Match Preview: KC Current at San Diego Wave

For the third week in a row, the Kansas City Current will be in action on a Friday night with a Prime Video national broadcast. And for the second time in that span, they’re out west for a late kickoff, this time in Southern California taking on the San Diego Wave.

The Current have six remaining regular season matches and half of those, including this weekend’s, are against teams currently sitting ahead of them in the standings. Each of these games offer Kansas City vital chances to improve their playoff positioning. These matches are the proverbial “six-point” affairs, as the difference between one team winning and earning the three points as compared to the other earning the victory amounts to a six-point swing in the table.

The Current occupy a rather precarious position with a month-and-a-half of the season left. They have earned 38 points through 24 games. (For what it’s worth, through 24 games last year, the Current had earned 62 points.) They are in seventh place, but Seattle is at 37 points and have only played 23 games. In fact, the three teams directly behind KC in the standings all have a game in hand–though they all play on Wednesday this week. Finishing as one of the top eight teams and earning a postseason berth is far from guaranteed.

However, the Current are on a four-match unbeaten streak and could easily chase down several of the teams ahead of them if they really get hot over these final weeks. They are just a single point behind fifth place and just five points out of second. Probably catching up with Gotham for the Shield is out of reach, but earning a spot in the top four (and the home playoff game that goes with that) is very much still in play. In other words, finishing anywhere from second to out of the playoffs remains a possibility for this team.

But first, the Current take a trip to the SoCal shores and face a San Diego team that has consistently occupied one of the top spots this season. Two months ago, the Wave visited Kansas City and earned a 2-2 draw with a 90th minute equalizer. The Current will be looking to improve upon that result, though they’ve been inconsistent (read: not very good) on the road this season. They are, slowly, starting to get healthier–most notably welcoming Chawinga back to the starting eleven last time out. Of course, no sooner did one MVP return, but a player having an MVP-caliber season in Croix Bethune showed up on the injury report with a hip issue.

Of course, every team is dealing with injuries at this point in the season, and that’s certainly true for San Diego as well. Just this week they placed their high-profile signing, Cat Macario, on the Season Ending Injury list. She actually hasn’t yet appeared in a game for the team, but there continued to be hope that she would recover for part of the 2026 season. Other notable names like Ludmila, Kiki Pickett, and Dudinha were absent for the Wave last weekend.

After last week’s bombshell Andonovski announcement, the Current actually had another departure this week when the team shipped rookie striker Gianna Paul off to the North Carolina Courage. In a season marred by myriad injuries and uneven results, this feels like another curious decision by the front office. And yet, it does also follow a troubling pattern of trading away young talent. Just in the past nine months, Kansas City has parted ways with Claire Hutton, Alex Pfeiffer, Ally Sentnor, Meila Brewer, Tyler McCamey, and now Gianna Paul. While it is true that rookies Laney Rouse and Amelia White have played important roles this year, it also seems like the team isn’t really interested in developing young athletes at this point. Not to mention, there have been multiple games this year when the team couldn’t even field a complete bench. Just last weekend, there were only five field players (not GKs) available for Armas as substitutes. Not really sure why this seemed like the time to ship off a promising young attacker.

But, as they’ve had to do so many times this year, the Current will need to block out the noise and focus on the task at hand. In this case, that’s downing a strong Wave team and working to solidify their playoff positioning. San Diego has an especially strong defense (only three teams have conceded fewer goals this season) and so Chawinga, Cooper, Debinha, Hopkins and crew will have to buck the trend of not being able to finish their chances and KC’s defense will have to remain strong against the Wave’s aggressive press in another chapter of the Water Wars.

WHEN: Friday, September 18 at 9:00 PM (Central Time)

WHERE: Snapdragon Stadium, San Diego, CA

HOW TO WATCH: Prime Video

Record:

KC Current: 11-5-8 (38 points, 7th place)

San Diego Wave: 13-3-8 (42 points, 4th place)

Last Match:

KC Current: 2-2 home draw versus Orlando Pride

San Diego Wave: 2-1 home win versus North Carolina Courage