Current Well Represented in Year End Awards

This week the NWSL held their awards ceremonies for the 2025 season. The Kansas City Current were well represented in the list of finalists with Rookie of the Year being the only category where KC didn’t have a nominee. In fact, in three of the categories, KC had two finalists. It’s not surprising giving KC’s record breaking 2025 season. Of the five awards, KC though only walked away with two, the biggest player award, MVP, and Defender of the Year. That doesn’t include the league’s Golden Boot winner, which was already known to be Temwa Chawinga, who finished the season with 15 goals.

The first award announced that included a KC nominee was Goalkeeper for the Year, where Lorena walked away with the award for Kansas City. In her first season with KC, the Brazilian recorded more shutouts (14) than goals allowed (13) in 24 games for the Current in 2025.

The second award was Defender of the Year, where KC had two finalists, Izzy Rodriguez and Kayla Sharples. While this seemed another likely win for KC given their historic performance defensively, the fact they had two finalists may have split the vote as the award went to the Washington Spirit’s Tara McKeown.

The next award of the league’s ceremony was another that the Current had two nominees, with Midfielder of the Year. Kansas City’s Debinha and Claire Hutton were finalists for the award, which ended up going to the North Carolina Courage’s Manaka Matsukubo.

The award that may have frustrated Kansas City fans the most was the next award, the Coach of the Year. One year removed from having the best offense in the league’s history, KC’s Vlatko Andonovski set up the best defense in the league’s history, set the league record for points in a season, the fewest goals allowed, and the earliest to clinch the shield, but didn’t win the league’s Coach of the Year award. Instead the award went to Racing Louisville’s Beverly Yanez, who led them to a seventh place finish in the league and the first playoff berth in their club’s history.

Next up was the league’s Best XI, where the Current were well represented in the first and second team. Of the 22 spots on the two teams, KC had seven players recognized. On the first team KC led the way with five players in the Best XI including Chawinga, Hutton, Rodriguez, Sharples, and Lorena. On the second team two more of KC’s players, Bia Zaneratto and Hailie Mace were recognized for their efforts in 2025. The seven players were four more than the next most among the teams where Gotham FC had three players.

The final award of their event was the league’s MVP award. Like two of the previous awards, KC had two finalists in reigning MVP, Chawinga, and Zaneratto up for the league’s biggest individual award. After being frustrated by the last three individual awards that KC didn’t win, they won the biggest one as Chawinga won her second straight MVP award with her performance for KC. Sadly exemplified by KC’s struggles without her in the playoffs against Gotham.