The Kansas City Current got their first-ever win over Angel City on Saturday, and remained undefeated in the process.
They now top the NWSL table three games into the season and are the only team in the league who has yet to drop any points. In their first three games, the Current have had an NWSL-record nine different goal-scorers find the back of the net following their 4-2 win over ACFC.
It’s a strong turnaround and start to the season after the Current finished 2023 in 11th place.
Closely behind are the Chicago Red Stars, who currently sit in second place after finishing 2023 in last. The Red Stars drew Orlando on Friday thanks to a goal from Mallory Swanson – her first since returning from the patellar tendon injury that kept her out of the majority of last season.
“I think what I've learned the past three games is that it takes time, and I think I needed to give myself a little bit more grace with where I was at and honestly just take a deep breath,” Swanson said of the goal postgame.
Both Chicago and Kansas City’s matches featured long VAR delays, which was an ongoing issue throughout the league during the weekend. In a number of matches, stoppage time extended into double digits as referees were slow to go to the monitors to review tough calls.
Multiple times, the calls themselves weren’t altered after extensive review.
The result was some late stoppage time comebacks, such as in Portland’s game against Racing Louisville, with Sam Coffey scoring in the 90’+10th minute.
In Washington’s match against Utah, three VAR reviews throughout the game led to 13 minutes of stoppage time in the first half, including a long review on a penalty that Andi Sullivan later converted.
Sullivan spoke about the lengthy reviews post match, calling on them to be “more efficient.”
“Obviously we’re glad about VAR being in the league,” the midfielder said. “But I think we need to figure out a way to make it a little more efficient. I especially think clear and obvious should be clear and obvious and it shouldn’t take a long time to decide if something is clear and obvious
“But obviously I’m not in the booth, I don’t know the demands of that job so I shouldn’t really speak too much on that.”
For her penalty, she called it “a very clear penalty.”
“I don’t really feel like that needs to be checked or checked very long. And I felt like it could have been checked by the time I had set up the first time, so I was a little frustrated about that,” she said.
Red Stars coach Lorne Donaldson echoed the sentiments after VAR took more than seven minutes to review at one point in their match.
“If it takes that long to make a damn decision, then there’s no decision,” Donaldson said.
