GUEST POST: Firing Lorne Donaldson Won't Fix the Chicago Stars

This has already been a season of struggle for the club. While the rest of the league is cooking, once or twice a game we are Stars supporters treated to the tiniest travel-sized container of sauce. The team isn’t so much cooking as they’re dumping a giant can of chili in an aluminum pan and calling it dinner. Now, after their worst start in franchise history, Lorne Donaldson has been let go. After, GM Richard Feuz held a press conference, and it seems that Donaldson was the fall guy for a directionless club.

Lorne Donaldson was charged with the task of leading the Stars through their rebuild and bringing stability, and a new culture, to the locker room. The first season was a relative success. Despite losing star center back Sam Staab to injury midway through the season, they never fell below the playoff line.

The Stars’ successful finish on the table came with a conundrum: How the hell were they managing to get results in matches where they were out-possessed, out-shot, and out-chanced? It helps to have one of the best forwards in the world in Mal Swanson, plus some favorable scheduling and a big bag of luck. It was enough against teams who finished lower on the table (like Houston), and ones who took longer to get started (like Utah).

When it came to facing top of the table clubs, though, the Stars struggled. They managed just two points in ten games against the 2024 top-5 finishers. As the season drew to a close they’d dropped 4 of their last five matches, fell from 6th place to 8th, and were swiftly dispatched by the Orlando Pride in the first round of the playoffs.

Compared to their 2023 season, it was a good start, but it was clear the Stars needed to make changes to continue building in a positive direction. In the team’s final press conference, Donaldson made his needs clear: “Obviously, we’ll look to get better players.”

The Stars are still waiting for those players to arrive. After adding Julia Grosso and Ludmila on free transfers in the summer window, GM Richard Feuz chose not to spend in the offseason under the guise of maintaining financial stability. Fans weren’t exactly expecting the team to run to the market with a money gun, but no one expected the Stars to sit on their hands either.

The team brought in just one veteran, Maitane, who played limited minutes at Gotham FC in 2024. Joining Maitane was U.S. U-17 standout Micayla Johnson, and Japan’s U-20 Captain, Mana Hayashi. The Stars released two defenders, Maxi Rall and Tatumn Milazzo, and didn’t sign anyone to replace them. Then, they lost talented defender Natalia Kuikka to a knee injury, further thinning the backline. The Stars would be even more short-handed if not for Sam Staab’s miraculously quick recovery from an achilles injury last summer. 

Then came the surprise announcement on the first day of preseason: Mal Swanson would not be joining the team while she dealt with a personal matter. Despite all this, the expectations for the season were still the same: make the playoffs. But player losses, combined with inaction, meant that Lorne Donaldson was being asked to keep pace with the league while driving a car Flintstone style. 

During preseason the vibes were high. The team was getting along, and players like Julia Grosso and Ludmila—who joined the team in the summer of ‘24—were getting reps in training to familiarize themselves with the rest of the squad and system. Then reality hit, and all those good feelings were quickly curb stomped in a 6-0 loss to defending champions Orlando Pride in the season opener.

It was a stern reminder of how far the club has to go to contend with the best of the best. As the transfer window closed, Donaldson was asked if there were conversations to sign players before the deadline. “We want to get the best players that we can get, you know,” said the now former head coach. “But the sporting side, they have to be the one to make the final decision on that kind of stuff."  

Reading the neon signs between the lines, they were going to have to make do with who they had. Cari Roccaro, a career midfielder, has stepped up to pair with Sam Staab at center back, and Jameese Joseph has shown promise with her attacking play down the right hand side. But the Stars have struggled to put together a strong 90 minutes, and moments of joy on the pitch have been fleeting—they’ve scored just 3 goals this season.

The intent is for the Stars to find Ludmila or Joseph behind the defense to create chances on goal. When it works, it’s fun. Ludmila scored her first goal of the season on a multi-pass build up that ended in a backflip. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been a sustainable plan for the Stars, particularly with a beat up and patchwork defense. They’ve yet to match their success against Bay FC (their only win), and it perhaps says more about Bay’s failure to defend than it does about Chicago having unlocked something in attack. 

When the team is at their worst they can’t control possession, pass out of pressure, or get shots on net. It’s not a recipe for success in the NWSL in 2025. As a result, just six games into the season, Lorne Donaldson was relieved of his duties. GM Rick Feuz said he has no specific timetable for a new hire, and also wasn’t ready to call it quits on the Stars chances for success on the season. “We still have 20 more games in this regular season, and we want to do something.”

It’s difficult to say if the Stars will be able to live up to postseason hopes with this roster, which Feuz partially constructed. Feuz insists that Donaldson was equipped to succeed with the few players that were brought in, and looked to the data when asked about his goals for the team. “With the players that we brought,” said Feuz, “I think we're able to control more the game, to control more action, to have more control or pace during the game.”

The data on FBref (and let’s be honest, the human eye) tells a different story. The Stars are underperforming from last year’s marks in just about every category of measured statistics. It’s unknown which stats are fueling Feuz’s theory. Also unknown is what else Feuz is prepared to do to achieve his stated goal, because firing the coach doesn’t fill the holes he left in the roster.

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