KANSAS CITY – The Kansas City Current showed their dominance on an international stage for the first time in club history with an exciting, action-packed win over Pachuca Femenil in the NWSL x Liga MC Femenil Summer Cup!
On a beautiful summer evening, the Kansas City Current started the game dominating possession. Early shot attempts beckoned a few saves from Pachuca’s goalkeeper, Asthefanny Barreras. But in the eleventh minute, KC opened up the scoring! This goal coming from Debinha with an absolute banger in the top right corner!
A matter of sixteen minutes later Debinha found her second goal of the game! A perfectly chipped ball played by Kristen Hamilton was met in the air by Debinha! Debinha’s form was nowhere to be found this whole year only scoring one goal before this match but this could’ve broken her out of her slump!
Four minutes later, in the thirty-second minute, Kristen Hamilton put her name on the scoresheet again! However, this was in the goals category! She received a cutback ball from Michelle Cooper and finished it to get the third goal of the game for KC! This completed the scoring for the first half.
The second half started slow. Decent soccer on each end. Pachuca seemed to find a few more chances but were unsuccessful. Kansas City continued to attack with speed up front but couldn’t find another goal themselves. Each team just kind of chilled the whole half. Kansas City passed the ball around the defense of Pachuca for the majority of the half retaining possession very well.
Each team made multiple changes throughout the match. We saw two club debuts in a start from Hanna Glas and a substitute from Janaue DeFazio. It seemed like Kansas City was trying to keep their starters fresh. It is always great to see when teams replace their starters with players that don’t tend to touch the field.
Liga MX Femenil is growing very fast. In just seven years it has grown to a league that is competing with the NWSL! Head Coach, Oscar Torres said the opportunity to play against an NWSL team is huge for the growth and progress of Pachuca and Liga MX Femenil. Torres mentioned that the Current showed a lot of speed that the Mexican side does not always see.
This game was awfully clean. Not very many fouls and lots of respect from both sides. This was just a good relaxing game of soccer to watch. This game was a prime example of the growth of women’s sports in the world. Both coaches mentioned how proud they are to see the connection between the two countries within the two countries. Kansas City proves they are not only one of the top teams in the NWSL but also in North America. The next and last game of the group is against Tigres at home on August 1!