Kansas City Current’s first loss of 2026 NWSL season comes with unfortunate timing

The Kansas City Current had to battle both the Chicago Stars and the elements Sunday afternoon.

Wind gusts over 40 miles per hour whipped through Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium in Evanston, Illinois, which sits open-ended and unprotected from gusts that come off Lake Michigan.

While it had an effect on the game, it certainly wasn’t the leading culprit for the Current’s first loss of the 2026 season — a 2-1 defeat at the hands of the Chicago Stars.

“It’s a slippery slope if we start blaming elements,” said Current coach Chris Armas. “I think there’s enough things in our control that we could be sharper.”

To that point, the Current recorded 1.95 xG (expected goals) on 10 shots. But just two of those attempts were on target.

Armas said after the game the Current created 60 transition moments, but the players were only able to capitalize on one.

On the flip side, the Current only surrendered four shots to Chicago. Two found the net to make the difference.

“We created a lot of chances, and we’re going to keep working to turn those moments into chances, and the chances into more goals,” Armas said.

This was not how the Current (1-1-0) wanted to start a road trip featuring three games in seven days

Chicago got on the board first, just before halftime, and it was a familiar story: another set-piece goal conceded by the Current.

A Stars corner kick came off the shoulder of Gabrielle Robinson and fell perfectly to Tessa Dellarose, who scored her first career goal in her first career start for a 1-0 Chicago lead.

Just minutes after the restart, Chicago doubled its lead. Jordyn Huitema got on the end of a cross from Ryan Gareis, beating KC’s Kayla Sharples and Robinson in the air to head the cross past goalkeeper Lorena and into the net.

The Current pulled one back less than 10 minutes later. Haley Hopkins smashed home a pinpoint cross from Izzy Rodriguez. The assist was Rodriguez’s 12th in a Current uniform, giving her the all-time lead in club history over Hailie Mace.

“I always know Haley (Hopkins) is going to be there, so that made my job easy,” Rodriguez said.

Both Rodriguez and Hopkins said the team had been working on low, driven crosses this week.

“That was a direct correlation to how we’ve trained this entire year,” Hopkins added.

But the Current didn’t really test Chicago goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher the rest of the way. KC had no shots on target after scoring.

It was a disappointing result, and there’s limited time to bounce back: The Current will have two days to rest before Wednesday’s game, and just two more days off before the next contest after that. The main focus will be on recovery, but there will be opportunities to learn from what went wrong Saturday.

“I think looking at film is going to be our biggest learning point,” Rodriguez said. “I think once we take a look at that, we’ll have a little more details.”

Up next: The Current travels to Spokane, Washington, for a match against Seattle on Wednesday. The Reign will play just over 275 miles from the club’s usual home due to renovations at Lumen Field for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. That match on Wednesday kicks off at 8 p.m. Central.

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.

This story was originally published March 22, 2026 at 3:44 PM.