The 2024 NWSL season looked limitless for the San Diego Wave after coming in as the defending Supporters’ Shield title holders and defeating the league champion Gotham FC in the Challenge Cup final on March 15.

The regular season then began with inconsistent play with the team really never hitting its stride but still managing to remain competitive even in its losses. Then came June 24, head coach Casey Stoney was fired, which came as a shock to many as she had signed a three-year contract extension with a mutual option for a fourth in January.

Rumors swirled as to what the reasons were for this sudden parting of ways with the club’s official position being the lackluster performance on the pitch. The announcement also came just a couple of weeks after the hiring of Camille Ashton as the new sporting director and general manager.

Whatever the actual reasons were we may never know, but the team followed that up with arguably its worst performance of the season in a 3-0 home defeat to the Chicago Red Stars and a 1-0 loss to the Portland Thorns.

Despite all that, the team got its second wind with the Concacaf W Champions Cup, which brought a chance to make it to the semifinals of that tournament if it could manage to win against Club América at Snapdragon Stadium on Oct. 16. But the Wave went down to 10 players early in the match after goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan got a red card and the team from Mexico scored the eventual game-winner in the 58th minute.

However, hope was not completely lost thanks to the teams in the bottom half of the league standings having their own issues, which kept the Wave’s chances of making the postseason mathematically plausible up until the 4-1 road loss to Kansas City on Oc. 19.

The hiring of interim head coach Landon Donovan in mid-August seemed like an attempt to bring back disgruntled supporters. He tried to use his winning experience as a player with the USMNT and his playing days in Major League Soccer along with being a head coach at San Diego Loyal where he repeatedly led them to the postseason.

While there were several bright performances after Donovan took over, including the three-goal game by María Sánchez on Sept. 18 versus the Portland Thorns, it still ended up too little too late.

As someone who has suffered the heartache of being a lifelong Chivas de Guadalajara fan, I can relate to what San Diego Wave fans must be feeling knowing that the team had so much potential this year.

It will be interesting to see what changes the Levine Leichtman Family Office made, which purchased the San Diego Wave Fútbol Club from Ron Burkle earlier this month. Still, some good news for 2025 is Kristen McNabb was re-signed and will continue to be an integral part of a backline and midfield as the team prepares to close out this forgettable season while potentially playing the role of spoiler on Nov. 3 at Snapdragon Stadium versus Racing Louisville.

Photo by David Frerker