The Chicago Stars keep looking for stability. They hope their next coaching hire will provide some to a franchise desperately searching for calm.
On Wednesday, the Stars fired coach Lorne Donaldson six games into his second season. Assistant coach Masaki Hemmi is serving as the interim coach until Donaldson’s replacement is found.
Playing without star attacker Mallory Swanson, who has been absent all year due to undisclosed personal reasons with no known timetable for her 2025 debut, the Stars sit last in the 14-team league with only one win and three points. Entering Sunday’s game at Gotham FC, the Stars have scored an NWSL-worst three goals, and their minus-11 differential was the worst in the league by five goals when Donaldson was fired.
“When I talk about performing, [it’s] not only the results on the pitch but also about the progress that the team is [making],” Stars general manager Richard Feuz said during a Thursday teleconference. “We judged that the team needed to take another direction.”
An accomplished coach who led Jamaica to the round of 16 in the 2023 World Cup, Donaldson was supposed to bring a steady hand to a franchise in flux while restoring a more positive and collaborative vibe. Now he’s gone, and the Stars are dealing with more change and will soon have their fourth permanent head coach of the decade.
Since Rory Dames’ 2021 resignation and subsequent revelations about his behavior and treatment of players, the franchise has undergone a complete overhaul. Under pressure because of what happened under his watch, longtime owner Arnim Whisler announced in late 2022 he would sell the franchise, and it was officially bought in September 2023 by a group led by Laura Ricketts. Under Ricketts, the club changed its name from Red Stars to Stars and underwent a controversial rebrand as it tries to break from the past and alter its reputation with supporters and the soccer world.
The unsteadiness, though the changes atop the organization were necessary, has bled onto the field in an increasingly competitive league.
Chris Petrucelli, Dames’ replacement, was fired just before the end of his second year on the bench, a 2023 season when the team finished last in the league. Well-known veteran players who helped make the club one of NWSL’s most consistent teams have departed, and the construction of a successful new core is still in progress.
Feuz, a veteran of European soccer thanks to his time with Swiss club Servette, inherited Donaldson when he was named GM in February 2024. Last year’s team scraped into the final playoff spot, but the first year with Feuz in charge for an entire offseason has sputtered badly to begin its schedule and hasn’t been able to compensate for Swanson’s absence, costing Donaldson his job and opening up the franchise to more questions about its direction.
Despite outside concerns about the roster and the club’s moves over the winter, it doesn’t sound like Feuz expected to hear questions about the state of their rebuild six games into this season.
Feuz said the Stars have a sustainable long-term strategy that is best for the team. And even though some of the offseason additions were young, Feuz and the Stars still expect performance right away from everybody.
“I truly believe in this roster,” Feuz said.