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Chicago Have Conceded Six Twice in Three Weeks
On August 29, the Chicago Stars lost 1-6 at Denver Summit. On September 6, they lost 0-6 to North Carolina.
A week earlier they had lost 0-5 at Houston. Three matches, seventeen goals conceded.
Fifty-three for the season
Chicago have given up 53 goals in 23 matches, the most in the NWSL by thirteen. Boston Legacy are next at 40, and no one else has passed 34.
The rate has accelerated. Chicago conceded at roughly two a game through the first half of the season and have been closer to four across the last month.
It was not always this bad
The early-season defeats were tight: 0-1 to Utah, 0-2 to Orlando, 0-2 to Gotham, 0-2 to Portland, 0-2 to San Diego. A team losing 0-2 repeatedly has a scoring problem, not a defensive one.
The 0-5s and 0-6s are recent. That is a different failure, and it usually points at something other than personnel quality — fitness, confidence, or a shape that has stopped being enforced.
The August 23 result complicates it
Between the Houston and Denver defeats, Chicago beat Racing Louisville 3-2 — their highest-scoring match of the season and one of only five wins.
A side capable of that six days before conceding six is not simply out of its depth. Something in this team’s week-to-week variance is extreme, and it has been all year.
What the last seven matches are for
Chicago play Portland, Washington, Gotham, Denver, Seattle, Houston and Washington again. Five of the seven are against clubs in or near playoff position.
On the current trajectory that is a difficult month. The only question worth tracking is whether the scorelines return to the 0-1s and 0-2s of the spring, which would suggest the collapse was a stretch, or stay where they have been, which would suggest something structural that carries into next season.
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