Huitema leaves with apparent knee injury
By Lesley Ryder
The 2026 Chicago Stars results show an interesting pattern. Either they win the game, or get shutout. Saturday’s match on the toasty turf at Martin Stadium continued the trend with Angel City FC handing Chicago their league-high 11th loss of the season with a 2-0 shutout.
The Stars were dealt a crushing blow early in the match. In the 21st minute, Jordyn Huitema took a knock to her leg from Emily Sams. Trainers tended to her on the field, and she walked to the sideline on her own power. She re-entered the match, and moments later, while attempting to pivot with the ball, the Stars FC leading scorer went down holding her left knee. She could not continue, making way for Ivonne Chacon.
Both teams struggled to get going early in the match. Jameese Joseph registered the only shot on goal in the match before the requisite hydration break. But after the break, both sides turned up the volume. In the 39th minute Angel City’s Evelyn Shores motored down the left side and sent a ball to Maiara Niehaus, who struck the volley just over the bar.
Moments later, Mal Swanson slotted a pass to Ivonne Chacon, who split the ACFC defense and buried a shot past Angelina Anderson, but was called offside. In first half stoppage time, Michelle Alozie served a cross in the ACFC box. Mal Swanson met it with a header and was stymied by Anderson.
The second half was less kind to the Stars. In the 53rd minute, Manaka Hayashi conceded a penalty. Maiara Niehaus stepped up for the occasion, and beat Katie Atkinson with a low drive to her right.
In the 84th minute Leila Ouahabi made her Chicago Stars debut. Just five minutes later, ACFC’s Prisca Chilufya beat Ouahabi to the ball, and crossed to Svendis Jonsdottir for what appeared to be Angel City’s second goal of the match, but VAR overturned the call for offsides.
But Jonsdottir wouldn’t have to wait long for another chance. In the 8th minute of second half stoppage time, Chilufya and Jonsdottir connected again for a no-doubter dagger. Angel City kept the clean sheet for their third win in a row.
Quotent Quotables
After the match, head coach Martin Sjogren felt the Stars did well to control the match in the first half. It’s true that the Stars maintained possession 54% of the time, it seemed as though Angel City was content to let them have the ball. Mal Swanson had her moments of brilliance, as a world-class player would, but it wasn’t enough to take the lead. Had Ivonne Chacon been onside for her first half strike, then perhaps the second half plays out differenty
The Stars also surrendered a penalty for the second week in a row, and the fourth time this season. “It’s a little bit hard when you get those kind of goals against.” He noted while it might seem like bad luck that the Stars haven’t made penalty kicks of their own “Usually in sports, you get what you deserve. So we just have to keep on fighting and and keep on trying to to find a way to win games.”
Sjogren also shared the weight of what could be lost if Huitema’s injury keeps her out long term. “I think Jordan is actually one of the one of the most interesting attackers in the league in her position. So so of course [the injury’s] hard,” Sjogren said. “We don't really know yet what what the verdict will be… this game leaves us with like a bad feeling not only the result, but also that we might have a might have an injury on Jordan.”
Any good news?
Mal Swanson and Ivonne Chacon formed a complementary strike force for the Stars. Chacon’s speed and eye for elusive seams worked well with Swanson’s dribbling and distribution. They couldn’t make a goal stand against Angel City, but the chemistry is there.
After the match Michelle Alozie shared the joy Mal Swanson brings when she’s on the field. “She kind of just bips and bops everywhere around the field, wherever space is. She will be there, and she really wants to be on the ball.” But of course, she notes, Mal can’t be tasked with doing everything by herself. “We want her on the ball. She does well on the ball, but we need to just continue to support her. It can't just be Mal Swanson out there has to be all of us.”
Alozie is hopeful that the Stars can exert their playing style on their opponents. “If you look at actually how we're playing, we are playing how we want Chicago style to be, and it's really just on us to not give away the goals because a lot of times it's us giving the up the opponent the goals instead of them doing something insane. So it's how can we keep the ball a little bit more instead of giving goals away.”
The Stars will now hit the road for the next few matches. Up first will be the Orlando Pride who have stumbled out of the blocks in the second half of the season. No doubt they’d like a repeat performance of their 3-0 win back in March.