The 2026 KC Current Are More Suited For A Playoff Run Than They Were Last Year
This KC Current team is nothing like their 2025 counterpart -- they’re more resilient
The date is July 28th, 2026. You are the KC Current. You started the season off with a 1-0-5 record on the road. Just when you thought things were starting to turn around a few weeks ago -- your first match since the World Cup break resulted in a 3-0 win against a promising expansion team in the Denver Summit on the road -- they go right back to the way they were. You travel to face a struggling Orlando team that had lost their pride and a month or so later, would lose their decorated head coach. This time you lose 3-0 on the road. You follow it up with a draw at home but you don’t come out of that match feeling optimistic. In fact you were certain that match would result in a win until San Diego Wave Forward, Trinity Byars, completed a brace in the 90th minute to tie it. Now you’re demoralized, exhausted, and lacking confidence. To make matters worse, you also have to play on turf today in another road match. The one positive being that you get to face the worse of the two expansion teams this time; the Boston Legacy. But the road has certain powers that you don’t understand, or at least, the lack of powers that a place like CPKC Stadium gives you. You lose 1-0. You have the most xG (expected goals) in the league but this is your second time being held scoreless in the last three weeks. You wouldn’t think you’d be able to respond well to this adversity because, as of recently, you haven’t had to deal with it. Last year you won the Supporters’ Shield and it wasn’t close -- in fact you earned the most points in an NWSL season ever. But every time you go through a bad stretch of matches there is always one saving grace: the aforementioned CPKC Stadium; where the fans have your back, the current (ha) of the Missouri River seemingly give you energy, and you haven’t lost in over 2 years.
Upon your return to CPKC, you cruise to victory over Racing Louisville with a score of 5-1. Your confidence is at an all time high and although that’s not necessarily reflected in your next couple of final scores; you can see it in the fight you have; the on-field effort you’re putting in. But after injury after injury after losing-a-player-to-an-international-tournament-that-the-NWSL-doesn’t-care-enough-about-to-provide-a-break-in-their-schedule, you start to slip again.
The date is September 18th, 2026. Yes, you are still the KC Current. It is not lost on me that the personification of an entire team as one, single entity might be something that is tough to put yourself in the shoes of but stick with me a little longer. Since July 28th, you’ve garnered a 1-1-2 record on the road. You’ve also been bouncing around seventh and eighth place in the table, right above the playoff line, and there’s only six games left in the season. You’re in San Diego trying to discover what’s a stronger hydraulic force -- a current or a wave? The answer is, decidedly, a wave. You lose 2-0 on the road and your best, and technically only, right back will miss next week’s match due to receiving a red card. A familiar feeling starts to sink in; that of repeat hopelessness with no actionable way to end the cycle. You haven’t even had time to process the fact that your organization just lost one of your former coaches who -- with absolutely no exaggeration -- is the very reason you have had success in the first place. Only one thing could snap you out of this funk.
You’re back at CPKC Stadium trying to string some wins together when they matter the most -- but when you concede a goal in the 13th minute -- you start to wonder if this is the beginning of the end. After three goals from Haley Hopkins, and one from Temwa Chawinga, you realize that is not the case. You have another home match the following week so you try to build on that momentum. Flash forward a week and you concede a goal in the fourth minute of the game. This time you’re not fazed. You score five unanswered goals and cruise to a win. You haven’t had Croix Bethune for weeks and yet you’re firing on all cylinders.
All of this completely hypothetical analogy is all to ask you one question: are you starting to notice a pattern?
The Current have been going through it this year. The main theme; loss. They lost their beloved teammate who has become the best defensive midfielder in the league. They lost their beloved former coach and sporting director that built said team so successfully that they broke every NWSL regular season record possible last year. They’ve lost so many of their most game-changing players to injury over and over again all year. And most applicable, as far as away matches go, they’ve suffered loss after loss after loss in situations where they should be set up to win. So yeah, they often come back to Kansas City and show their supporters the team that they know they can be; but why does that matter if they can’t do it on the road? And WHY ON EARTH would I claim this team can be more formidable in the playoffs this year?
Let us go back to the Current’s past two matches at home. They’ve gone down extremely early, struggled to fight back, but once that first ball crosses the goal line -- sometimes through sheer determination, will, and manually pushing the ball into the goal with your torso -- the flood gates are opened. That, I feel, is the perfect analogy for this season as a whole. The Current have struggled immensely at times this season. They work hard to get back to winning football but often times those ‘attacks’ fall just short. Sometimes falling just short compounds on itself until it feels like they’ll never find success again. Then something clicks; 3-0 on the road at Denver, followed by tough matches; 5-1 against Louisville, followed by tough matches; 3-2 against the Courage, followed by tough matches; 4-1 against Denver, followed by 5-1 against Bay FC. All of a sudden they’re in fifth place and only two points out of fourth.
That brings us, first to an international break where we can rest up some of our injured players, and then to a huge match against the Utah Royals… the current fourth place team… on the road… with only three games left in the regular season. Do we need to win to keep a top four finish alive -- the only way we can have a couple home matches in the playoffs -- probably. But if we lose I think I would feel even better than I did before about our ability to win playoff games on the road. That’s what this season has been; losing and learning.
So when I say this team has a higher chance for success in the playoffs this year than in 2025, what I mean -- aside from the obvious in that hopefully we have a healthy Temwa this time -- isn’t that our roster is constructed better. It’s not that we have better coaching. The team isn’t more focused (how could they be?). They don’t have more talent, skill, or depth. But this team has something that last year’s team didn’t; experience in losing; the need to make adjustments; opportunity for growth. Last year, the Current went down a goal to Gotham and -- though they were able to equalize just before stoppage time ended -- they weren’t able to finish the job. This year the Current will be going into their playoff match(es) expecting to go down; and they’ll be ready for it.
The only bad news comes around what I said about this upcoming Utah Royals match. I’m not sure they’ll be able to learn from a loss that day.
I think they’re ready to get their first win against a top four team of the entire season -- a result that would in-turn make them a top four team -- and then I think they’ll cruise into the playoffs with homefield advantage.