Kansas City Current 2024: Strengthening their ‘painfully vulnerable’ defensive line for victory – scout report

When taking a cursory glance at the NWSL table, what immediately catches the eye is that Kansas City Current is sitting atop the standings at this moment in time. With three wins and one draw attained under new head coach Vlatko Andonovski, the team is seemingly in a strong position to compete for the 2024 league title.

However, whilst their form has been impressive to date, and they are the only team to be in double figures for goals scored, having found the net on 12 occasions so far, what it masks is that they have been one of the worst-performing teams when it comes to the defensive side of things. They have yet to keep a clean sheet and have conceded eight goals (the second-worst defensive record in the division at the time of writing).

If they want to be genuine title contenders, they will have to improve on this as the campaign goes on. This tactical analysis will examine their setup and tactics more closely to indicate where they can tighten up and make themselves much tougher to score against.

Team structure

What is important to note at this stage of the analysis is that it is not all negative when it comes to Kansas City Current’s defensive play, and there are distinct positives that can be drawn from what they have been doing so far.

These have largely come from the structural flexibility that they have played with in their four outings so far, with Andonovski working hard to implement a clear shape on his return to the club game in a bid to help his new charges to play with confidence whenever they step out onto the field.

This starts from the back for the Missouri-based side, with Andonovski utilising a back four in his games so far and ensuring that the instructions given to those players are kept as simple as possible. In brief, they have tended to revolve around working in an organised and coordinated manner and always looking to win first balls wherever they can.

However, it is not simply about the first phase of each attack because what has also been clear is that Kansas City has also focused on preventing any follow-up shots from breaking through them. In this case, San Diego Wave forward Makenzy Doniak sent in the ball, which was initially cleared by left-back Izzy Rodriguez. She then kept her focus to neutralise the next attempt on goal, keeping Casey Stoney’s side at bay.