BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. -- The autumn of Lauren Holiday's career will stretch into October. She and those who together enjoyed the summer of a lifetime made sure of it.
In a National Women's Soccer League season largely shaped by how teams adjusted to playing without key individuals for long stretches because of the World Cup, FC Kansas City earned a place in the championship game because the season was just long enough to adjust to their return. The only team in the league's short history to qualify for the playoffs every season, it will have a chance to become the first back-to-back champion after a 3-0 semifinal win against the host Chicago Red Stars on Sunday. FC Kansasy City will play Seattle Reign FC, which beat the Washington Spirit 3-0 later Sunday, in the Oct. 1 championship game in Portland, Oregon.
Amy Rodriguez scored twice, Heather O'Reilly provided an assist and Becky Sauerbrunn defended like the world's best defender that those around her insist she is. And Holiday, a World Cup winner like the aforementioned three, didn't let even a seemingly mundane moment go to waste in what would have been her final NWSL game.
"That team is completely world class with world-class players," said Red Stars defender Julie Johnston, who would know from her time alongside Holiday, O'Reilly, Rodriguez and Sauerbrunn for the United States this summer. "If you give them slight opportunities, they definitely know how to put those away."
This was clinical opportunism more than comprehensive dominance.
The first goal came courtesy of Holiday, although not in the manner familiar for the 27-year-old midfielder who has announced she will retire from the sport at the conclusion of the NWSL season and national team's ongoing celebration tour. Instead of driving her own shot into the corner of the net or gliding through the defense and all but placing the ball on a teammate's foot with a pinpoint pass -- as she has so often as arguably the best player through the entirety of the league's three seasons -- she simply got in the way in the 12th minute when Red Stars goalkeeper Michele Dalton dawdled on her distribution. Holiday closed the distance on the goalkeeper, whose attempt to shift the ball around the onrushing player caromed away and landed at the feet of Amy Rodriguez. Her shot into the open net put her team in front 1-0 against the run of play.
"They came out and they were playing pretty well," Holiday said. "We weathered the storm. That's a very good Chicago team we played against. I think just our ability to keep the ball under pressure was huge, and I think it wore them down and we finished our opportunities."
Nine minutes after the opening goal, moments after Sauerbrunn denied a scoring opportunity at the other end with a well-timed tackle, Erika Tymrak extended the lead with a shot from a tight angle when O'Reilly picked her out with a terrific pass across the 18-yard box. Four minutes after that, off nothing more threatening than a goal kick, Rodriguez made it a three-goal lead when she dribbled around Dalton, kept her cool and picked out the right angle for a shot through three Red Stars players.
There were 90 minutes of work required to make it so, but three moments of precision and poise decided the day.
"We got into a lot of dangerous spots; we just lacked the quality to do anything about it," Chicago Red Stars coach Rory Dames said. "They had better players in those spots, and when they got into those spots, they punished us for it."
Whether it was FC Kansas City's best performance, what mattered is that it was a performance by FC Kansas City's best. Holding midfielder Jen Buczkowski turned in a valuable performance in a defensive effort that prevented Chicago's Christen Press from getting the kind of service needed to pull her team back into the game. (Buczkowski did the same against Vero Boquete in last season's semifinals, as she has most every time she has taken the field as a starter in every game in franchise history.) Fellow midfielders Mandy Laddish and Yael Averbuch aided the cause, as did the back line and goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart. Tymrak took her chance and finished beautifully.
But there was no mistaking the importance of the four World Cup winners. No team in the league better blended its returnees than FC Kansas City, unbeaten since the start of August.
"In order for us to mesh together we need time," FC Kansas City coach Vlatko Andonovski said, noting that like the past two seasons, poor early results gave way to a better rhythm after a couple of games. "...It was a little bit challenging with the national team players being here, then going to the World Cup [and then coming back] because we could never get into a rhythm.
"All we needed was a little time. We needed a good period of three or four weeks to jell together. And then once we get rolling, I think it's hard to stop us."
Holiday insisted after the game her focus is solely on winning the next game, as it was a season ago and in the World Cup.
"I have so many great friendships and relationships on the team that I know are going to last a lifetime," Holiday said as she sat next to Rodriguez, one of her closest friends. "I know that she's stuck with me forever, and I think that helps me -- yeah, when I start to think about maybe this is the last time I play with A-Rod, one of the last games, that's hard for me to swallow. But at the end of the day, our friendship, our relationship is so much deeper than just soccer.
"I think that really helps me just focus on soccer, just enjoying the last few games that I have."
A win in the NWSL championship game would be a fitting end to the year for all of FC Kansas City's World Cup returnees. Little used in Canada, O'Reilly and Rodriguez cannot only remind us why they were on the roster but make cases for inclusion on next year's Olympic roster. Sauerbrunn, curiously left off the list of finalists for the World Cup Golden Ball that denotes the tournament's best players, could be the cornerstone of a third championship back line in barely a calendar year. But only in Holiday's case is Oct. 1 really the end.
Asked to sacrifice her attacking skills for the good of the team in the World Cup, a role that helped Carli Lloyd receive long overdue acclaim, one more game gives her an opportunity to go out an almost unparalleled winner.
So a team will follow her lead. One more time. One day after her 28th birthday.
"I think that team we just played is kind of coming to the end of a cycle, and they've been fantastic, no question about it," Dames said. "And I think we're just starting to be on the front end of a cycle."
Coming to the end, perhaps, but not there yet.