Chicago Stars look to rebuild beyond the field amid staff-change turmoil
It’s getting hard to keep track of all the Chicago Stars’ coaching changes.
The Stars announced Wednesday that they have parted ways with head coach Martin Sjögren and assistant coach Andres Jacobson. Karina Báez will take over as interim coach. The move marks the club's sixth coaching change since the start of the 2025 season — four of which came during last season alone.
Last year the Stars fired Lorne Donaldson in April, followed by Masaki Hemmi and Ella Masar as interim coaches before Jacobson took over for the remainder of the season. Sjögren arrived after that.
His tenure opened with a 4-0 loss to Angel City and ended with the team sitting at the bottom of the league at 4-1-13, capped by a five-game winless streak in which Chicago scored just once.
"Anytime that there's things that don't work out, it's never just one thing. It's a challenging league," Stars captain Alyssa Naeher said Thursday. "Even as a player, I take responsibility for that as well. … I think it's multifaceted reasons for where we are in the season right now."
Notably, the club has brought back Donaldson as interim director. He coached the team starting in 2023 before being sacked in 2025, helping lead Chicago to the playoffs in 2024 with a 10-14-2 record.
"I think what Lorne brings is the ability to give us back the joy of the game, to bring a positive culture to the environment," Stars president Karen Leetzow said.
Báez has served as an assistant with the Stars for three seasons. Her first assignment as head coach comes Friday in Seattle, where Chicago drew Reign FC 3-3 last August on a late goal — the kind of moment Báez is hoping to recreate.
“I think those moments, it’s what we are expecting to live and to see in our players their best performance that they reach,” Baez said. “Now it’s time to keep working on those specific things where we can be more aggressive with or without the ball in terms of tactical football.”
The front office has not been immune to the turbulence either. This season, the club also fired general manager Richard Feuz in May. Leetzow admitted previous lessons should be reviewed carefully, and it’s time to take a “comprehensive” plan.
"We've plugged the vacancies, but we haven't perhaps looked at it as holistically as we need to," she said. "We need to focus on building the infrastructure from the ground up with best-in-class employees."
Leetzow also reassured the team’s focus is to build a player-centered organization, adding that she recently met with Naeher over coffee to hear directly from the locker room.
"We do want to hear from the players, and we are trying to focus our build on making this a player-centered environment and giving them what they want and need," she said.
As the team's leading voice, Naeher elaborated on her involvement in the club’s operation as part of a collaboration, saying she wants it to shape the club's direction going forward.
"We want Chicago to be a place that players, staff and anybody else wants to come to and wants to be a part of, and wants to feel proud to say that they're part of the Stars organization," Naeher said.