When San Diego Wave FC step onto the pitch for the 2025 NWSL regular season, they’ll be two years removed from their 2023 NWSL Shield win and their last playoff appearance. It’s hardly the longest drought ever for a sports team, but for the four-year-old franchise that set a winning standard in 2022, it’s new territory. The club now finds itself taking its first steps in a rebuild after a busy offseason.
It’s not something the franchise is shying away from with general manager and former NWSL player Camille Ashton Levin telling CBS Sports during preseason, “It’s no secret,” but there are multiple circumstances that the club has had to juggle since her own midseason arrival to San Diego.
“Ultimately want to be in a place where we’re competing for championships. Not on one-off years, but year after year, and have something that’s sustainable,” she said.
Misdseason shakeups
The spiral toward a rebuild began midseason in 2024, a surprising dismissal of former head coach Casey Stoney by former club president Jill Ellis. The move came after a seven-game winless streak by the Wave where they struggled to produce any meaningful attacking football and struggled in front of goal, sitting in ninth place at the time…
