This week on The IX Sports Podcast Soccer Edition, host Kathleen Gier is joined by Chicago Stars FC writer Lesley Ryder to discuss what, exactly, has gone wrong in Chicagoland.
But first, the pair jumped into the news that Seb Hines was let go by the Orlando Pride FC.
“I guess part of what surprised me is that Orlando, I mean, at 26 points, they’re in 12th place. … I don’t know that they’re actually mathematically eliminated yet. So to make a change, you know, with almost two months of the season left, feels like there might there might be something else that’s not just performance related,” Gier said.
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Then they turned to the situation in Chicagoland (the Stars currently play in Evanston, just outside Chicago). With the NWSL season set to begin in February next year, Ryder expressed concern with how cold the temperatures are likely to be in Illinois. Last year, she said, there were wind chills in the teens when the season started in March.
“My fingers are crossed that the Chicago Stars will just be on a road trip until May, because it is brutal out there. That is a cold that like whips the soul,” Ryder said.
Ryder said she thinks that the Stars have faced more criticism this year, in part because of the return of Mallory Swanson from maternity leave (she missed much of the season last year).
“It’s just … you have no sort of sense of how the team is supposed to do if you don’t have Mal Swanson on it. Like … the team is a better team when she’s on the field. That is just fact and statistic at the Chicago Stars. But you know last season you have Mal out, you have five different coaches, and so it’s hard to really put that critical lens on them,” Ryder said.
Tune in to this week’s episode to hear more analysis about what has gone wrong with one of the NWSL’s founding teams.
Make sure to subscribe to The IX Sports Podcast for in-depth coverage of women’s soccer, hockey and basketball; and tune in each weekday morning for a quick overview of the biggest headlines on Women’s Sports Daily, like WNBA news and PWHL expansion updates.
