Red Stars defender Arin Wright gets fresh slate as NWSL season kicks off

Defender Arin Wright is detailed in her discussions.

It doesn’t matter whom she’s conversing with on the Red Stars; she likes to talk. So when she used two words — fresh start — to define not only the team’s upcoming season but her own, they carried a lot of weight.

Her explanation for choosing those words is where the detail came in.

“I played the whole [2021] season after having Grady [her son],” Wright said. “No issues. But at the end of the season, I was basically taped together.”

The next year, everything caught up to Wright and to the Red Stars as an organization.

Wright dealt with various injuries in 2022, including an ankle injury in August and nagging hip issues and muscle weakness. Meanwhile, the club she has called home her entire NWSL career was dealing with the fallout from Rory Dames’ resignation after abuse allegations detailed in a Washington Post report.

The ’22 season concluded in the fall with two reports revealing that abuse and misconduct were systemic across the league, but specifically within four organizations, including the Red Stars.

The sale of longtime owner Arnim Whisler’s stake in the club followed in December.

As preseason training camp began in February, a page was turned, marking a new beginning for the club. It also marked a new beginning for Wright, who was unanimously voted by her teammates to serve as captain when goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher is competing with the U.S. national team.

“I definitely shopped around [during free agency],” said Wright, a first-time free agent. “I weighed my pros and cons. I think my circumstances are slightly different in the sense that I have a family, a child in school and a home.

“What it came down to was the Red Stars ended up giving me exactly what I wanted. They showed me that they valued me.”

While Wright chose to remain with the organization, teammates she had played with her entire pro career opted not to.

Midfielder Danielle Colaprico signed with San Diego Wave FC, and midfielders Vanessa DiBernardo and Morgan Gautrat signed with the Kansas City Current.

Their departures signaled the beginning of a rebuild. In welcoming new players to the club, Wright said the veterans who remained had to confront its past.

“Me and [Naeher] talked a lot about how we wanted to approach this conversation with new players,” Wright said. “When you look at our team, we’re a bunch of players who lived through it, then there’s over half our team who has no idea [what happened here].

“The best way we wanted to approach it was having the team over at Alyssa’s house. We made it super-casual, and we just wanted to talk it through and make sure everyone was on the same page. We wanted to wipe the slate clean.”

The fresh slate is deserved because it’s the players wiping it clean, not owners or coaches sweeping abuse and misconduct under the rug.

With this clean slate comes a new system from coach Chris Petrucelli, hired last February, who has earned the trust of the team, Wright said, by listening.

“The best part about our game this year is no one is going to know what to expect from us because we’re so new,” Wright said. “I will say we’re trying everything, and that’s a good thing. For too long, we were stuck in our ways.”

On Saturday, in the season opener against San Diego, fans will get their first glimpse at Chicago’s new NWSL team.