NWSL Week 5 preview and fixtures: North Carolina still looks good, and everyone else has problems

It makes sense that there are bad teams in NWSL. Even in a relatively small league, and one that initially preached parity and instilled and installed it with the way the top tier players were allocated in the early days, there’s always been a gap between the big teams at the top and everyone else. Some teams jell better than others, or are coached better than others, or get bit by injuries or any one of 1,000 other things that could go wrong — or right — in a season.

As the league has grown though, every team has become more autonomous, left to build whatever it is they’re going to build. And big picture, that’s a positive. All the kids don’t get the same exact lunch, and I’m always going to be jealous of your Lunchable and Capri Sun because all my mom sent me with was an apple and a tiny juice box that is, for some ungodly reason, grape.

That’s kind of how professional sports are supposed to work, though. If you’re a team like Portland, you’re always going to be able to attract whomever you want. The Chicagos and Sky Blues will have to focus more on building from within, and the Bostons and Houstons of the world are just going to keep having to pretend they like grape juice. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes you save up enough of your emergency payphone quarters to buy a Styrofoam soup cup of tater tots in the cafeteria.

Still, as we move away from the forced parity that we saw in the early days, you’d sort-of expect, or at least hope, that everyone would have at least started to figure it out by now. There’s always going to be teams like the 2014 Reign or, apparently, this year’s Courage, that run away with the thing, at least initially. But how is it that everyone else this year seems so far behind?

As we approach the quarter mark of the season, it’s getting harder and harder to chalk up the struggles of seemingly everyone that’s not North Carolina to things like it still being early or slow starts or so-and-so hasn’t arrived.

Orlando, at the bottom of the table as the league’s only winless team, got a pretty good replacement for Alex Morgan in Marta, but bringing in one Brazilian does not a team make. The Pride might be good once Morgan returns from France, sure. But it’s also hard to see how. Morgan makes a good running mate for Marta, but her presence doesn’t fix the fact that Orlando’s midfield has been mostly ineffective.

Marta might be the league’s most talented striker, but she’s not going to score much without any kind of quality service behind her. And even if that improves as the season goes on, that’s only half the Pride’s problem. Orlando, with the worst goal differential in the league, is also kind of a mess defensively. Ali Krieger, as an outside back who’s good going forward, could probably at least partially help with both of these problems, but she’s instead ended up in the center of the Pride’s back line a few times this season.

And the rest of Orlando’s defense has struggled with any kind of cohesion for long stretches — it’s allowed more shots on target than any other team except for Washington. The Pride managed a 1-1 draw with FC Kansas City last weekend, and though the point is certainly a positive, that they had the lead for only 11 minutes before conceding the tying goal, and that they only really needed to hold onto that lead for 17 minutes to win the game, is not great.

Thanks to that draw against the Pride, FC Kansas City managed to stay two points ahead of Orlando and not in last place for another week, but that’s little consolation for the Blues. FCKC isn’t a bad team defensively; the three goals they’ve allowed is on pace with some of the league’s top teams. Where Kansas City has fallen behind is in the offense department.

The Blues looked strong and with Amy Rodriguez and Sydney Leroux both finally back — like they could have one of the best attacking tandems in the league. That though, was short-lived. A-Rod’s season-ending ACL injury exposed the Blue’s attack as something pretty one-note, and it’s one they’ve apparently already forgotten how to play. Left virtually alone to carry the scoring load, Leroux’s all but disappeared by a midfield that lacks any kind of cohesion with either the defense or the forward line. Kansas City has scored only three goals this season, and two of them came on opening weekend.

The Blues, though, are not alone in the one-win club. Sky Blue, Washington, and Seattle have all also only won once, which probably should be mathematically impossible but somehow isn’t. Both Sky Blue and Washington have struggled defensively, and if not for goalkeepers Kailen Sheridan and Stephanie Labbe, both would probably be in even worse shape.

Without Christie Pearce, Sky’s Blue’s been a disaster defensively and things aren’t much better for Washington, where Labbe’s had to turn in huge performances every week just to keep things close. Just how disorganized are both of these teams defensively? When they played each other last weekend, the two combined for seven goals. Literally combined, like Francisca Ordega set up Erin Simon for one of the goals and they are on opposite teams.

It’s a similar story from Seattle, where Hayley Kopmeyer has played a big part in keeping things from getting really bad at least once this season. The Reign is the league’s highest scoring team, with eight goals on the season. But considering five of them came in one game, it’s maybe not as impressive as it initially looks.

You’d think here, as we get into the top five teams, is where there would be some big jump. The bottom of the table may be redefining disorganized on a weekly basis, but certainly the top half of the table must have its act together, no? Turns out, no. Beyond the fact that it’s just confusing to look at, with both Boston and Houston up there, none of these supposed top teams has really looked consistently good, either.

Boston is certainly improved, but the Breakers are definitely also still working some things out. Last weekend, Boston couldn’t figure out how to adjust its game to the high pressure North Carolina was playing, and without the ability to play through with Rose Lavelle and Natasha Dowie, the Breakers mostly reverted to a previous season’s version of themselves. And Houston is apparently using the same plumber as everyone else, because the Dash is also starting to leak goals. The Dash is the only team in the top four with a negative goal differential, and at minus-three it’s worse than anyone in the league that’s not Orlando.

Chicago is perhaps the most confusing, mostly because the Red Stars were good last year and haven’t made many changes. Chicago isn’t horrible defensively — it’s allowed just three goals so far this season, and two of them came on opening day. The Red Stars problem is maybe a little in the offense department, where they’ve only scored three goals, and two of them came last weekend, because Chicago is a team that either gets shut out or gets the shutout.

Mostly though, it’s that there’s been a complete lack of consistency in what The Red Stars look like when they take the field. Julie Ertz, who is a good defender, has been shuffled farther and farther up the field with each passing week, at a rate which will put her somewhere in the opposing team’s midfield line by mid-June. And Ertz isn’t the only one involved in this game of musical chairs. Through four games, Rory Dames has used four different lineups and formations, with players like Sofia Huerta and Stephanie McCaffrey also shuffled in and out of the XI.

Even Portland hasn’t been immune to whatever it is that’s going on. With seven points, the Thorns are in second heading into this weekend, but the road there hasn’t been particularly smooth. Portland’s struggled against quick attacking teams — the Thorns couldn’t solve North Carolina in week two, and they needed an 82nd-minute goal last weekend to salvage a draw with Seattle. The Thorns looked a step slow defensively in that game, and Adrianna Franch has had some shaky moments this season.

The only team that’s looked fully formed so far this season is also the only one that’s been perfect through four games, and that’s the Courage. North Carolina isn’t without some flaws, but it does look miles ahead of everyone is the cohesiveness department. Probably, it will come for some of the others with time.

Boston looks much improved, Portland has more than enough pieces to make it work, Houston’s still got one of the best goal scorers in the league, and Sky Blue will get Pearce back sometime soon. The question right now though is whether anyone will be able to do it anytime soon. North Carolina’s already put five points between itself and second-place Portland, and the Courage will face an Orlando team they already beat 3-1 on Saturday.

With everyone else still struggling to find consistency, and with the season still early, it’s not too late for some of these other teams to correct the problems and start to turn things around. And since everyone’s in pretty much the same boat and they’re all playing each other this weekend, now could be the time it starts to happen for someone. Then the question becomes whether any of the teams can do something no one has yet this season — build off that momentum. Or all the games could just end in draws.

All times Eastern

Houston Dash vs. Sky Blue FC, 4 p.m., BBVA Compass Stadium (Lifetime)

Seattle Reign FC vs. Washington Spirit, 4 p.m., Memorial Stadium (go90)

FC Kansas City vs. Portland Thorns FC, 4 p.m., Children’s Mercy Victory Field (go90)

Orlando Pride vs. North Carolina Courage, 5 p.m., Orlando City Stadium (go90)

Chicago Red Stars vs. Boston Breakers, 6 p.m., Toyota Park (go90)