2025 KC Current Season: A Reflection

In an ever-so-slightly different universe, I would be sitting down to write the preview article for the semifinal match of KC versus Orlando. Unfortunately, we’re not in that universe and so I’m left to compile thoughts about the now concluded 2025 Current season.

Most thoughts seem to fall neatly into two general and rather opposing categories: disappointment and pride. Let’s get the former out of the way first.

Disappointment 

This is not the way this season was supposed to end. Current fans have been spoiled all year by a never-ending chorus of effusive praise for the team they support, but suddenly all the headlines went from describing this team as inevitable, to discussing their “shocking” exit from the playoffs. Anyone who dared venture onto social media after Sunday’s match likely spotted posts like this.

The greatest season in NWSL history will now need to have an asterisk attached: *Greatest regular season in NWSL history.

A season ago, local fans had to watch as the Orlando Pride came to CPKC Stadium and put the finishing touches on a remarkable 2024 campaign. This year was supposed to be KC’s turn to do that. The team did just about everything right…for 26 weeks. As soon as the 27th week of the season (importantly, the first week of the postseason) rolled around, they got outplayed in their own fortress in front of their own fans (who braved frigid temperatures to support the team they love). Gotham outshot, out-muscled, and seemingly out-wanted the Current on their way to joining three other recent champions in the round of four. Washington, Portland, Gotham, and Orlando are starting to form their own little exclusive club of winners as they took the title in 2021, 2022, 2023, & 2024 respectively. Kansas City will need to find a way to be more than just a speedbump for these other teams on their way to glory–the last three times KC has made it to the postseason they have been knocked out by some member of this group.

Team owners Chris and Angie Long talk openly about their desire for the Current to be not just the best team in the NWSL, but to qualify for the Club World Cup and be the best team in the world. Recent postseason results after promising seasons will need to change in order to get anywhere close to that goal.

The nominees for league awards were recently announced and the one that should be an absolute open-and-shut case is Temwa Chawinga for MVP. The Kansas City Current had an amazing season, but it was made possible first and foremost by Chawinga. As was proven over the final three matches, this team is rather lost without their Malawian star. They trailed in all three of those matches (after trailing for only a handful of minutes all season) and ended up losing two of those. Yes, Chawinga scores a lot of goals (as evidenced by her back-to-back Golden Boot awards), but she really is the engine that makes the Current go. She’s the outlet when the pressure gets too great. She’s the speedy defender when the other team tries to counterattack. She is, quite simply, the MVP of the best team this league has ever seen.

But…she’s still human. And she still can get injured. And KC needs to develop a better plan moving forward in case she again suffers an injury at an inopportune time.

The Current can bemoan their rotten luck of being without their talisman forward to start the postseason (not to mention Michelle Cooper, Vanessa DiBernardo, Alana Cook, etc.). However, that argument carries only so much weight as a quick glance at the other teams still in contention for the Championship reveals that they are all sans key attacking pieces.

Gotham FC, the team that just marched into Kansas City and spoiled the party, was without their own star striker, Esther González–the runner up to Chawinga in the Golden Boot Race.

The Orlando Pride, the team who should be headed to the Midwest this weekend, but are instead getting to (again) host the semifinal have been without their own African superstar, Barbra Banda, who was injured in Kansas City back in August and was lost for the season.

The Washington Spirit, the second seeded team who managed to avoid their own upset bid, have been without one of the highest profile women athletes in the world, Trinity Rodman, for much of the season, including their quarterfinal victory.

The Portland Thorns employ another member of the USWNT’s “Triple Espresso” in Sophia Wilson, but have navigated the entire season without her services as she welcomed her first child.

Admittedly, with the exception of Esther, each of these other absences happened earlier in the season, allowing the teams time to adjust to their new realities. After Banda went down, Orlando proceeded to lose four of their next five league matches and nearly fell out of the playoffs. But they were able to turn things around and now haven’t lost since the middle of September.

If Chawinga’s injury had happened at a similar time for Kansas City, perhaps the team would have figured out how to play better in her absence. Regardless, for a team that boasts such depth, their fortunes shouldn’t hinge so completely on a single player.

Everything about Sunday’s match likely felt especially cruel for Kansas City fans. From the lineup reveal (no Chawinga, no Cooper), to a first half in which they were outshot, to conceding a goal due to an error from the team’s stalwart centerback (Sharples), to having hope briefly revived through a late equalizer, to having multiple point blank or one-on-one chances missed (LaBonta, Prince, etc.), to being seconds away from a shootout, to somehow completely losing a mark in the box when there are literally 21 players in that area.

This will definitively feel like one that got away. This will also be the last time this specific team takes the field together. Some of those dominos have already started to fall with players like Hailie Mace announcing her departure. Several other players, including MVP candidate Bia Zaneratto, are out of contract with a return to KC uncertain. So, for a team that toiled together so successfully for nine months, to not get to go out on top is a major letdown.

With all that said, we can’t forget about those nine months and 21 victories that came before this week. So, let’s shift focus now to other sorts of feelings.

Pride 

As much as fans may currently be coping with the sadness of the weekend and the “what could have been,” those sensations will fade and recognition of just how remarkable this season has been for the Current will be the main takeaway from 2025.

It’s been written about many times already, but it’s worth remembering just how dominate Kansas City was. They set so many records, many of which may never be touched. Points, Wins, Shutouts, Goal Differential, Home Wins, Road Wins, Shutout Streak, Goals Conceded, etc. For so much of the season, this team just felt untouchable, inevitable. Late in the summer, it was reasonable to wonder if an opponent would ever score on the Current again. That’s not normal.

Of course there have been good teams throughout the history of the NWSL, but there has never been a team like this.

Kansas City secured a playoff spot and then the #1 seed so early in the fall that the final couple of months didn’t actually matter. Again, that’s not normal.

Individually, several KC athletes achieved new notoriety this season: Chawinga went back-to-back in earning the Golden Boot and Lorena entered the league and immediately set about establishing a new shutout record for keepers. Players like Bia and Debinha made their way back into the Brazil national team picture while many young (and not so young) American athletes debuted for the USWNT: Cooper, Hutton, Rodriguez, LaBonta. Alana Cook also made her way back into the national team scene after a couple-year absence.

Back in the summer of 2024, when the league established the Summer Cup to fill the Olympic break, Kansas City had a leg up on many of their opponents because very few of their team members were absent. Moving forward, that will no longer be a “luxury” KC enjoys as a majority of the starting 11 (and several key reserves) spent time with their national squads this year. Undoubtedly, these players are getting these callups in large part because of the success the Current have experienced.

A quick search for the best regular seasons in the other major American sports yields these results: 2007 New England Patriots (NFL), 2001 Seattle Mariners (MLB), 2015-16 Golden State Warriors (NBA), 2022-23 Boston Bruins (NHL), 2024 Inter Miami (MLS), and the 2023 Las Vegas Aces (WNBA). With the exception of the Aces, there is a curious connection all these other teams share with the 2025 Kansas City Current. None of them won the championship.

It bears repeating that in most soccer leagues around the world, playoffs don’t exist; the regular season counts for more than just figuring out playoff seeding. If this were true in the United States all of the teams listed above would have been champs instead of just the one.

If we even just jump back two years in the NWSL, the top seed earned a bye in the playoffs. If that were still the case, the Current would have been through to the semifinals and players like Chawinga and Cooper would have had another week to recover.

It’s true that the Current fell short of their ultimate goal, but this season was not without its hardware. After establishing a trophy case in 2024 with titles in the Summer Cup and the Women’s Cup, 2025 saw them add the Teal Rising Cup and, most significantly, the NWSL Shield. Additionally, by securing the Shield, the Current earned a spot in the next iteration of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup and a victory there could see them through to the Club World Cup and a chance to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Chelsea and Barcelona.

Basically, in so many ways this was an incredibly successful season for the Kansas City Current and in just one way it wasn’t. Yes, that one way really stings right now, but the future remains very bright for this club. There will be no resting on laurels because they’re not satisfied. From owners to coaches to players to fans, the Current will enter 2026 hungry.

Next year may well be the year they put it all together.