The KC Current Find Their Fight At Just The Right Time
A hat trick from Hopkins, an all-time effort from Chawinga, and a jolt of energy in a season that was close to dead -- lead the Current to a win over the Summit
On Friday night, the Current got some bad news on the tail end of multiple bad weeks in a row -- the Seattle Reign had picked up a win and temporarily pushed them out of a playoff spot. It’s hard to put into words just how much adversity the Current have faced this year but it feels like in the last 2-3 weeks they’ve been tested more than the rest of the season combined.
Let’s review:
Sep. 7th The KC Current announce Vlatko Andonovski, who was beloved by most of the players, would be departing from the club -- and do so with a cold, bare, and arguably insulting press release.
Sep. 11th The Current listed one of their biggest and most consistent stars, Croix Bethune, as questionable with a hip injury -- she would not play as the Current squeaked out a draw against their struggling rival Orlando
Sep. 18th Croix is out again and Temwa who was questionable with a thigh injury only plays about 60 minutes -- the Current get crushed by San Diego Wave and Laney Rouse, the Current’s only current (←ha!) right back, gets 2 yellows
That gets us caught up to the curre- er… I mean, now we’re all caught up to a few hours before game time against Denver early yesterday and it feels like a must-win. Croix is out AGAIN. Fans are surely weighing the possibilities in their head, “Well, it’s really good that they’re being careful with Croix -- we all saw what happens when you’re not careful with your star last year -- we sure do need her in the playoffs but… well we have to make the playoffs first and doing that without Croix feels like a tall task…” (it’s me, I’m “fans”). At the end of the day, the NWSL is the least transparent league in sports when it comes to injuries I’ve ever seen. So is Croix’s injury so bad that there hasn’t even been a thought to play her? Is it something small and they want to be careful? Is she potentially out for the year but they’re waiting for a second opinion? Did she just need a few weeks to finish her book? We don’t know, we can’t know, and we’ll probably never know. But let’s get to this game anyway.
We open up at CPKC stadium on a rainy Kansas City day where the seats are maybe a little over half full. Who’s to say if that’s weather related, performance related, frustration-with-ownership related, cost related -- another thing we don’t know. What we do know is there could be 100 fans total in that stadium and yet, the energy will never change. This is the soccer capital of America after all and no matter what certain owners of certain capital management companies do to create an increasingly difficult barrier of entry -- they can’t remove the magic from this stadium that have seen the Current win or draw 30 games in a row.
But the game is underway now and before anyone had time to blink, Denver is up 1-0 in the 13th minute.
Now, the Current are no stranger to going down early. In fact, you could argue that it’s not even a bad sign. They have actually scored the most goals from a trailing position this year of any team in the NWSL. The only problem with that is they’ve yet to come back from behind and win without Croix in the lineup.
Things are looking grim. The Current are getting opportunities due to an effective coordinated press but once they reach the attacking third they look rushed, hesitant, and without a plan. In a match where a draw just won’t do, the Current find themselves losing by one for the first 38 minutes. But then something happens. Someone gets angry.
Her name is Vanessa DiBernardo.
Why is she angry, you ask? Because somehow in the little over a year that she had been gone, you’ve forgotten who she was. So she decided to remind you, remind all of us, who she is. With perfect timing, she lifts a beautiful pass all the way from midfield to right in front of the boot of Michelle Cooper who immediately rolls it to Haley Hopkins for the equalizer.
The Current had all the momentum going into the half and when play resumed, the flood gates opened. Yes, while in San Diego last week, the Current captured their own kind of wave and kept it for future use. Haley Hopkins, running faster than I’ve ever seen her run, was able to contest an attempted clear from the Denver keeper and swiftly strike the ball into an empty net for a brace. 10 minutes later after a game of pin ball was played in the opponents attacking third, the Current did what they do best -- find Temwa alone in transition after a defensive stop. She technically has one defender to beat but sees Haley “Hat Trick” Hopkins to her right and decides it’s time she lives up to that nickname. It’s 3-1 now here at the Haley Hopkins show.
There’s only one problem… Charlie Mae’s mom is still angry.
So again with perfect precision and timing she pulls off a no-look, back-boot pass to Temwa Chawinga who finishes the Current’s fourth goal of the match. The timing was so perfect, it seems, that Chawinga was originally called offside -- a call that would be reversed a few minutes later after review.
The game really could’ve had a score line the likes of six, seven, even eight to one as the rest of the game was a track meet for the back to back NWSL MVP who got transition opportunity after transition opportunity after transition opportunity. But the Current settled for a 4-1 victory.
It does raise your eyebrows a bit though… why was Temwa playing the entirety of this offensively explosive game. She’s coming off weeks of illness followed by weeks of a thigh injury and at one point during the beginning of the second half she seemed to tweak something in her leg again. Clearly she was able to play through it without a problem but why, in a world where we’re being ultra careful with Croix Bethune to save her for the playoffs, are we having the reigning Golden Boot winner play a full 90. Did we forget that she is also a reigning got-hurt-right-before-the-playoffs-and-missed-the-playoffs-leading-to-an-early-Current-exit winner? This is something I don’t understand and I’m especially worried about after having PTSD from watching the Royals mismanage their players’ injuries for an entire 162 games. I trust that the people deciding her playing time are making a safe and rational decision and that we won’t have to watch her sit out another postseason but do I though? No really.
Regardless, it was an incredible win for the Current, right when they needed an incredible win. They’ll have 13th ranked Bay FC in CPKC next week and, barring a victory derived from emotion in Claire Hutton’s revenge game, this should be a less than moderately difficult match for the Current to win. That win could see the Current go from as low as ninth in the table to as high as fourth in the span of eight days. That is the type of momentum that you ride into a top four finish and at least a couple home-pitch matches in the playoffs.
The Current are peaking, or should I say Summiting… no, that’s stupid. The Current are peaking at just the right time and we’re here for it.