Photo Credit: Kylie Graham-Imagn Images
Kansas City Current have set the standard in the National Women’s Soccer League this season, already clinching a playoff spot with a commanding 14-point lead at the top. While the goals scored by Temwa Chawinga and the creativity of Debinha grab headlines, it is the midfield — and in particular 18-year-old Claire Hutton — that provides the balance and control behind their dominance.
The Current’s season has been fluid, with various players all excelling and playing in great form simultaneously. Striker Temwa Chawinga has carried her scoring form from 2024 into 2025, already with 11 goals. At the other end of the pitch, Kansas City has conceded just 10 goals, with defender Kayla Sharples emerging as their defensive anchor. In attack, Michelle Cooper and Bia Zaneratto add directness, while Debinha provides the creative spark to tie the forward line together.
However, the midfield engine room has been a major reason for their success, and at the heart of that is their young defensive midfielder, Hutton. She acts as the conduit between the attacking and defensive line, constantly putting the Current into good attacking transitions and defending her space in defensive transitions.
Hutton’s rise in the league hasn’t gone unnoticed (she now has six caps with the U.S. women’s national team since her senior international debut on February 23, 2025, after making her professional debut in 2024), but appreciating her true tactical talents is often drowned out by the more flashy players like Chawinga and Cooper. For her part, Hutton adds bite and ball-recycling to a team full of technical quality; holding the midfield together is a shared task between her and Lo’eau LaBonta.
Without the ball, it’s Hutton’s proactivity and hunger that stand out. The modern defensive midfielder is expected to be an all-round player, and Hutton is already showcasing her on-the-ball talents. In essence, she’s a midfield anchor primarily tasked with winning back possession and serving as a disciplined shield for the backline — a tempo-controlling midfielder who links play through and between the lines for more creative players.
Her tackling, recoveries, and interceptions reflect her reading of the game, and though there are lapses in concentration at times, her recovery and athleticism are impressive.
The midfielder’s data shows balance. Hutton ranks in the mid-70s and 80s in most of her key metrics like tackles + interceptions, blocks, take-ons, touches, and progressive passes, which are the traits you look for in a modern holding midfielder.
In their game against North Carolina Courage on April 26, the Current were pressing North Carolina high up the pitch with Chawinga closing down the full-back. Still, the Courage found a way through with one sweeping pass to their striker. In this moment, Hutton is already positioned slightly higher to keep the lines compact and allow KC to keep play happening in the final third. Once the ball is passed through, she runs towards the line of the pass, and though she doesn’t make the interception, she immediately dispossesses the opposition striker cleanly and gets the ball out to Hailie Mace, who drives forward, back into the Courage’s defensive half.
Hutton ranks in the high 80th percentiles for tackles and interceptions, and her volume is among the league’s best. At just 18, she still has moments where a missed challenge leaves space exposed, but that’s a natural part of her development.
However, Hutton has shown an immense capacity to cover her position and make enough tackles and interceptions that put the Current back into attacking transitions, as seen here against the Portland Thorns.
In this game on August 23, the Portland Thorns were playing out from the back, with KC Current trying to get close to tracking each pass. As the ball progressed, Hutton had to track back from a higher position into a more defensive one to cover for center-back Sharples’ push towards the ball carrier. Hutton is the one to mark that space and cover for her defender, and managed to do so by intercepting the pass into the onrushing Thorns midfielder.
The way LaBonta and Hutton are set up is very interchangeable positionally. Hutton will often start slightly ahead of LaBonta, being the aggressor, and because of her pace, covers for LaBonta’s lack of mobility in comparison. LaBonta will play the riskier, more creative passes to get the offensive line moving, but Hutton’s secondary role is to recycle possession as she patrols close by, showing for the ball to keep possession ticking.
The clip below shows one example of the Current’s style of building out from the back. The first point to note is LaBonta’s and Hutton’s positioning, with the former positioned deeper than Hutton but placed between the lines of Courage’s pressure. Once LaBonta breaks through the press with her pass into Debinha, Hutton is immediately available for the wall pass and takes a quick touch (albeit a heavy one) into Chawinga that puts the Current through into an attacking transition sequence.
However, Hutton isn’t all about quick link-up play — she also excels at slowing down and orchestrating play when there is no obvious pass forward. She is a high-volume passer, averaging 42.84 passes per 90 minutes (according to FBref). While this only places her in the 68th percentile, it is extremely similar to elite defensive midfielder Sam Coffey‘s 45.99 passes per 90, with Coffey being a more established ball progressor and passer. These passes aid in recycling possession and ensuring that KC doesn’t needlessly lose the ball and can re-adjust their shape.
The above example from the game on August 1 against Racing Louisville shows the Current pushing through the middle. But we see that both Chawinga and Zaneratto are marked by Louisville’s compact back four. Instead of playing into that, which has a high probability of losing possession, Hutton turns and plays it back to her defense to reset play and find an alternate solution.
Hutton is still a bit raw, but every game showcases her elite potential to become a world-class defensive midfielder. She is so far an effective and invaluable member of the midfield who complements LaBonta’s style, which has unquestionably aided in propelling KC Current to the top of the league.
