It’s not particularly controversial to say things are going badly at the moment for the Seattle Reign. Winless in five games and without a goal in any of those matches, the team’s scoring drought is now its second-longest ever and only a few minutes away from breaking their record for futility set in 2024, a season which was marred by ownership upheaval which limited the team’s ability to retain key free agents and recruit new ones.
This year looked like things would be different – the team opened the season by finally beating Orlando on the road, a place where they had not won since 2022. But the omens were already there – the game was delayed for hours by bad weather, and then the team faced an absolute travel nightmare trying to get home. Five days later, they laid an egg in Portland despite having a two-player advantage for over 30 minutes.
The Spokane homestand seemed promising – a resounding win over the Kansas City Current, a respectable win over Louisville, and a scoreless draw against Denver in the span of eight days at the end of March. Little did we know a late first-half tally by Nerilia Mondesir against Racing would be the last time anyone in Reign colors celebrated a goal.
Things have been bad to dire since then – losing Jess Fishlock to a serious injury during an embarrassing home loss to Utah, a heartbreaking last-minute goal by the Spirit to take all three points two weeks ago, and culminating most recently with a listless 2-0 loss to Gotham on Sunday, where the team looked dejected and barely acknowledged the fans postgame. Despite attestations from players during pre- and post-match interviews that they are maintaining optimism and have faith that things will turn around, their body language speaks differently, and the crowd is feeling that same energy.
The Reign have smashed four shots off the crossbar during this scoring drought and had several shouts for penalties waived off by the officials without further review. The vibes are all wrong, and luck is not with the team.
We must identify why the soccer gods have forsaken us and take action to appease them before the vibes get worse and the crowds thin out even more.
Maybe it started with the team promotion featuring “Claws Up” foam claws ahead of their Lumen Field opener. The idea was a fun extension of a fan-led effort from last season to celebrate whenever Claudia Dickey (Claw-dia, Get it?) makes a big save. But true Clawd Squad connoisseurs know that you only raise the claw *after* Dickey has made the big stop. In-stadium against Utah, a “Claws Up!” graphic was showing on the video boards before every set piece in the Reign defensive end, and the Royals promptly scored on the first corner they were awarded. Claws down and stop tempting fate.
Maybe it was the long-desired grass surface finally being installed at Lumen. While there have been many studies showing that a quality artificial surface behaves similar to grass and that injury rates are comparable (even if the specific types of injuries might differ), they don’t play identically, and players have said time and time again that they prefer natural surfaces and generally feel better after games on grass. Thanks to the upcoming Men’s World Cup, soccer purists finally got their wish. A nearly two-foot thick layer of bedding and drainage material was installed atop the old turf surface at Lumen before grass was rolled out. Did the new grass at a higher elevation mess with long-engrained mental sight lines for the home team? Did the hard subsurface, which has gradually been settling in, influence how the ball rolls and bounces compared to the turf surface we were accustomed to? Or did we upset the soccer gods by announcing that the surface would be ripped out almost immediately after the World Cup in order to reinstall turf, thereby cursing it? When the schedule was first announced and four Reign home games were promised to be on grass, most people rejoiced. Now, I wouldn’t mind if the grass was long gone before they welcome the Thorns for their next home game in mid-July.
Maybe it was an Etsy witch. Mariners fans witnessed first-hand the power of hiring an Etsy witch to remove a hex as they surged toward the 2025 MLB postseason. But hexes work many ways, and an opposing fan could just as easily hire a witch to transfer a curse from one team to another… looking at you, KC Current, who have now suspiciously won 3 in a row after losing three of your first four games. Sure, it could be the return of Temwa Chawinga, but it could also be Current fans sending their bad vibes out west as payback for us thumping them 3-0. Fortunately, our friends at The Cooler Guild have taken matters into their own hands and bought a hex removal spell after the loss to Gotham. If the Reign score against Boston on Friday, then we’ve clearly identified the problem and might need to see if that witch offers a subscribe and save program.
And although those three options are the most probable, we must also consider some more far-fetched possibilities, like perhaps the team desperately needs to sign an impactful playmaker to help unleash the existing talent on the roster. I know this probably sounds like some ridiculous woo-woo, but hear me out. If you squint hard, you can almost see a ghostly visage in that midfield space, shattering opposition lines with laser-focused passes, opening gaps in defenses with their mind, taunting physics with the bend and precision of their set pieces, making ninja-like late runs into the box to clean up rebounds. Can you picture it? Can you see the ethereal hole in the Reign midfield? If we all wish hard enough, maybe that specter can manifest in corporeal form in July.
Keep hope, Reign fans – at least for now. Lesle Gallimore said ahead of the season that the team was looking at summer moves once they got more clarity on new roster spending mechanisms and identified where the roster had needs, and if the last five games have shown anything, it’s that this roster has some very clear needs. The league’s new High Impact Player rule will also go into effect this summer to unlock significantly more salary cap space for teams to recruit some big-name players, and a recent report suggests that the rule will be simplified to open those funds up to a much wider pool of global talent than the original criteria would have allowed.
That said, if the team stands pat in summer or only makes some peripheral moves even after these recent struggles, then we must consider one more possibility for why we have upset the soccer gods – maybe team ownership and leadership does not see a problem with putting an underwhelming product on the field and waiting for their young talent to become more seasoned, whereas the fans do.
