By Lesley Ryder
Chicago Stars FC announced Sunday that Natalia Kuikka suffered a knee injury on international duty with Finland. Though it seems she avoided serious injury, the Stars are faced with a serious shortage of personnel on defense. The Stars opened preseason camp with just 4 active defenders, and now they must add to their defender corps, or put their rebuild in jeopardy.
The Good News
- It’s not an ACL tear!
- It’s still preseason.
- The Stars have options.
- Cari Roccaro: The midfielder filled in as a center back for the end of the 2024 season.
- Jenna Bike: the speedy, tenacious forward could make a move to fullback.
- Manaka Hayashi: the young midfielder has experience at center back.
- Maitane Lopez: the veteran midfielder can double as a center back as needed.
- Bea Franklin: the defensive midfielder was spotted playing center back during preseason camp.
Right now, it appears Kuikka escaped a serious, long-term injury, but it will still take time to heal.
The Stars have time to work with the roster they have, or hit the transfer market. Time is on their side.
They have a few versatile players who could fill the gaps temporarily, but it’s in their best interest to bring in a couple of players for depth.
The Bad News
- The transfer market ain’t what it used to be
- Versatility comes with a price.
The European transfer window is closed, and the experienced free agent list is shorter than it was at the start of camp last month.
The Stars new signings were announced as midfielders. Maitane and Hayashi are going to be needed to build up the midfield that struggled last season.
What should they do?
The Stars started preseason in need of more defenders. GM Richard Feuz wasn’t worried about the short list on day one of camp.
At the end of the day, we're not pressed. It's all about negotiation. All about discussing what is the best for the team. We want to make sure when we reach someone [it’s not] only for the on the pitch, [but] also at the front office level, at the staff level, we want to make sure this person will fit in the organization, because we don't like to recruit people to stay only a few months. So at the end of the day, we take more time. 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.
But the Stars also opened camp excited to move forward in their rebuild, pushing their identity to include better ball possession and creating chances for their capable forward line.
Right now, the Stars face their first big test of the 2025 season: stick to their defense-first mentality and look inward, moving players back to defensive roles at the cost of continuing the team’s rebuild, or hit the transfer market for at least one capable veteran defender.