should be aiming to surpass league rules when they can.
“I think that we’re all committed to protecting [Ricketts], first and foremost, and any other young player that’s here,” said Krikorian. “The league has done a good job in putting together protocols to protect the players, the states all have different rules, laws, and so on to protect [minors], but hopefully we’re going above and beyond those.”
Speaking to reporters before the season kicked off, Spirit midfielder Andi Sullivan said that in her view, Washington is a good place for a player like Ricketts because of both the infrastructure Krikorian, owner Michele Kang, and others have assembled, and because the players themselves are well-tuned towards helping a youngster out as a teammate.
“I do think we have a lot more ability to support her and hopefully that continues to grow, that we would be able to support her and people her age more,” said Sullivan. “I also think — not to toot our own horn — but I think she stepped into the perfect team to do that, because we’re taking good care of her in terms of the team aspect.”
In Washington, that means so many things: light-hearted ribbing during a rondo, a new coaching staff that has prioritized internal standards and culture, player-to-player communication in training and elsewhere, but also continuing education. Krikorian says that Ricketts will continue the same remote education program she was on in Michigan, and that the Spirit have longer-term plans to link up with regional universities to allow young players an avenue to get their degree while playing for Washington.
“I think that they all realize that they can make a positive impact in this young woman’s life, and help her and help to guide her and mentor her,” explained Krikorian. “It’s not their job. Their job is to go out into play and so on, but I do think that they are sensitive women and I do think that they do want what’s best for Chloe and what’s best for the club and they recognize they can be a positive piece of this.”
The soccer side is the easy part
On one front, the game tells the truth: if a young player brings it on the soccer side, getting acclimated tends to go very quickly.
Stoney said that Shaw got “the respect of the group immediately” with what she showed in training. “She shows what she’s capable of, and the players want her on there because they know that she can make a difference.”
With Ricketts, Sullivan and Ashley Sanchez — no strangers to the cauldron that is the USWNT environment — took note of how she’s got confidence and skill, but is also not timid when it comes to challenges.
“I think Chloe stepped in and was like, decking people,” Sullivan said. “I think [it] shows that she’s not afraid of anything. And I think that fearless mindset will carry her a long way.”
“She came in with the energy, she was hitting people immediately,” added Sanchez. “I was respecting it.”
Sullivan noted that Ricketts is “young, but she doesn’t want to be treated like she’s young,” adding that the Michigan native “is very thoughtful. You [can] tell that in conversations with her: she is very considerate of, and aware of, how things work, and she knows herself really well,” all of which help a player who has to handle a new phenomenon: being hugely talented, but also not being her team’s star attraction from day one.
Young players, eager to show their best stuff, can often make a big impact on arrival. Consistency is harder to come by, and those outsized expectations can pose a problem over time. In San Diego, Stoney is quick to caution that no one is expecting Shaw to carry on without any issues or tough patches. “Are there ups and downs for a young player? Yeah. They’re gonna go for a bit of a bumpy road because they’re not always going to be on a trajectory like this,” she said, tracing a diagonal line heading towards the heavens. “That’s not real life. No one does. They go up, and then they might have a little dip, and then they’ll go up again.”
Stoney said that it’s a coach’s job to sort out when a player needs to push through those down moments to build resolve, and when they’re no longer progressing. However, she adds, “[being] honest about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it” is just as vital.
According to Stoney, the vagaries of the U.S. development system — players remaining stars in their club teams and then doing the same collegiately — can deprive those youngsters of the chance to develop resilience. They get to the NWSL level, and it might be the first time in their lives where they’ve not just walked right into a given lineup.
“They’ve played every game, they’ve been a starter, then all of a sudden they step into a professional environment and they might not even be on the [gameday] roster,” said Stoney. “It’s a massive adjustment for them in terms of their mentality and emotional responses to that, and they haven’t built the resilience to be able to cope with it because they’ve never faced it before. So we try and get ahead of it. We know that it’s going to happen. We put on workshops for those players that have come into professional environment for the first time. We look at the challenges they might be facing and we tackle them head on.”
Still, the task Stoney describes is a next-level problem, one that is normal for a functioning and healthy soccer environment. For the NWSL, “functioning” and “healthy” have been qualities to aspire to, rather than the day-to-day truth. The new system of rules and guidelines, combined with major advances at clubs and player-driven demands for raised standards, has finally put the league in a position to answer that kind of challenge.
The Wave are among several NWSL clubs pushing a youth movement forward
The NWSL’s youth movement is well and truly underway.
The San Diego Wave announced on Tuesday that they’ve used the NWSL’s new Under-18 Entry Mechanism to sign Melanie Barcenas, a U.S. under-17 national team forward, to a three-year contract.
Barcenas, aged 15 years and 138 days, is the youngest player in NWSL history. She breaks the record set by the Washington Spirit’s Chloe Ricketts, who signed her deal less than three weeks ago.
“We are very happy that Melanie and her family have decided to entrust her hometown club as the place for her to begin her professional career,” said Wave head coach Casey Stoney in a press release. “The coaches at San Diego Surf have been instrumental in helping her develop as a person and as a player for her entire youth career. We’re excited to maximize her potential through the coming years, while being patient and deliberate in advancing her development while ensuring she retains some routine and normalcy of being a teenager.”
“I’m very excited to sign my first professional contract with my hometown team, San Diego Wave,” added Barcenas. “It’s been a dream of mine to not just play in the NWSL but to have the opportunity to represent this city since the announcement of the Wave last year. I know I am young, but the team and coaching staff have been amazing, and I look forward to learning from them every day as I continue to develop.”
Wave among teams pushing the envelope
Signing Barcenas is a move that seems to have been in the works for some time for San Diego. Back in 2021 at a team launch event, the then-13-year-old forward was one of numerous speakers, expressing a hope to play for the team sometime down the road.
It’s still early days for the Wave as a club, but there’s clearly an emphasis on bringing in youth talent as early as is feasible. Last year, the team found itself atop the discovery order for attacker Jaedyn Shaw, and turned down some substantial trade offers from the Spirit to sign the Texas native. Shaw would go on to score in her debut, and established herself as a first-choice player for Stoney immediately.
Developing less-experienced players has also been something of a Wave hallmark, with Stoney installing Naomi Girma as a day-one starter at center back in her rookie season. Taylor Kornieck — who has been open about a lack of position-specific coaching in college and her first pro season in Orlando — has also grown into a U.S. women’s national team player in central midfield, while winger Amirah Ali became a game-changing weapon off the bench in her rookie season.
There is something of a trend in this direction going on league-wide, with the first two NWSL draft picks this year being 18-year-old Alyssa Thompson and 20-year-old Michelle Cooper. Barcenas is the third 15-year-old to sign a deal with an NWSL club, with the first (Portland Thorns midfielder Olivia Moultrie) seeing her playing time steadily increase last season on a team that ended up winning the championship.
San Diego set another NWSL record, and got a playoff win over a gritty Red Stars side
For all the glamour and attacking talent the San Diego Wave have, the story of their debut season may just be their toughness and determination.
San Diego wore down a stubborn Chicago Red Stars side to take a 2-1 extra time win, sending a 26,215 crowd — breaking an NWSL record the Houston Dash had set just hours earlier — at Snapdragon Stadium home happy. Alex Morgan bagged a 110th minute winner after Yuki Nagasato and Emily van Egmond had scored for each side in regulation.
A stunning mistake gave Chicago an unexpected lead. Kailen Sheridan, who is contending for NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year, is known for being sure-footed in possession. However, collecting the ball just outside the San Diego box in the 10th minute, she seemed to be caught between two choices in distribution, eventually badly under-hitting a pass attempt that rolled right towards Yuki Nagasato.
Accepting the gift, the veteran did what veterans do, calmly scooping the ball over Sheridan and into an empty net from 24 yards.
It’s bad to fall behind early in a playoff game, but it’s even worse to fall behind against this Red Stars team. In the 2022 regular season, Chicago had never lost a match in which they took a lead.
A major reason they managed that record was that Chicago is a team full of veteran technicians that know how to control a game. The Red Stars showed plenty of guile in possession, patiently making San Diego chase for long spells in what was one of their best halves of the entire year.
Adjustments were needed, and late in the half San Diego finally started connecting in their attempts to go direct and figuring out how to set up shop to complicate things for the visitors. Wave coach Casey Stoney could be seen using stoppages in play to talk her side through those alterations, and they started to take hold.
“We were getting outnumbered in certain areas,” Stoney told reporters post-game. “I think once we went to a 4-4-2, we looked a little more structured. We could get pressure higher up, and that really helped us.”
Chicago agreed that the shift from San Diego had a huge impact. “I think they changed formations a little bit, or at least tactics a little bit, and put four on the front line,” said Red Stars goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. “They looked to use (Taylor) Kornieck, and then their speed up front to overload and create some different chances.”
The changes from San Diego expanded to include Sofia Jakobsson, who entered at halftime, and she played a major role in the Wave’s equalizer. Engineering some isolation on the flank against Zoe Morse, Jakobsson played a dangerous cross that Chicago couldn’t fully clear, with Emily van Egmond volleying home amid the resulting chaos.
The Red Stars were hardly parking the bus, but the intensity required to play San Diego began to clearly take its toll. The Wave were seizing more control as full time approached, with Chicago simply not having enough in the tank to push back with consistency.
Extra time was more of a curse than a blessing for Chicago as a result, and while they did have a couple of chances, it felt like there could only be one winner.
The path there — an angled low shot designed to create a rebound that bounced just barely below Alyssa Naeher’s dive, slipping into the bottom corner — wasn’t expected, but Alex Morgan being the goalscorer? In 2022, that’s absolutely in the script.
San Diego’s reward for chipping away at Chicago’s resolve until they finally found their way through? A daunting trip to Portland, where they’ll face the Thorns next Sunday, October 23, at 5:00pm Eastern.
