NWSL Week 2 Recap- A Seattle trainwreck, a youth takeover in Houston, and Chicago surprise KC
- Kielbj
- Mar 27
- 7 min read
Before we get into this week, apologies for a very late and abbreviated version of the recap, and to the teams (Utah, North Carolina, Louisville, and Gotham) who I have not yet covered. We will get to all four sides next week. Most of this was also written before the midweek games, so to Seattle: Good job on the rebound. To KC: You definitely have problems!
Denver's shape
The first game of Week 2 saw Denver take on Orlando at Exploria stadium with Yaz Ryan's debut coming with it.
Denver's shape has been similar to what we saw through the preseason: mostly very narrow with the width provided by the FBs. The whole early season ship seems to be built around RB Ayo Oke, who is Denver's only real speed outlet with the current edition of the roster. Denver started Yuna McCormack and Ryan, both more natural attacking midfielders, on the wings in their typical 4-2-3-1. McCormack had a few nice moments, but mostly kinda drifted around, with Natasha Flint and Ryan playing similar roles centrally and on the left Denver was virtually running a "clear out the right side" for Oke for most of the first half. Midfielders were intentionally looking for the long diagonals across the young RB early on. Here's a nice driven diagonal from the left side to Oke:
And here's another one minutes later:
The problem came in behind. Orlando made a few nice adjustments in the second half and dropped midfielder Haley McCutcheon a little lower to cover Oke even when Jacquie Ovalle was pushed high up the field. With Oke still high to provide the width, Denver started to suffer a bit once Orlando finally got control of the ball. It felt like Denver were playing a little hyper-aggressive after being forced to play down a player in Week 1, and it showed- Barbra Banda was frequently able to make her always-dangerous darting runs in behind the holding midfield duo of Regan and Devin Lynch, neither of whom did particularly well to track Orlando's runners.
Even with today's devastating announcement that rookie Jasmine Aikey tore her ACL and will miss the remainder of the season, Denver has some good things going. Sheehan should stabilize what's been a slightly shaky double pivot, Melissa Kössler looks to be more than just a hold-up striker, and Oke looks the part of a bonafide star, even if she will (or her manager will, at least) need to figure out the positional balance. It'll need a little calibration from Cushing, but expansion sides always do.
A disjointed Orlando improve, but still have a ways to go.
For the first 20 minutes, I was very worried about Orlando following a bad loss to Seattle in Week 1. Outside of a few "Imma do it myself" runs in behind by Barbra Banda, Denver had much the better of the early part of the match, Orlando struggling to locate Oke on the right wing and letting Ryan and McCormack float into dangerous pockets.
After that initial spell, however, Orlando figured some things out. Fullbacks Cori Dyke and Oihane Hernandez started getting forward a little more, meaning that Denver's Carson Pickett and Oke were pinned back and natural attacking midfielders McCormack and Ryan had to track. Angelina's introduction at halftime brought some much needed control to the central midfield, and Orlando were much the better side for most of the remainder of the match. Denver keeper Abby Smith made a number of decent saves (and had one near disaster on a Banda effort), and the Pride were unable to break through.
Orlando look like they're steadily improving, however, and a seemingly rejuvenated Chicago side should be a good midweek test.
Seattle brings shame to their City
On Friday night in Portland, the Seattle Reign put in what was, truly, one of the most disgraceful performances I've ever seen from a professional soccer team despite, yes, the travel nightmare and injury problems they had to deal with the week of the Cascadia Rivalry.
Portland started out much the better side with eleven on the field, and only got better after Cassandra Bogere's quickfire double yellow got her sent off early. Portland was first to every ball. Jessie Fleming was essentially covering two positions, and Seattle could not find an outlet through the middle of the field, consistently attempting to force crosses into a packed Portland penalty area. Portland's first goal came from a corner which never should have happened in the first place, Seattle CB Emily Mason wrongly assuming the ball was going out for a goal kick instead of a corner. From the ensuing corner, Pietra Tordin headed home unmarked, and Portland had the lead they would hold for the whole 90.
Struggling to break down a low block against 10 players in a rowdy Providence Park in a rivalry game is one thing, but Portland's second goal simply came from a gorgeous team move back to front, slicing through a virtually non-existent Seattle midfield before Reilyn Turner finished off a gorgeous Tordin through ball for the Thorns' second. Seattle had a few moments of pressure at the end of the half, but still generated next to no real opportunities. Even after Reyna Reyes was sent off early in the second half, Seattle STILL didn't generate anything, finishing the match with an absolutely astonishing 0.95 xG, somehow LOWER than Portland's 1.04.
Seattle had no idea how to break down Portland's nine women, even with Sophia Wilson essentially playing as a (very effective) outlet for her 40-odd minutes. Ready to be disgusted? Here are what most of Seattle's attacking efforts playing against nine exhausted Thorns looked like:
Exhibit A: Madison Curry to no one:
Exhibit B: Phoebe McClernon potshot:
Exhibit C: Dahlien, cross straight to the keeper:
Exhibit D: And then, possibly the worst of the bunch, Angharad James-Turner, straight to Messner from deeeep:
I'm not sure how it really could have gone much worse for the Reign. Messner hardly had to make a save: Seattle generated just one big chance all match, and forced Messner into just two (yes, TWO) saves, one coming on a late Sofia Huerta freekick.
Really, really bad, Laura!
Houston's kids showing out
On a more positive note, let's talk about the new-look Houston Dash and their fleet of talented children, who ran all over Boston in a 3-0 win in Houston.
After losing both Yaz Ryan and Delanie Sheehan to Denver midweek, Fabrice Gautrat did some tinkering. Houston moved to more of a 4-4-2, with Kiki Van Zanten playing next to MaKenzy Robbe up top, and Tabacco Road rooks Kat Rader and Linda Ullmark taking up the wings. It wasn't really a 4-4-2 in the traditional sense, however, with Van Zanten given the license to roam and Robbe checking deep to receive the ball herself. Rader and Ullmark were the highest players throughout the match, forcing Boston's wingbacks
It was a really smart game plan from Gautrat. We have seen that Boston, through two games, are going to get right on the back of you to try to make sure runners don't get faced forward against their back three. Houston's solution was just pushing the wingers high into the gap between the outside CBs and the wingbacks, and dropping the two forwards deep into space in order to draw Boston's CBs and holding midfielders onto their backs. And it worked over and over again, Houston's wingers and forwards taking advantage of Boston's over eager tendencies with some nice out-balls and a few really cool skillchecks.
Here's an example of what was happening most of the night, Van Zanten taking advantage of a bad overcommit by Boston six Annie Karich to dummy through on goal:
We haven't seen a team do quite what it looks like Houston is doing in 2026, and it's extremely intriguing. Even with Kate Faase out with injury, the Dash started three rookies in Rader, Ullmark, and Klenke to go next to second year midfielder Maggie Graham. With Faase back, over a third of Houston's preferred starting 11 with have attended either Duke or North Carolina within the last three years, and nearly half the 11 will consist of first or second year players who were near the top of the prospect list. If they can use the Sheehan/Ryan cash to supplement that midfield a little more, Houston's going to get really interesting because I think Gautrat has the juice.
Kansas City's central midfield problem
The shock result of the weekend came on a windy afternoon on the banks of Lake Michigan, where the Chicago Stars beat the Kansas City Current 2-1.
They were never going to match the heights of last year's edition and admittedly missing the league MVP along with working a few other key players in Michelle Cooper and Lo Labonta back to full game state, but it's hard to watch the Current and not see a Claire Hutton-sized hole in the middle of the field. Kansas City scored an absurd amount of goals in 2025, but it was their defensive structure, led by Hutton at the base of the midfield, that really allowed them to suffocate opponents despite a relatively average backline purely from a talent perspective.
On Sunday, Chicago attacking midfielder Julia Grosso absolutely LIVED in Zone 14, or the area of the field just outside Kansas City's penalty area. Kansas City started young RB Katie Scott next to Labonta in defensive midfield and it showed. Time after time, Grosso picked up the ball in space and either took the ball herself or combined with Ryan Gareis on the Chicago left. The gap between KC RB Ellie Bravo-Young and Scott was
Here are a couple clips from either side of half time. First, look at the space Grosso has throughout the first clip, just drifting into big spaces in between the lines. This is good from Chicago, but oh so disconnected from the Current.
Here's another one, with Grosso playing a few combinations in midfield with Scott haplessly chasing her around:
KC should figure some things out as time goes on, they'll still frequently just need to outscore teams, and, if anything, Chawinga's immense defensive presence will help the many instances we saw Chicago wingers isolated on FBs, but the second central midfielder question is a very real one. It's not ALL just missing Hutton, but the decision to spend big on Croix Bethune just as they lost their six seems bizarre at best, even though Bethune has had no trouble at all fitting into KC's attacking set-up. Kansas City simply lacks a true six, and certainly one with half the ability of Hutton. In a salary capped league, it's hard to see the logic in the current state of KC's roster build given how many talented attackers and attacking midfielders they already had.
Goal of the week: Sofia Cantore vs. Louisville
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