The Red Stars are a team that’s shown clear improvement from year to year; a kind of slow build that’s started to reap better rewards with each season. In 2013, Chicago finished in fifth, failing to make the playoffs and continuing a tradition the team had started in WPS of always falling just short.
A season later, the Red Stars finished in fifth and again failed to make it to the postseason, but the signs of improvement were definitely there, and by the following season, Chicago would finally become the thing it’s always been building toward. Finally, 2015 was the year the Red Stars broke through, finishing the season in second, the club’s best-ever finish in a fully professional league. Chicago did lose to eventual champions FC Kansas City in the semifinal, but the message the Red Stars sent with just three losses in the regular season was clear: They’d finally arrived.
By the following season, that Chicago would be making another trip to the postseason seemed like a sure thing. The Red Stars had done what they’d done the year before largely on the strength of rookies and unknowns, and though the Olympics would still cause some personnel problems, Chicago was one of the teams best-equipped to handle it.
Though they couldn’t quite match what they’d done the year before, the Red Stars did indeed make it back to the playoffs for a second consecutive season, this time as the third-place finisher. And the Red Stars came closer to a trip to the final than they had the previous year, too. Where they’d been practically run over by FCKC to the tune of a 3-0 loss the year before, in 2016, Washington needed extra time and a 111th minute goal to kill off the Red Stars.
It’s what makes this year’s Red Stars, or at least this year’s Red Stars so far, kind of confusing.
There’s been almost no turnover from a season ago, and with no Olympics or World Cup, they have Christen Press, Julie Ertz, and Alyssa Naeher around full time. Press is one of the league’s best scoring threats, Ertz is a top defender, and Naeher’s finally on a team where she’s not just winning Goalkeeper of the Year for steadfastly serving as target practice for opposing offenses.
This was supposed to be the year when Chicago’s slow build finally turned into something tangible. A trip to the postseason, yes, definitely, and maybe finally some shiny hardware, too. With Press in particular, Chicago finally had the one piece that would fully put it into the category of the NWSL’s elite teams.
Things haven’t worked out that way though.
Press has played all 270 minutes of the season, and though she’s had some chances, her biggest contribution so far has been the handball that led to a Portland penalty kick last weekend. Through three games, she hasn’t registered a single point, which is a worrying stat for Chicago on its own, and even more concerning when it’s considered alongside the fact that as a team, the Red Stars have scored just a single goal.
Chicago’s won just once: a 1-0 win in Week 2 over an FCKC team that’s experiencing a scoring drought so bad that other teams might have to start conserving goals soon. The other two games Chicago’s played were both losses: 1-0 to the Thorns last weekend and 2-0 to the Dash in Week 1.
Houston is the team Chicago will take on again this week, and the Dash aren’t exactly having the season they were supposed to, either. After losing Carli Lloyd to Manchester City for the first two-plus months of the season, it was hard to see how Houston would be able to consistently compete with some of the league’s top-tier teams. And yet, through three weeks, the Dash are sitting comfortably in fourth, with six points and a 2-1-0 record that’s identical to both Portland and Boston, the two teams technically (thanks to goal differential) above them on the table.
Kealia Ohai, who finished 2016 with 11 goals, has continued her hot streak, scoring two goals in the first three games of this season. Rachel Daly, who was one of 2016’s top rookies, already has one goal so far in 2017, and after falling out of favor with the England WNT ahead of this summer’s Euros, Daly could have a Crystal Dunn-in-2015-kind-of season this year.
Houston is far from perfect though. The Dash’s one loss this season was particularly ugly — a 5-1 drubbing courtesy of the Reign in Week 2. That game exposed major holes in the Dash’s game, with a curious goalkeeping selection from Randy Waldrum compounded by some terrible defending. And once things started to go wrong for Houston, that the team got worse so fast is the mark of a team that’s still relatively young and inexperienced.
All that could help Chicago solve the Dash this weekend, their second meeting of the season. Though the Red Stars aren’t quite as technical or quick on the breakout as the Reign, Chicago can certainly learn from what Seattle was able to do to beat Houston two weeks ago. The constant pressure the Reign put on the Dash’s defense undid Houston in that game, forcing bad turnovers and wayward clearances.
That Houston was able to bounce back after that loss, getting a win last weekend against the Spirit, is a positive sign for the Dash. But Houston also can’t get complacent just because it’s already beaten this Red Stars team once this season.
Chicago is, historically, one of the league’s streakiest teams; more than once it’s put together months-long unbeaten runs that were followed immediately by equally long losing streaks. The Red Stars also lost to the Dash in the season opener in 2016, and Houston is always a team Chicago has struggled against even when things were going well everywhere else. Since 2014, Houston’s first season in the league, Chicago is 3-4-1 against the Dash.
Chicago has also slowly been improving, starting with holding the Thorn’s usually potent offense to just a single penalty-kick goal last weekend. Ertz’s move to the midfield gave Chicago a different look, and Press is starting to get better chances, too.
It is, of course, still too early to tell whether the kind of season either team has had so far is sustainable for the long term. The Dash had an almost identically strong start, one minor hiccup and all, a season ago, before things went all Humpty Dumpty right off the wall in mid-May. And with so few changes from the team that looked way better than this one a year ago, it’s probably only a matter of time before the Red Stars turn this season around.
Or Houston could beat Chicago again on Saturday, and we’ll all find out we’ve been watching the NWSL version of the greatest body switch movie of all time.
All times Eastern
Saturday
Chicago Red Stars vs. Houston Dash, 4 p.m., Toyota Park (Lifetime)
Washington Spirit vs. Sky Blue FC, 7 p.m., Maryland SoccerPlex (go90)
Portland Thorns FC vs. Seattle Reign FC, 10 p.m., Providence Park (go90)
Sunday
Boston Breakers vs. North Carolina Courage, 6 p.m., Jordan Field (go90)
FC Kansas City vs. Orlando Pride, 6 p.m., Children’s Mercy Victory Field (go90)