NWSL Week 14 preview and fixtures: Things aren’t going well for the Washington Spirit

Thirteen games. That’s how long the 2013 Washington Spirit went between wins. After a sort-of-promising start to the season (1-2-3 in the first six games), the Spirit had gone into a full-on free fall. Through those 13 games, Washington managed just a single point from a 1-1 draw with Kansas City. The other 12 were all losses, most of them ugly, a few downright embarrassing.

After beating Seattle, the only other team in the league that was on Washington’s (very low) level, 4-2, on May 16, the Spirit went on a run in which they didn’t even score a single goal for five straight games. In total, through the 13 games Washington went without a win, the Spirit was outscored 29-4, and two of those four goals came in one game.

If ever there was argument for relegation in NWSL, Washington’s inaugural season was about as strong a case as you could make. The Spirit finished the 2013 season dead last, with a 3-14-5 record, a minus-23 goal differential and just 14 points, 24 behind Shield winners Western NY and 22 out of a playoff spot. In the years since, no team has won fewer than three games in a season. Only one team — Boston — has had a worse season, going 3-15-2 a year ago.

Whatever bad thing was happening in Washington in 2013, the Spirit immediately made changes to ensure it wouldn’t continue. Mark Parsons, who’d been brought in halfway through the 2013 season, signed on for a full year. Though the results hadn’t come immediately, the Spirit’s mentality had at least started to change once Parsons took over. Now they’d have him around for a full season. Washington also had the first pick in the 2014 draft, and they’d used it on a promising young forward out of North Carolina named Crystal Dunn.

The Spirit had also, somehow, kept a solid core of players including Ashlyn Harris, Ali Krieger, Diana Matheson, Tori Huster and Lori Lindsey. Around them, Parsons started to build his Spirit team. Washington brought in Yael Averbuch and Jodie Taylor, who’d both been playing in Sweden, traded for Christine Nairn (just ignore the part where the thing the Spirit traded to get her was the rights to Kim Little) and Lisa DeVanna, signed Jordan Angeli and Renee Cuellar, the latter an allocated player from the Mexico WNT who’d spent the previous season with FC Kansas City, and picked up German legend Kerstin Garefrekes on loan from FFC Frankfurt.

The new-look Spirit backed up all that rebuilding on the field, too. A year after finishing dead last, Washington was in the playoffs as the fourth-place team, and though there were still problems (one of the worst goals-against numbers in the league, for example), things had definitely improved. And for the next three seasons, that Washington Spirit — perennial playoff contender — was the one we all got to know.

In 2014 and 2015, Washington finished in fourth. In 2016, Washington finished in second, and after being bounced out of the postseason each of the previous two years by Seattle, this time, the Spirit won its playoff game, knocking off Chicago and booking a trip to Houston for a meeting with Western NY in the championship game. There, Washington came within seconds of lifting the trophy, a worst-to-first story that even Seattle, two-time Shield winners and two-time title game losers, couldn’t compete with.

Houston though, is where the Spirit’s dream started to die. Lynn Williams playing Abby Wambach to Washington’s Brazil with a 124th-minute goal, then three saves from Sabrina D’Angelo in the shootout to give Western NY the win and the trophy. The beginning of the end.

Washington is still, of course, here, but that Spirit team, the one that made it all the way to the edge of victory, feels like a distant memory now. The worst-to-first thing works in reverse sometimes, too.

Before the 2016 season, Parsons had headed west to Portland and Harris went home to Florida to play for the then-expansion Pride. Washington had withstood those things though, bringing in Jim Gabarra, who’d been in Washington with the Freedom in both the WUSA and WPS days to take over as head coach, and platooning Stephanie Labbe and Kelsey Wys in goal. But between the time confetti fell around the Flash in Houston at the end of last season and when this season kicked off in April, just about everyone else hightailed it out of Washington, too.

Krieger and Matheson, two of just three players left from the 2013 team, are both gone now, leaving Huster as the only remaining Spirit original. Krieger went to Orlando, while Matheson, though injured, headed to Seattle. Dunn, who turned a disappointing rookie season into an MVP one the following year, is now playing for Chelsea in England. Nairn is back in Seattle. Estefania Banini, who scored five goals last season, left for Spain and just returned to Washington at the beginning of July. Wys has yet to play a game due to injury, and Joanna Lohman tore her ACL 20 minutes into the first game of the season. Cali Farquharson, who had a promising rookie season cut short by injury last year, just returned to the active roster last week. And now Francisca Ordega, who’s Washington’s leading scorer with four of the Spirit’s 16 goals, is out until at least the end of August with a knee injury.

And for all of this, what has Washington done? Well, for one, the Spirit signed Mallory Pugh in May. Washington also…well…no, Pugh is pretty much it. Losing Dunn, Matheson and Nairn was a big blow to Washington’s offensive corps. Now Ordega and Lohman are also out. Washington scored 30 goals last season. Those five players were responsible for 15 of them.

The addition of Pugh, who’s got three goals in six games, has certainly helped at least soften the blow, and Banini’s return to Washington will further bolster the offense. But scoring is also a part — and only a small part, there are three teams that are all worse than Washington offensively — of what’s wrong with the Spirit.

Most of Washington’s problems this season come from farther back on the field, where Labbe has had way, way, way too much work to do. Through 13 games, Labbe’s made 58 saves, more than anyone except Sky Blue’s Kailen Sheridan. Krieger’s departure in particular left a big hole in the Spirit’s back line, and more than halfway through this season, Washington still hasn’t figured out how to fill it.

Last Saturday, the Spirit lost 2-1 to Houston. The good news is that both of the Dash’s goals — one off a deflection following a short corner and the other an arcing shot from distance from Andressinha — would have been difficult for most teams to stop. But that doesn’t mean Washington had a good game defensively. The Spirit struggled to clear the ball several times, and Houston was repeatedly able to exploit holes in the back line, leaving the Spirit defense either chasing, watching, or both.

Things aren’t going to get any easier for Washington, either. The Spirit will face the Thorns in Portland on Saturday night. Then, following a week off for FIFA dates, they’ll travel to New Jersey to take on Sky Blue FC. That’s two games against two of the league’s hottest teams — more bad news for a Spirit team that’s currently pretty ice cold.

All times Eastern

Chicago Red Stars vs. Orlando Pride, 3:30 p.m., Toyota Park (Lifetime)

FC Kansas City vs. North Carolina Courage, 8 p.m., Children’s Mercy Victory Field (go90)

Houston Dash vs. Boston Breakers, 8:30 p.m., BBVA Compass Stadium (go90)

Seattle Reign FC vs. Sky Blue FC, 10 p.m., Memorial Stadium (go90)

Portland Thorns FC vs. Washington Spirit, 10 p.m., Providence Park (go90)