By Lesley Ryder
The Stars FC 2025 preseason began indoors at the Bridgeview Sports Dome. Music pumped through on a portable speaker, players joked while they went through their stretches, and even Head Coach Lorne Donaldson grooved to the music. It’s a scene that’s hard to imagine in the years of the club’s tumultuous past, but it’s one the Stars have been building towards in GM Richard Feuz’s 1000-day rebuild.
“When I talk about those 1000 days, it’s about three years. I think we need in every single project three years to get this stability and this consistency.” Feuz said in an interview with Gal Pal Sports.
The first year of the rebuild was busy. The club’s new ownership group inherited a team with major positions vacant, and in the midst of a player exodus. So, they started from scratch. Richard Feuz and Lorne Donaldson joined as GM and head coach, and they got to work rebuilding the club’s roster and culture to build a strong foundation for the future. “Our priority at this point was to build this consistency, to make sure and to show the players that they can trust themselves,” Feuz said. “And they have done an amazing job.”
It might be too early to say the Stars have achieved stability, but compared to seasons past, the Stars are on sturdy ground: A turmoil-free front office, a GM and a head coach firmly entrenched in the club, and a roster that grew in the offseason on the team’s own terms. It’s stable for Chicago, at the very least. For the Stars, the directive now is to take this new foundation, and build for a consistent and sustainable future.
Last season, Head Coach Lorne Donaldson fielded a young squad with a defense-first directive. Their lock-down defense, led by Sam Staab, stifled opponents, and kept scores low. It was the kind of response the team needed after giving up a league-high 50 goals in 2023. For the first half of the season, it seemed to go to plan. The Stars went into the olympic break with seven wins, seven losses, and two draws for a total of 23 points–just one short of their points total for the entire 2023 season.
Unfortunately, the Stars lost Sam Staab to a season-ending achilles injury in their opening match of the Summer Cup. Staab proved irreplaceable to the Stars’ back line as the team rotated several players through the defense to find the right formation. None could equal the leadership, or the set piece ability that Staab brought.
The Stars clinched a playoff berth for the first time since 2022, but they stumbled down the final stretch of the season. They arrived to the first round against Orlando Pride on a three game losing streak, and fell 4-1 in a dominant showing by the future champions.
Reaching the playoffs was a feat for the rebuilding Stars club. 10-year league veteran Shea Groom lauded the club’s performance, and the feat of just making the playoffs after their final regular season loss in Kansas City. “There’s been so many ups and downs, we’ve battled some really nasty season-ending injuries and people have had to step up that never thought they’d probably have to step up in those positions. This team is resilient and I’m just really proud to be a part of it.”
Still, this is a team with plenty of work to do. While the defense improved from a league-worst 50 goals conceded in 2023, they struggled to move the ball into scoring position. According to FBref, the Stars ranked last in progressive passes, and second to last in progressive carries. Worse, they ranked last in the league in pass completion, successfully linking just 70.4% of their passes–well below the league average of 78% completion.
Last summer, the Stars gained a crucial piece to their midfield rebuild in Julia Grosso. The Canadian gold medalist was lauded for her poise under pressure by Donaldson, but ultimately, the team needed more help than the former Juventus player could bring alone. The offseason brought 2023 NWSL Champion Maitane Lopez from Gotham FC, U-20 World Cup captain for Japan, Manaka Hayashi. Maitane’s veteran experience, and Hayashi’s poise in possession ought to bring the Stars’ midfield to a position where they can control the ball, and feed their speedy scorers.
Donaldson was up front with the media on the team’s needs on the first day of preseason, and was hopeful the team could continue to build on their defensive foundation “Obviously we want to get the ball and score more goals. That's the objective right now. We're still looking at signing players still, and just getting players in that can put the ball in the back of the net. But if you can't defend, you can't win. So we’ve got to make sure defensively, we are still strong.”
Defensively, the Stars may be rearranging. The preseason roster listed eleven forwards and midfielders respectively, but just five defenders, including the recovering Sam Staab. According to Richard Feuz, the Stars may look inward before hitting the transfer market. “We just want to make sure to see what we have here and then decide what could be useful to help the team to be better.” Feuz said to the media ahead of preseason camp. With the amount of forwards and midfielders called to camp, it will be interesting to see if anyone emerges on opening day as the next Tara McKeown, or Crystal Dunn.
Coach Donaldson is optimistic about what this team will be able to achieve. Last year’s young squad is another year older, and hopefully wiser for it. “Last year, we were starting sometimes, 3, 4, 5, rookies, so they have a better understanding of formations and the different stuff we can do. So hopefully this year now, we can do a little more stuff and make some more adjustments so that they will understand a little bit better, especially in games. We can adjust. And they will–on the fly, they will get it and say, okay, I know what this is all about.”
Some fans (and reporters, tbh) had questions about the Stars’ relatively quiet trade activity this offseason. Feuz notes the successful new signings and re-signings for the club, but also points back to the summer 2024 window, which brought Julia Grosso, and Brazilian Olympic standout, Ludmila. “Ludmila scored a bunch of goals for us, and Julia was the most accurate passer on the team, with 77% completion in the final third.” Feuz said in an interview with Gal Pal Sports.
The lack of splashy signings may be a bit boring for fans and onlookers, but Feuz hopes it creates financial sustainability for the club “The thing is, we also try to be smart and wise economically, because if we want to build something sustainable we can’t go crazy on the market,” but for Feuz, sustainability includes the team’s own players. “We know that if we can get our players to the end of their contract, we can allow this money to their salary, and at the end of the day, I prefer, sorry to say that, but I prefer to give money to my players than to other clubs.” It’s an interesting stance to take as record signing fees fly around the globe, and one that fans hope means retaining top talent as their contracts lapse.
As the Stars embark on the next third of a 1000-day rebuild, Feuz believes the Stars are on-track. “At this point, I think we're going great. I think we're building step by step, In one word? We're positive. My goal is: always try to go forward. And I think we're going forward.”
The Stars will have a chance to show how far they’ve come when they begin their 2025 campaign March 14th against the Orlando Pride in a rematch of last season’s playoff tilt. It’s too soon to say for certain how the 2025 Stars fit into the 1000-day rebuild, but one year into the club’s new era, it seems the Stars are right on schedule.