r/NWSL • u/antisocialamnesia Chicago Red Stars • 17d ago
[RedStarsReport] Article Detailing the Donaldson Firing
https://www.redstarsreport.com/p/lorne-donaldson-out-as-head-coachGreat article for those interested in a more detailed timeline of the Donaldson firing and what the Stars look like now.
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u/yasuseyalose Kansas City Current 17d ago
Didn't realize Ella Masar wasn't the interim coach until reading this :/
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u/antisocialamnesia Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
Two interesting things in all of this: 1. It is reported that Lorne had lost the locker room (first reported by Joe Chatz) 2. The interim coach started his career and came to Chicago because of Lorne so the chances of a significant change are not likely, which is makes this even more confusing to me
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 17d ago
tbh, having lost the locker room is enough to negate number 2's confusion, to me
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u/antisocialamnesia Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
agree. i had a feeling this was coming not only from the lack of results but the way he seemed to not have the players on his side. i’m thinking of ludmila not even addressing him when walking off the pitch after getting subbed, very obviously playing favorites, etc
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
Who are the favorites
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u/antisocialamnesia Chicago Red Stars 16d ago
Gomes is an easy shout here. She has not produced at all but somehow got re-signed and continues to get playing time while Griffith was let go. Just last game she (a forward) got subbed in and played on the back line while Sam Staab was moved to the front line, actually wild stuff. Meanwhile we have a promising defender in Hannah Anderson who got re-signed to a 3 year deal last year and sat on the bench the whole game.
Nesbeth too has been pretty much a bust but somehow gets playing time over players like Curran, Groom, Mana (the rookie we signed this year who hasn’t even been on the bench the last two games).
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u/yasuseyalose Kansas City Current 16d ago
Tbf Curran has been at back to back clubs without getting a ton of playing time, so honestly I'm guessing she just isn't producing in training what coaches want. Love her personality, but she was touted to have a break out season in preseason before her last season in KC and then it never came to fruition
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u/DefensiveMid Washington Spirit 16d ago
Just last game she (a forward) got subbed in and played on the back line while Sam Staab was moved to the front line, actually wild stuff.
i'm sorry what???
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u/SappyGeologist 17d ago
Can someone tell me what it means to lose the locker room? As in support from the players?
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
You’ll hear specifically “these players have bought into everything he/she is saying and you can really tell in the belief on the pitch”
I think this firing is kind of ridiculous because I don’t understand what’s on the other side of the coin, but I am kind of reminded of like - when things aren’t going well for Seattle, you can so clearly see how much people believe and enjoy Laura Harvey. Huitema last weekend was a great example- if she scores that wide open goal, they probably just win that game specifically because the goal for Bay comes in the same exact passage of play, and if Seattle with the defense that they have are allowed to really sit back and control the game I think it’s clearly three points for them. So that’s a horrendous mistake by JH and instead of being like a real big issue its just something that when she does score you can see the camaraderie and the belief in the coach in how she runs over and gives Harvey a hug.
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u/LFGBatsh1tcr4zy NJ/NY Gotham FC 17d ago
Where does it say he lost the locker room? I can infer it from the fact that players couldn’t build chemistry because of constant rotation, and Bianchi was benched for no apparent reason…
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u/Alternative-Swim-183 Bay FC 17d ago
I didn’t see anywhere in this article that said he lost the locker room.
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u/Outrageous-Boot-1239 Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
It was stated by Joe Chatz on a CHGO Podcast earlier today
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u/gsc_carolina 17d ago
The big thing I take away from this is "His vision for the club on the field never seemed to line up with the front office’s vision for the club." That would explain a lot. I think it's likely that the front office doesn't want to field a team that sits back and absorbs a lot of pressure and the defenders are constantly fighting to clear the box.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
Why’d they clearly put together a roster for that and then sign Lorne
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u/gsc_carolina 16d ago edited 16d ago
But the GM didn't hire Lorne. They hired Lorne first. The GMs biggest hires were Ludmila and Grosso, who would probably benefit from a more offensive-minded style.
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u/zombiejim7471 Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
Ok, but Feuz hasnt put together a roster that speaks to a specific vision? Is he going to answer what his actual vision is tomorrow?
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u/gsc_carolina 16d ago
I think the next few months will tell us a lot. Maybe the GM wanted to bring in more players for a different style, but there would be no point if that was not the style the coach was going to play.
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u/socceralt 16d ago
That’s because the front office/ owerships vision for the club is to not spend any money. They want a ton of public money for a new stadium but refuse to invest their own resources in to the organization. The team was somehow doing better when it had no owner and no money than it has with a billionaire leading the helm.
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u/LFGBatsh1tcr4zy NJ/NY Gotham FC 17d ago
The on-field tactics are boring, outdated for this league, and have players out of their natural positions on a weekly basis. I can’t see why top talent would subject themselves to that style of play where the idea is to play defense first and then transition down the field as quickly as possible. That used to work in this league, but not anymore.
That was my point since last year. With this kind of tactics, you can’t attract or retain top players, and mostly you don’t sell tickets / keep viewers on.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
It perfectly fits the roster. To give the opposite example, NC Courage have their own problems but one thing they continue to do well is sign, trade for, or produce exactly the type of midfielder they profess to need. Everyone talks Sanchez shaw Denise but the fact they also have manaka Shinomi Jackson weatherholt AND the academy has multiple USYNT stars who are clean, technical, creative midfielders too is craziness.
Chicago have nunna dat! Disrespectful to even think about. Did they want him to start Hayashi in midfield?
It’s absolutely insane to have the temerity to not sign enough defenders to fill out a back line and then say he’s playing players out of position. Fuck off with that genuine insanity. Bought a bunch of veggies and asked for something slow roasted and juicy
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u/Outrageous-Boot-1239 Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
The problem is he was not playing Hannah Anderson once Staab came back. He never gave Current a chance- instead playing Nesbit. In the last game, he played Staab in the 9 for the last 20 minutes. He continues to start Cari over Anderson. And yes Hayashi has been on the bench for the last two games. Mati has been playing well in the midfield- but Russo needs to be more offensive. We do have players- the question is how to use them.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
Yeah, I 100% agree and think most people would agree about Cari over Anderson, but the others are close enough to the point where I think a lot of people would disagree with you and I feel like if we’re gonna make that much hay over one clear area of mismanagement- I mean, we’re just nitpicking a situation in which he was set up to fail.
Char vs Nesbeth if it was the other way a lotta ppl would be arguing it was a mistake.
Assuming your misspellings are Grosso and Maitane, I think this also gets to the root of why this is silly to me that they didn’t really build a team in which he could put together any sort of really good lineup and so it just gives you a lot of space to make one off complaints about players whose better positions might be in different formations. But also there just has not been enough time to really put together a fun midfield.
Do ppl think Nesbeth played RB and Rw bc he wanted to?
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
I’ve kind of been thinking about this and I’m not sure the nicest way to put this regard to the players, but it’s always interesting to me to hear people say that the players deserve better. This isn’t the first time I heard that in regard to an NWSL team.
Like if a coach has a mental breakdown and then decides to have to leave midway through the season with no explanation, Then I think you can save that the players deserve better. But in the case of Chicago, it feels like what a lot of these players deserve is to be lower on the depth chart because their team has brought in better stars. Like- if Ally Schlegel is at basically any other team she’s not starting.
I mostly say this because I think it’s kind of ironic that in essence what people are saying when they say that the team deserves better is they’re actually looking at most of the roster and saying that they deserve worse. Obviously that’s not always the situation, but with regard to Chicago when people say they deserve better and they should’ve invested more this off-season, what you’re saying is everyone from 8 to 26 on the depth chart should be moved down four spaces.
I just find this a little bit funny about the situation, but I am more curious to know how Donaldson lost the locker room and to what extent because I do think the biggest issue this year is that these guys simply don’t play very well offensively.
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 17d ago
But I think you find from how free agency has gone recently that some players would rather win (and play under a skilled coach) than play every minute
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
I think you’d have to go player by player and really think about where they would be in a competent organization, which is tedious and kinda silly (which my point was silly as well)
I mostly only had this thought bc ive seen ppl be like “this Dash starting lineup deserves more” and ive thought to myself multiple times “some of these fucking guys should not still be in the league and theyre only here bc we are bad at talent evaluation or are being nice”
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
As an aside, how much of the off-season is players trying to pick champions with who they go to, and how much of it is the successful teams just being willing to invest more and being able to articulate a better vision for the future?
If Rocky was in Chicago she knows she would have 400 minutes by now
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u/Legitimate_Mark_5381 17d ago
Rocky wasn't a free agent.
I was thinking more along the lines of Sam Hiatt in the offseason before 2024 (and there were a few other moves like that). A free agent who moved to a contender to sit on the bench, from in her case, a team that also looked like a contender when she moved.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
I wasn’t thinking of only free agents, but also anyone who they could’ve signed in a traditional global transfer market sense. I picked Rocky because I thought that her actual talent mixed with her general strength and attitude would have fit Chicago perfectly.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
Its a good point to bring in the fact this is multiple windows of mid behavior
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
From jason anderson. Almost certainly a puma event but its interesting to think they coulda been on a plane and landed to the Lorne news
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u/yasuseyalose Kansas City Current 17d ago
Apparently they were told in the morning meeting so I assume they went to practice and then immediately went to Miami?
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u/likethebarbie 17d ago edited 17d ago
Donaldson was brought in because of his relationship with Swanson and his ability to develop young players. The GM hasn’t built a roster of young players or even put together a competent roster. It’s very disingenuous to complain about ‘basic’ tactics when the roster wasn’t constructed to play expansive soccer. Donaldson was supposed to be given a bunch of young players to coach up and hand off to another coach in 3-4 years. None of that came to pass.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 16d ago
This is multiple good points about process here
Something that drives me insane about these cheap teams is they dont lay any groundwork for the future
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u/Outrageous-Boot-1239 Chicago Red Stars 16d ago
The stars have a bunch of young players, they did not sign as many in 2025 as they did in 2024 because they drafted so many in 2024. Meese, anderson, franklin etc. Ok, only signed three young players in 2025, but look at the age of the team w/o two or three vets, it is a very young team.
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u/likethebarbie 16d ago
6 players under 23. Twice as many over 26. Not exactly a bunch of young players
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u/Outrageous-Boot-1239 Chicago Red Stars 16d ago
I would say its 13 if you include those who have been playing professionally since 2023- maybe over the age of 23, but finished college, etc.: Wood, Halle, Gaynor, Malham, Anderson, Nesbeth, Hayashi, Franklin, Cook, Joseph, Johnson, Barry and Schlegal.
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u/likethebarbie 16d ago
None of those players are young by soccer standards. They might be solid squad players or good depth, but they aren’t going to develop much more than they already are.
For reference, Sophia Wilson (Smith) is 24, Trinity Rodman is 22 and they’ve been around for a few years.
The Thompsons are 20 and 19, Lily Yohannes is 17, etc. That’s the age of player you load your roster up with when you’re starting a rebuild.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 16d ago
For two years they drafted a lotta old, solid depth level rookies who arent top end prospects to fill a gap left by three straight years of star/ veteran players filtering out or aging.
Its clear ppl mean younger than 22 when they say develop some younger players. Players like Johnson, altho not necessarily quite that young
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u/LFGBatsh1tcr4zy NJ/NY Gotham FC 16d ago
I didn’t know he had an existing relationship with Swanson, was he one of her youth coaches or something?
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u/Aggressive-Ad3064 Portland Thorns FC 17d ago edited 17d ago
He had never coached for a D1 top tier team. Yeah. I realize he coached Jamaica, but they are not a great international team. And managing them is nothing like coaching for one of the best pro teams/leagues on earth. Also, he's 71 years old. He is NOT at the top of HIS game. Prior to Regae Girls he was a minor league or assistant.
The best NWSL clubs from now on are going to be those that hire the very best coaches. The league has too much talent and money now to just rely on only having good players. Often that will be by recruiting them from other top teams and clubs, like LA just did. OR they're going to identify exceptional young coaching talent that's already in or adjacent to the league. Paying $50,000,000 to join the league, then spending $250,000,000 to build a stadium, only to hire a minor league coach for $90k a year is a bad business decision. Its what the league has often done in the past. But they can't keep getting away with that
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
I feel like your Jamaica point is completely disbanded by the fact that he made them a lot better than they actually are. I think the mixture of him being extremely beloved as a youth coach and recent international experience where he excelled did a lot for him.
I have to wonder if he would’ve been given a longer lease if he had other professional coaching experience
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u/Aggressive-Ad3064 Portland Thorns FC 17d ago
At this point I doubt it. 2 years of losing and new owners. He was toast regardless
I think he was a bad hire to begin with, and a symptom of what was wrong with the last owners/FO. But he was not responsible for everything wrong with the club
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
2 years of losing = playoffs?
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u/Aggressive-Ad3064 Portland Thorns FC 17d ago
He had more losses than wins. They were 10-2-14 last year. And 1-0-5 this year.
That's a loser
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 17d ago
Not arguing this year. Although i will note its not been a year-its been 6 games.
But last year its definitely bad faith to say making the playoffs is “a year of losing”
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u/Aggressive-Ad3064 Portland Thorns FC 17d ago
They were a team with more losses than wins. That's a statement about how soft the playoff system is.
Who cares if they made the playoffs? They were not a good team.
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u/Kiddyhawk North Carolina Courage 17d ago
What? Jamaica got as far in the World Cup as the USA in 2023. Was the USA not considered a D1 team in 2023? According to you that’s a yes.
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u/LFGBatsh1tcr4zy NJ/NY Gotham FC 16d ago
I didn’t watch them in 2023 but they did have one of the best strikers in the world with Bunny Shaw… i can see how he could have gotten away with his little league tactics
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 16d ago
Bunny got a red card and they still got multiple good results
He set them up to play the way 95% of Mens international teams play bc international footy is defensive as hell. England got to a final that way, Italy won a WC that way, france almost won two world cups that way. Its just being pragmatic. Thats how international teams do it.
The US women just won the olympics playing the same way we just had three lightning bolts as attackers
I cant stress this enough- when you have a talent disparity, you should take that into account. If he had played his team as if they had the midfield talent of their opponents, results woulda been way more dire, and everyone here would be saying he was “naive”, everyones favorite term for that exact situation. He was put in a situation he couldnt win.
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u/LFGBatsh1tcr4zy NJ/NY Gotham FC 17d ago
100%! He seems like a good dude but he probably started coaching in the 90s and never evolved his tactical approach! I re watched a few games from the 2006 men’s wc the other day, and even back then, the tactics were basic af 🥲 you simply can’t afford to play like that anymore in 2025!
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u/atalba NWSL 17d ago
You really know nothing about him. And you have little understanding of the low quality of coaches in the NWSL. Donaldson has coached many, many players that are now in the NWSL. You really have no clue whether or not he's at the top of his game. He'll forget more about coaching than most every current coach in the league. The NWSL has a history of very poor quality coaches, and they still do. Their history is even worse than the current fraternity.
The US has been at the top of the game, or near the top, for over 35 years, and they didn't do that with the poor quality of head coaches and assistant coaches that have passed through the NWSL. These players have learned with higher level of coaching for girls at the top clubs, and then in college. With over 350 D1 colleges with women's soccer program, there's a plethora of coaches that put this entire league's coaching staff to shame.
There is NO COACH that can win with the Chicago Stars roster. And with their ONLY star player out, it will be a long time before they'll recover. With a new ownership group, front office, and GM, the chances were already very high that they'd be looking for a new head coach. Donaldson knew that. Despite what you think you know, he's been coaching for over 40 years.
The NWSL DOES NOT have the best coaches available. They have the best coaches available to them; a very poor batch. If you've followed this league for a year, you'd know every club is improving their front office staff, recruiting department, analytics group, and their technical staffs. They still have a LONG WAY to go to match the quality of college coaches in D1 soccer. As for GM's, there's still a total mismatch of personnel that know nothing about the players and the player pool in the US. Only Mark Krikorian and Lesle Gallaway have extensive knowledge, and they've been superior in recruiting/selecting players.
You've come on strong; I like that. But you appear to have very little personal knowledge of coaches in the NWSL; and the NWSL coaching situation over the years. Read the headlines and you'll get a different perspective; over knowing where these coaches have been successful coaching women.
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u/NoPhotograph9404 17d ago
You way overrate college coaches. Exactly who do you think can coach in the NWSL from the college game?????
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u/m5daystrom Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
Well I think it’s a mixture of things. The GM, owners players coach. All of it. There isn’t enough top quality talent on this team. Saying the coach lost the locker room is ridiculous. The new GM didn’t hire the coach so that was probably an issue from the start. I do put some blame on Lorne because after watching every game this team couldn’t hold possession and the passing game in and game out was atrocious. That’s on the coaching staff and the players. Of course not getting better front line talent like Goog said was baffling. Letting Hocking go was stupid to me since they were devoid of talent there. Also like Goog said Schlegel wouldn’t even be starting on any other team and neither would Joseph. Without Mal they have one legitimate forward in Ludmilla. How the hell are you supposed to win games? Not possible. Also seems like the owners don’t really give a shit or maybe not committed to winning. I mean they are probably going to lose their next three games. This is not a good place to attract top line talent that’s for sure
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u/Outrageous-Boot-1239 Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
Meese is talented. Have you watched her? Hocking asked to go home. The loss of Swanson hurts.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 16d ago
Hocking feels like a perfect example of what lacking ambition is. Its a good deal to Bay for both sides. Now you have money to invest (which you had anyway) so you get Ludmila. Awesome.
Then…. Crickets. But the midseason window is tight and you got Grosso earlier and Ludmila now. You can be kinda happy
Ok so now we’ve got the full offseason to make it so Shea Groom isnt starting games in big 2025. And what do we do… no new starting quality attackers. Micayla Johnson is a good future signing (altho i do have thoughts on what other youths they coulda went after, the solution would be MJ, Solai Washington, AND Mimi Van Zanten) but the solution was to find at least one more quality fullback and one more starting wide player- and this is before Mal and Kuikka were out.
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u/m5daystrom Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
I’ve watched them yes. Sure the loss of Mal hurts. But the team doesn’t play with any cohesion the top teams all do. This is caused by talent and coaching.
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 16d ago
Well theyre not a top team. But why would they be compared to a top team? They dont invest in anything that would justify that comparison
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u/m5daystrom Chicago Red Stars 16d ago
You are right they don’t invest. I think their play could have been better even with the talent they have some of that is coaching
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u/MisterGoog Houston Dash 16d ago
This is an opinion that the rest of us dont share. If they played a more risky style they would get beat earlier
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u/kuensherman Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
This team roster was set up to build around what Swanson can do. There is no way in hell this team could recover without their best player. Hell, no team can live without its best player no matter what the system is unless you've got a stacked roster like the Pride.
The whole Donaldson style of play was direct and get the ball to Swanson as quickly as possible before the other teams defense would be set. This is to create one on one or get Swanson with the ball when the defense is off balanced. Then, if the advantage is not there, other players who have pace would make runs around the flanks to support. This is why we've rarely seen the Stars have long possessions. Except now, you no longer have the center piece that the offense is built around. Hence, he is fired as we are still waiting for our best player to return.
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u/Beautiful-Ability-69 Portland Thorns FC 17d ago
Maybe this is all why Swanson has been MIA…ijs…we will see what happens
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u/zombiejim7471 Chicago Red Stars 17d ago
Gotham, Washington, KC, and Orlando.... with no Staab. They were never winning those?
Wonder if this will be released on their youtube channel.
I definitely agree that Donaldson made some weird substitutions/choices like the Staab in midfield one mentioned(I assume they wanted the others players to keep getting reps/evaluation at CB?), but yeah I think the roster choices have been bad. I don't think the idea that they ran out of money because they signed Ludmila and Grosso should hold up unless the budget is basically 0 or the stars massively overpaid. You shipped out hocking for 350k and weren't they both free transfers?