Soccer

NWSL Week 4 in review: The end of a Seattle and Kansas City-dominated era

After four weeks, FC Kansas City and the Seattle Reign are both closer to the bottom of the table than the top. But are these early season struggles just that, or is this the beginning of a new era in the NWSL?

by Lauren Barker

May 9, 2016, 4:09 PM UTC

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

It is Aug. 2013, a hazy late summer day in Rochester. The Portland Thorns, after a come from behind extra time victory against FC Kansas City a week prior, are here to play for the NWSL championship. Despite the fact that it's a new league and its first ever title game, and despite the fact that Portland has only existed as a tangible thing for some four months, the game still feels familiar somehow. The reason can be found through the Thorns' opponent that day, the Western New York Flash.

Western NY had already won the NWSL Shield as the regular season champions, but their presence in the title game had really felt like something of a foregone conclusion since at least April, or 2010. That, 2010, is the year the Buffalo Flash won their first title, the W-League Championship. A season later, ditching Buffalo for the more general Western NY moniker, the Flash entered WPS and went on to win that league’s title, too. And the season after that, with WPS existing only as some weird fever dream we maybe had, the Flash were still at it, a third title in as many seasons, this time in the semi-professional WPSL Elite.

So, here they are now, entertain us, on the precipice of a fourth title in four years in four different leagues. Western NY promotes the hell out of this possibility, too, embracing the part where it’s pretty impressive and ignoring the part where it’s some weird sad statement on the state of the women’s game -- that there’s a team that’s been through four leagues in as many seasons.

The Flash never get that fourth title, though, and the cynic in all of us should give some small thanks here that it’s not because this league, too, had decided to close up shop mid-game in some kind of cruel joke. No, the Flash don’t get that fourth title simply because, on the day, Portland is better.

Western NY hasn’t made a postseason appearance since, and thus, the dynasty that hot dogs and other various packaged meats built finally falls.

Portland though, is not the team that assumes the throne. They also struggle, unable to reclaim the glory of that title run. Instead, it is their neighbor to the north and the team they’d once knocked out of the playoffs who take their shots at becoming the next great dynasty.

Seattle and Kansas City do an admirable job of it, too. The Reign, the team that finished 2013 just four points from the bottom of the table, put up a 29-5-10 record over the next two seasons, outscoring opponents 91-41 in 2014 and 2015 combined. Seattle’s won the NWSL Shield in both of those seasons, and made it all the way to the title game both years, too.

FC Kansas City puts up equally, if not more impressive, numbers. The Blues finished the first three seasons in NWSL with a combined 32-19-15 record and three consecutive postseason appearances -- the only team in the league to appear in the playoffs in every season. FC Kansas City has never finished lower than third, and they’ve won the last two NWSL championships.

Yes, one of these shall be the heir to the packaged meats throne! Someone with three titles (regular season or championship, I am not picky) in three years in ... the same league because nothing -- as the ‘14 Reign showed us -- is perfect.

Except, after four weeks of the 2016 season, Seattle and Kansas City are sixth and ninth in the table, respectively. The Blues have yet to win a game, and while Seattle’s won two, they’ve come against the two worst teams in the league in Boston and ... Kansas City.

It is easy to chalk up these early season struggles to all sorts of things -- injuries, or just slow stars perhaps. But after seeing something like Seattle sleepwalking through most of its game on Sunday, a 2-0 loss to Orlando, you start to wonder if maybe something more is going on.

First, there is the obvious, that nothing lasts forever. It’s only natural that as the league grows into its fourth season and beyond, other teams are going to be able to start to attract the kind of talent that Laura Harvey has in Seattle, or to build something up the way Vlakto Andonovski has in Kansas City. We’ve already seen the latter in places like Washington, Chicago and Houston, where things like patience and draft smarts have started to reap rewards.

The Spirit have retained some core players from their first season -- Diana Matheson, Ali Krieger and Tori Huster -- and built around them, making additions like Crystal Dunn (drafted by the Spirit out of college in 2014), Christine Nairn (acquired in a trade with Seattle in 2014), or Cali Farquharson (drafted in 2016). Along the way, Washington has climbed out of the basement and into a consistent spot in the top four. They’re currently atop the table as one of the season’s two remaining unbeaten teams.

The Red Stars have taken a similar route, earning a first-ever trip to the postseason last year, largely on the strength of rookies like Arin Gilliland, Danielle Colaprico and Cara Walls, and their own core of homegrown talent -- players like Jen Hoy, Vanessa DiBernardo and the now-allocated Julie Johnston, who came to the Red Stars as rookies in 2013 and 2014, and are all still with the team and have grown into key parts of the club.

It's not just that all the other teams are catching up though, because some, like Boston, Western NY and Sky Blue aren't really, at least on paper, and we've already seen Sky Blue win in Seattle and Western NY beat Kansas City this season. So what else? For Seattle, there are the injuries to a pair of key players in Jess Fishlock, who fractured her tibia two weeks ago, and Megan Rapinoe, who's still recovering from an ACL injury she sustained while with the USWNT in the winter. Seattle struggled mightily without Rapinoe in 2013, and improved by the same measure once she returned towards the end of that season. The Reign have also built up a solid roster since then, with additions like Fishlock, Kim Little and now Manon Melis.

FC Kansas City hasn't been bitten by injuries the same way Seattle has, but they too are missing key players. The difference is that for the Blues, theirs won't be returning in 4-6 weeks. FCKC lost seven key players from its 2015 team ahead of this season, and an eighth, midfielder Jen Buczkowski, announced her retirement last week and will play her final game in a Blues shirt on May 13. Buczkowski isn't the only FCKC player to hang up her cleats though, as four other Blues players -- Lauren Holiday, Liz Bogus, Amy LePeilbet and Leigh Ann Brown -- all announced their retirements after the 2015 season. LePeilbet and Brown made up half of Kansas City's back line, and a third part of that defense, Rebecca Moros, was traded to Houston in the offseason, leaving only Becky Sauerbrunn behind. Forward Sarah Hagen was traded to Orlando, and fellow striker Amy Rodriguez announced in December that she was pregnant with her second child and would miss the season.

It’s easy to see why Kansas City has scored just twice and allowed five goals through four games when you look at what they’ve lost since lifting that second trophy last October. A return to the top four may take time, and perhaps even time beyond this season. The Blues are currently in ninth, and though October is a long way away, it’s hard to see where or how the Blues could improve much on their current situation.

Seattle is in an easier spot than Kansas City in that they don’t really have to rebuild so much as sort of wait it out. The problem for the Reign in that they’ve tried that before (see: Megan Rapinoe in 2013, a few paragraphs above), and it didn’t work. The Reign looked lifeless without Fishlock in the midfield on Sunday, but that may be more an adjusting to life without one of their key playmakers thing than a permanent one. How well they do may come down to how well -- and how quickly -- they can make that adjustment.

Kansas City and Seattle both play at home next weekend, facing the Red Stars and Thorns, respectively. Buczkowski’s final game and a big rivalry match are two huge tests for teams that currently don’t look like they’ve even taken the book out of their locker in a while. We’re now a fifth of the way through the season, meaning it’s almost time for slow start to turn into just struggling. From there it’s slump and then season out of reach, unless someone can turn it around, soon.