Match Preview: KC Current at Gotham FC

Let’s start this match preview with some positive Current-adjacent news. Temwa Chawinga has helped lead Malawi to the WAFCON semifinals and with it a berth in the 2027 Women’s W0rld Cup in Brazil. Malawi entered the tournament ranked 153rd in the world and in a group with the dominate Nigerian national team. But Malawi had the, not so secret, weapons of the Chawinga sisters and they opened with a win over Nigeria and proceeded to top their group and then defeat Ghana in the quarterfinals.

A likely side benefit of Malawi’s success could be Temwa’s final ranking in the next Ballon d’Or Feminin. Over the past two years, despite winning the NWSL MVP and Golden Boot in both seasons, Temwa has ranked behind players like Marta and Barbra Banda. Part of the rational behind those rankings seems to be that both Banda and Marta have had more success with their national teams than Chawinga and the Malawi team. (Of course, this may just mean that Chawinga cracks the top-10 in the rankings as it’s well documented how much of a European bias the Ballon d’Or voters have.)

So, as much as the Kansas City Current desperately miss Chawinga in their lineup, they are also, no doubt, cheering her on as she helps her nation to its first ever appearance in next summer’s World Cup.

Meanwhile, the Current limp into New Jersey this Friday evening for a clash with the big baddies of Gotham. The women of that seemingly deep-pocket team have decided to take a different approach this season than in the recent past. Gotham has won the NWSL Championship twice over the past three years, but in both cases they squeaked into the postseason in the final playoff spot. Nineteen matches into this season, they sit in first place and have six wins and one draw over their past seven games.

The Gotham roster is a veritable who’s who of high-profile women footballers. Already with national team members and World Cup veterans on every line, they nonetheless made waves by signing striker Sam Kerr from Chelsea this summer. A lot of the league scoring records that Chawinga is chasing are held by this former Chicago and Blue Sky attacker. This is a team in vintage championship form, and who will get to host a Current side attempting just to cling to a top half of the table spot.

While it is true that the Current defeated Gotham in KC earlier this year, it is also true that Gotham have beaten the Current twice over the past year in more meaningful matches. Most recently, the “New Yorkers” bested the “Kansans” in the Challenge Cup final in late June. Prior to that, in the quarterfinals of the 2025 NWSL playoffs following the Current’s record-setting regular season, it was the Bat-Women who came to CPKC and ripped out the hearts of the team from the heartland.

As Gotham has been doing all this recent winning and adding to their roster and racing up the table, the Current have won just twice since May. Somehow, Kansas City exited the month-long summer break with more injuries than they had entering it and this lack of consistently available players has been one of the major roadblocks to the team sustaining any positive momentum. For example, the team has been having to start Katie Scott at right back, a player who would likely rank as third string if everyone was healthy.

Of course, not all of the team’s woes can be directly attributed to the injury bug. As has been well documented, the construction of this year’s roster was a bit of a headscratcher, with no obvious #6 (replacing Hutton) and no obvious #9 (replacing Bia). The year-long Sentnor experiment ended a few weeks ago when she was shipped to Angel City, but the front office hasn’t used those funds to find any immediate solutions. Perhaps they are going to go all in on the Sophia Wilson sweepstakes, but the fact remains that a team that entered 2026 expected to vie for a title is currently closer to missing the playoffs altogether.

Not for nothing, the coaching element for the Current has also at times left something to be desired. For example, Kansas City entered halftime last weekend in Houston with a lead and as the clearly better team. Then, for some reason, they went to full defensive mode for basically the entire final 45. This included removing the team’s most consistent defender in Izzy Rodriguez to go with a back four of Scott, Ball, Sharples, and Robinson from right to left. Even if this strategy had worked (it didn’t when Ball conceded a PK), it would have been an unnecessarily stressful second half as the Dash were on the attack constantly.

Friday’s match presents the Current with an opportunity to start rewriting the narrative on their season. They have really struggled on the road and enter down some of their best weapons and without much in the way of recent positive results. But in order to successfully change what people are saying, they’ll have to produce against the stiffest competition the NWSL currently has to offer. The “win probability” for this weekend’s game has the hosts with more than double the chances of KC to walk away with the W. That’s a stat that would have absolutely never happened last season.

WHEN: Friday, August 14 at 7:00 PM (Central Time)

WHERE: Sport Illustrated Stadium, Harrison, NJ

HOW TO WATCH: Prime Video

Record:

KC Current: 9-3-7 (30 points, 7th place)

Gotham FC: 12-4-3 (40 points, 1st place)

Last Match:

KC Current: 1-1 road draw at Houston Dash

Gotham FC: 1-0 home win over San Diego Wave