After a red-hot start to the season with five straight wins, San Diego Wave FC has officially cooled off. The club lost its second consecutive match on Sunday, falling 1-0 to Bay FC at Snapdragon Stadium.
The Wave (5-3) struggled all match against Bay FC (3-3), who came into the match in 10th place on the National Women’s Soccer League table and left with their third win of the season.
Wave FC captain Kennedy Wesley acknowledged that the Wave was out of sorts collectively during the match.
“The execution wasn’t quite there,” Kennedy said after the match, adding that there’s no need to panic and that the Wave can bounce back. “It’s just a matter of fine-tuning.”
The match’s lone score came early: in the fourth minute, Bay FC forward Racheal
Kundananji nailed a left-footed shot that turned out to be the winning goal.
From there, Bay FC essentially played a game of keep-away with the ball for the rest of the contest. Overall, San Diego won the possession battle with 51% for the match, and took more shots on goal – six to Bay’s three — but failed to convert on any of them.
There were several moments when the officials stopped play while the Wave was on the attack, citing seeming injuries to Bay FC players; the multiple stoppages led the Snapdragon crowd to boo, out of the feeling that the visitors were using gamesmanship to blunt San Diego’s momentum.
The Wave’s loss to Bay FC came four days after they dropped a 2-0 match at Portland (6-1-1) — a measure of revenge for the Thorns, who suffered their lone loss of the season thus far to San Diego 3-1 on March 25.
“It’s hard when you have two games [this close] in a row,” said San Diego forward Ludmila Da Silva, a.k.a. Dudinha. “It’s not an excuse; it’s just a fact.”
The losses also come at a particularly busy stretch of the schedule for Wave FC; on May 9 they travel to Los Angeles to face rivals Angel City FC, before returning home for a May 15 home tilt with the Washington Spirit (4-1-3), who trail only Portland in the NWSL standings.
They close the month out with three more games, with a May 24 home match against Orlando sandwiched between visits to Houston on May 20 and Chicago on May 31. That will be their last game before hosting another perennial contender, Gotham FC, on July 4. Gotham is in 4th place in the league after Sunday, just one spot below San Diego.
San Diego is playing six matches this month because they – and the NWSL as a whole –
taking a hiatus in June due in part to the men’s World Cup, which takes place from June 11-July 19 at 16 stadiums across North America.
“What’s hard in these three-game weeks is we don’t have an opportunity to train that much,” Wave FC assistant coach Becki Tweed said of the schedule. “There’s only so much you can do in the week.”
Still yet to make her debut for the Wave is Catarina Macario, the one-time San Diego Surf standout who was acquired from Chelsea FC in England in late March for a reported $300,000 transfer fee. The Wave then reportedly signed her to a five-year contract worth $8 million.
Macario was dealing with a lingering heel injury when acquired, and it’s possible that she might not make her NWSL debut until after the month-long midseason break in June.
Until now, the Wave hadn’t needed her, as they were unquestionably one of the best in the league. But although they were once perched at the top of the NWSL table with the league’s best record, the team has fallen to third place with 15 points, behind the Spirit — who also have 15 points, but edge out the Wave based on goal differential — and overall league leader Portland, who have 19 points.
Notes: Emma Hayes, the head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team, was on hand to
watch the match. Hayes, who’ll likely be the team’s coach at the 2027 Women’s World Cup and 2028 Olympics, has been visiting NWSL matches in the past few weeks, evaluating talent.
On Saturday, Hayes was in L.A. for an Angel City FC game, and she has or will visit other teams that have talent likely to make America’s World Cup or Olympic roster, like Washington and Gotham.
San Diego Wave stumbles against Bay FC for second straight loss
