The Chicago Stars Have Won Four Games. Something Has to Change.

SWN Analysis · September 6, 2026

Chicago Stars FC sit near the bottom of the NWSL table with four wins on the season, on the outside of a playoff picture that admits eight of the league’s teams.

It’s the second straight year the club has finished among the league’s worst, and it comes after an offseason specifically designed to stop that from happening.

Last season was chaos

The 2025 campaign ended 14th of 14 — dead last — and the reason wasn’t only the results.

Chicago used four head coaches in a single season. Lorne Donaldson ran the team until April 30. Masaki Hemmi took over until July 3. Ella Masar held the job until Aug. 22. Anders Jacobson finished the year.

No team is going to develop an identity through that. The 2025 side did produce moments — a 5-2 win over Orlando in September, Ludmila’s ten league goals leading the club — but the season was defined by instability rather than performance.

That followed an eighth-place finish and a playoff berth in 2024, when the club was still called the Red Stars and Mallory Swanson led the team in scoring. The rebrand to Chicago Stars FC came ahead of the 2025 season.

The 2026 fix was supposed to be Martin Sjögren

Chicago hired Martin Sjögren from Hammarby to take over for this season — an experienced coach brought in specifically to provide the continuity the club hadn’t had.

The results haven’t followed. A four-win season with the club sitting near the bottom of an expanded league is not what a stability hire was supposed to produce.

Whether that’s a coaching problem, a roster problem, or the cost of two years of upheaval is the question facing majority owner Laura Ricketts and general manager Richard Feuz this winter.

The attendance tells a different story

Here’s the part that complicates any pessimistic read on this franchise: people keep showing up.

The 2025 season peaked at 26,942 against Seattle. In 2024, a match against Bay FC at Wrigley Field drew 35,038 — a number most NWSL clubs cannot approach.

The floor is low too: 1,806 against Louisville in March 2025, and 2,999 in May 2024. But the ceiling is what matters for a franchise’s long-term case, and Chicago’s ceiling is among the highest in the league.

There is real demand for this team in this city. The product hasn’t matched it in two years.

What’s still worth watching

Micayla Johnson was called up to represent the United States at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup — the kind of individual development that continues regardless of where the club sits in the table.

The remaining schedule includes home matches at SeatGeek Stadium, and games are carried across NWSL+, CBSSN, ION and ESPN.

What has to happen this winter

• Give Sjögren a real offseason. He inherited a roster assembled through two years of turnover. Judging a stability hire after one season is how clubs end up with four coaches again.
• Solve the scoring. Four wins is a goals problem before it’s anything else.
• Convert the attendance. A club that can put 26,000 in a stadium has resources most of the league doesn’t. Two bad seasons haven’t cost them the crowd yet.

Chicago has the market, the ownership and the venue. What it hasn’t had since 2024 is a functioning season.

Note: standings and match results move weekly — check the Stars schedule for current results and remaining fixtures.

Chicago Sports Wire covers Chicago Stars FC news, schedules and match coverage all season.