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Houston Dash eyeing fresh start in 2027 is more exciting than concerning
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- Houston Dash eyeing fresh start in 2027 is more exciting than concerning
There was hope in Houston on Sunday for the Dash.
Forward Miljana Ivanović scored her first NWSL goal just before the end of the first half with a beautiful long-distance strike. The Serbian international tallied another in a back-and-forth affair with the Washington Spirit, but the Dash needed a win to mathematically keep themselves in the running for their first postseason appearance since 2022.
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Even as goalkeeper Jane Campbell set a new single-season saves record with 114 (with a kick save made on Trinity Rodman), she couldn't stop them all. Tanzanian international Clara Luvanga scored her debut NWSL goal for the Spirit in the 84th minute. It turned out to be the dagger for the Dash in the 3-2 loss. There was no third equalizer, and certainly no go-ahead goal to escape their fate.
Instead, the Dash became the fifth NWSL club eliminated from playoff contention in the 2026 season.
In Houston's 13th season as an NWSL club, they are once again staring down an offseason with plenty of work ahead. It's a familiar story in Houston, even though they started the year feeling relatively (and unfamiliarly) stable.
How it started
Promisingly enough, despite three major departures. First, Michelle Alozie headed to the Chicago Stars, then Yazmeen Ryan and Delanie Sheehan moved to Denver's expansion team. The latter sent over $1 million in combined funds back to Houston.
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The Dash quickly embraced their youth movement, picking through the graduates of North Carolina and immediately turning signings into starters: forward Kat Rader (Duke, signed through 2028), midfielder Linda Ullmark (UNC, signed through 2029) and forward Kate Faasse (UNC, signed through 2028). Rader has been the team's breakthrough player this season, serving as the team's leading goalscorer with 10 and one of the leading candidates for NWSL rookie of the year.
From a technical standpoint, the Dash had seemed to be in a good place at the start of the year. Head coach Fabrice Gautrat and the Dash missed out on the playoffs in 2025, but giving him a second season to build on the foundations felt like the right choice. And in February, Twila Kilgore — former interim U.S. women's national team manager and former Dash assistant coach — returned to Houston as the team's new technical director.
"The technical director role is central to how we want to build and sustain success in Houston. Twila is uniquely qualified to help shape and execute our shared vision for the club," Angela Hucles Mangano, Houston's president of soccer, said in the club's press release .
What went wrong?
Arguably for Houston, nothing went horribly wrong in 2026 unlike some other seasons. But by September, both Gautrat and Kilgore were gone.
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After a solid win over North Carolina, then a thumping of the Chicago Stars 5-0 in August, the team went on a four-game skid through September, its worst of the season. (Three of those four losses were 1-0 results against Bay, Seattle and Utah. Only Orlando had defeated them 3-1 in that span.)
Hucles Mangano pointed to the club's ambition despite their 12th place on the table at that point. "We believe in the quality of this team and its ability to succeed both this season and beyond," she said .
In the long run, Houston couldn't quite keep up this season with their young guns and lack of direct replacements for Ryan and Sheehan.
Where do they go from here?
Maybe the Dash didn't quite know they were in a rebuilding year, but the good news is they should have a pretty clear sense of a shopping list beyond a new head coach. Rader has had a fantastic season, but needs help — adding an older, proven scorer feels like a tried-and-true recipe for success. Add in a winger that can truly whip a cross in, like what the Dash were missing after Ryan's departure, and maybe a box-to-box midfielder, and the Dash could be in a very different place for 2027.
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Then there is Hucles Mangano's ambition for this club, and selling that vision to more than just incoming players and a new head coach. Houston may not be facing the existential questions of Racing Louisville — or the miserable season the Stars have lived through — but the team has rarely felt like a power player in the NWSL market ambitions.
Using that feeling of being overlooked has certainly worked for other teams in the past (the Orlando Pride made an entire marketing campaign around it after they broke through their own underwhelming expansion history with their shield and championship double).
The Dash have the stability of a young core, and they have a chip on their shoulders. If they can take advantage of those two things in 2027 and add those missing pieces, Houston can maybe finally write a new story come next November.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic .
Houston Dash, NWSL, Women's Soccer
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