SAN DIEGO — After lifting the 2023 NWSL trophy on Saturday, no one registered more giddy surprise over their accomplishment than NJ/NY Gotham FC’s players. The club had just put the final stamp on their “worst to first” narrative, a term that retiring legend Ali Krieger said began almost as a joke before becoming the team’s reality.
“In preseason, we were like, ‘We have to go worst to first,’” she told the media after Gotham’s 2-1 win over OL Reign. “And we were kind of laughing at first, because we’re like, oh my god, we’re really going to do it.”
The NWSL playoffs are an American construct of modern soccer, infusing the chaos of knockout soccer into a system that historically rewards steady consistency over the excitement of a few moments of brilliance.
After finishing 2022 in the basement of the NWSL standings, Gotham proved to be stunningly resilient in the 2023 playoffs. They held clean sheets when they could, scored goals when they had to, and saved some of their best collective play for the game that mattered the most.
No one would accuse Gotham of crashing the party, but contending for an NWSL Championship used to be something of a perennial experience. Before the playoffs were expanded in 2021, Portland, Seattle, North Carolina and the Chicago Red Stars tended to duke it out in the postseason, sometimes flanked by the old FC Kansas City teams or North Carolina’s predecessors, the Western New York Flash.
More often than not, North Carolina/Western New York and Portland made it the farthest, swapping title wins from 2016-19. The winner of the playoffs didn’t always reflect the strongest regular season squad (the “Shield Curse” legend didn’t grow out of nowhere), but fans became used to familiar faces taking part in the trophy lift even as the league’s parity shined in other areas.
While teams from that era still loom large over the playoff picture, the suspended 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic ultimately proved to be the end of that dynasty era. It was followed by a season of turmoil due to investigations in widespread abuse, forcing front office turnover and, in some cases, club sales.
The 2021 season also launched the six-team playoff structure, giving quarterfinalists a chance to build true momentum through the postseason. The Washington Spirit felt like the first of a new class of champions in 2021, who came together at just the right time after an up-and-down regular season.
If the Spirit nudged the door open, then Gotham FC kicked it off its hinges with their 2023 championship win. The team colloquially known as “the Bats” is the first No. 6 seed to win an NWSL Championship.
“We squeaked into playoffs and made it all the way,” Championship MVP Midge Purce said after the game, summing up Gotham’s Cinderella story.
But now that the confetti has been swept up, and the free agency cycle is once again in full swing, two questions linger: Can Gotham replicate their success next year, and can the playbook for their turnaround be replicated by other teams?
To answer both questions, it’s necessary to look at how the Bats achieved one of the most impressive season comebacks in league history. That process started with the hiring of Juan Carlos Amorós, who communicated his style of play to the team’s leaders from Day 1 and received full-team buy-in in return.
Gotham general manager Yael Averbuch then oversaw an excellent 2023 draft week, during which the club traded for U.S. women’s national team forward Lynn Williams and 2022 NWSL champion Yazmeen Ryan, as well as selected future Rookie of the Year Jenna Nighswonger. The team also did well in free agency, signing 2021 NWSL champion Kelley O’Hara and 2022 champion Abby Smith.
With the additions of Williams, O’Hara, Ryan and Smith, Gotham suddenly had a lot of championship experience in their starting XI. The club didn’t sit idle during the midseason transfer window either, signing Spanish players Esther González and Maitane López, both of whom started in the 2023 title game. They also signed Katie Stengel, first on loan and then by permanent transfer. The forward came in off the bench in the semifinal to score a rocket and lead Gotham to their first championship game.
That much change in one year was warranted after the team’s 2022 results, but there was no guarantee of immediate success with that many new personalities in the locker room. Gotham’s players, however, found ways to connect quickly, relying on shared histories and a desire to win.
“I think the thing is, a lot of us have known each other for years,” Purce said during NWSL Championship week.
“I did U-17s with Ify [Onumonu] and Mandy [Freeman], I lived with Ify for a while. I’ve known Delaney [Sheehan] for a long time. Ali Krieger gave me my high school award. Allie Long was one of the first people to ever talk to me at national team camp,” she continued. “So I think there’s a lot of crossover through a lot of the age groups, and then we have a lot of veterans. I think we have a really strong leadership core that knows how to win, and I think that’s been really indispensable.”
González and Williams, proven winners, scored the two goals to earn Gotham the title, but it was Purce who facilitated the team’s biggest moments by notching both assists. For one brilliant 90-minute period, the team’s past and present formed an unbeatable force. Longtime Gotham backup keeper Amanda Haught once again stood strong against an onslaught from OL Reign, and Krieger played some of the best soccer of her life in the final matches of her career.
On another level today. 🤯
— NJ/NY Gotham FC (@GothamFC) November 12, 2023
Take a bow, @100Purcent. pic.twitter.com/oJ9sPq1FHy
Other teams will have to be similarly aggressive and good judges of player character to replicate Gotham’s accomplishments. It’s not always easy to handpick the personalities that will be entering your locker room, or know how players with greater seniority will process sweeping changes.
The Bats got that mix exactly right this year, but as is the case in sports, they will be presented with similar decisions to make for 2024. Many players considered important leaders for the team, including goalkeeper Michelle Betos and midfielder McCall Zerboni, are closer to the ends of their careers than the beginning. They also have former starters now coming off the bench, like Onumonu, who might be searching for starting opportunities elsewhere.
The club will also be dealing with one of the best problems they could have — becoming a well-regarded destination. This year’s free agency period holds top talent, including three-time NWSL champions Crystal Dunn and Becky Sauerbrunn. If Gotham wants to replenish their roster with even more winning talent, they’ll have the opportunity.
But if Gotham followed in the footsteps of the 2021 Washington Spirit by catching fire at exactly the right time to launch themselves to unprecedented success, they’ll want to avoid coming back down. The Spirit have yet to return to the playoffs since their championship win, despite consistent investment in growing their front-office infrastructure.
Getting to the top is hard, but staying there is harder. Averbuch and Amorós will have to stay vigilant to keep their club from being remembered as a one-hit wonder.
Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.
Abby Wambach learned a lot during her career with the U.S. women’s national team, including one important lesson from Mia Hamm.
The careers of the two USWNT greats overlapped briefly, as Wambach first joined the squad in 2003 and Hamm retired in 2004. In that time, Hamm taught Wambach to pay attention to her weaknesses as a player as much as her strengths, Wambach told Lynn Williams and Sam Mewis on the latest episode of their “Snacks” podcast.
“One of the things that I learned early on in my national team career was from Mia,” Wambach said. “She focused a lot on talking about all of our strengths and all of our weaknesses, like not hiding or shying away from them.”
While Hamm and Wambach could connect based on their strengths, Wambach’s weaknesses were places in which Hamm’s strengths could show up, and vice versa.
“I think that’s one of the most fascinating things. It should be a case study around our team, that it takes a certain kind of psychology to go into an environment day after day, where you’re both required to be a great teammate and also required to be the very best in the world individually,” Wambach continued. “And you’re supposed to believe that about yourself. … Like in order to enter, you have to believe that you are one of the best in the world at what you do.
“Holding both of those things at the same time is where the difference is between players who make rosters and players who don’t. … Because it’s not for everybody. It’s really difficult to be able to say, ‘I’m going out there to be my best, I’m gonna go out there to be my best so that every single player else out here is also being required to be at their best.’ And because of that we’re able to respect each other in a way that’s both competitive and open and loving.”
Abby Wambach doesn’t want to hear any questions about the mentality of hte U.S. women’s national team.
Speaking on the latest episode of the “Snacks” podcast, the USWNT great offered a counterpoint to vocal critics of the current squad.
“Even though this last World Cup didn’t turn out like we wanted it to, I still think that we’re talking about a couple of penalty kicks missed and then the U.S. team shows up differently in latter-round games,” Wambach said.
The USWNT exited the tournament after a penalty shootout loss to Sweden in the Round of 16. And while Wambach didn’t put too much stock in the defeat, she does think it is important for the team to remember and recognize its history.
“I know that the Players Association does a good job of it, but I do think that there is so much value in remembering where the team came from in order for them to chart their new path,” she said. “I think that is the most important element that so many of my teams that I played on, we didn’t really get right all the time, that we were just like, ‘We’re doing it our way.’ And it’s like, you do need to bring in all the elements to what creates such a special environment.”
Still, she doesn’t want to hear of anyone questioning the team’s mentality, she told “Snacks” co-hosts and USWNT players Lynn Williams and Sam Mewis. Former USWNT star forward Carli Lloyd infamously questioned the team’s mentality before, during and after the 2023 World Cup.
Lloyd even went so far as to say that nobody on the current squad has a winning mentality, with the possible exception of Lindsey Horan. Lloyd and Wambach won the 2015 World Cup together with the USWNT, and Lloyd also played on the 2019 World Cup team.
“The champion mentality that we’ve had throughout the years, since the inception of this team, that dog mentality, you’ve got none of that,” Lloyd told CBS Sports in October. “The character, the respect — technically, tactically, you could be great and have a coach that comes in, but if you don’t have all those other things, there’s no winning.”
To Wambach, perspective is key.
“So, we can talk about all of the things and the coaches and the players and the … don’t get me started on the mentality piece because I will blow up on somebody,” Wambach said. “But what I do know is we’re talking about a penalty kick and that, I mean, we didn’t win every world championship we ever played in. Like, that is true.”
Gotham FC celebrated the first NWSL title in franchise history in raucous fashion, and midfielder Kristie Mewis chronicled all the action.
After defeating OL Reign, 2-1, in the championship match, Gotham players marked the occasion in the traditional manner: a team dogpile, followed by the trophy presentation and locker room party. But they added their own twists, throwing in a toss of retiring captain Ali Krieger, an on-field conga line and an improvised slip-and-slide.
A connoisseur of championship bashes, Mewis established her credentials in the aftermath of the Houston Dash’s 2020 Challenge Cup tournament victory. And she brought that experience to bear Saturday at San Diego’s Snapdragon Stadium.
She documented the celebration in a series of videos posted to her Instagram Stories, with teammates Kelley O’Hara and Lynn Williams among those featured. She also posted a photo and a video with just one caption between them: “Dudeeeeeeeeee.”
From Midge Purce receiving the match MVP award to Ali Krieger hoisting the new NWSL championship trophy to Gotham players attempting to drink from said trophy, check out some of the best scenes from the post-victory revelry.
Gotham FC’s Midge Purce juked one OL Reign defender by the sideline and another by the goal box. She charged into the box with the ball on her foot and with her team outnumbered by the cage.
As Purce looked up to pass, Lynn Williams sprinted into the box just in front of the net. Williams tapped the ball from Purce into the net to open the scoring in the NWSL Championship, becoming the second player in NWSL history to contribute a goal in three different championship matches.
The early scoring didn’t stop there, as Gotham carried a 2-1 lead over OL Reign into halftime at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. And despite a frantic end to the match, that would stand as the final score, giving the Gotham its first title in franchise history.
.@100Purcent ➡️ @lynnraenie ⚡️@GothamFC takes the lead in the #NWSLChampionship! pic.twitter.com/vMHj5W5AOh
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) November 12, 2023
Four minutes after Williams’ opening tally, OL Reign midfielder Rose Lavelle broke through a line of white-clad defenders and booted a breakaway goal for the equalizer.
.@roselavelle takes advantage of the space in front of her and pulls @OLReign level again! 👊#NWSLChampionship pic.twitter.com/xdmU92eJvP
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) November 12, 2023
Purce, though, did not let her team go to the locker room tied. In the second minute of first-half stoppage time, the Gotham FC forward loosed a corner kick high into the goal box. The ball curved toward the front of the net in the air and Esther González jumped to meet it. The 2023 World Cup winner headed the ball into the netting to give New York the advantage at the half.
World Cup stars came up big for their respective squads in the NWSL Championship — at least one national team player cashed in on each goal, with Williams and Lavelle from the U.S. women’s national team and González from Spain.
And while Purce missed out on the World Cup with a quad tear, the USWNT forward put her name in the NWSL history books with her two first-half assists. She is just the second player to record multiple assists in an NWSL final, joining Lauren Holiday, who did so for 2014 champion FC Kansas City. She won the NWSL Championship MVP award for her performance.
The buzz leading into the game centered around the retiring stars, Megan Rapinoe for OL Reign and Ali Krieger for Gotham FC, but the next wave of international stars stepped into the spotlight during the NWSL Championship.
Going 🆙, @Estheeer9! ⚽️@GothamFC restores its lead just before the break!#NWSLChampionship pic.twitter.com/W7wipa2A4Q
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) November 12, 2023
Preview the 2023 NWSL Championship by tuning into the Just Women’s Sports Super Show Presented by State Farm, featuring surprise guest appearances by NWSL stars. Watch here.
The NWSL Championship will bring plenty of buzz. But “the most exciting NWSL players aren’t going to be in the final,” Christen Press said on a recent episode of “The RE-CAP Show.”
No. 4 OL Reign will meet No. 6 Gotham FC in the NWSL Championship at 8 p.m. ET Saturday — a game that will prominently feature Megan Rapinoe, 38, and Ali Krieger, 39, as they finish their legendary careers.
Press and co-host Tobin Heath are happy for “elder millennials” Rapinoe and Krieger, but they are “done with retirement games,” as Heath stated on the podcast.
“I want to see the best players in their prime, and the best players that are coming up, and right now, I don’t see any of those two things in this final,” she said.
In the same episode, Press and Heath discussed the playoff format and how it may negatively affect players that had a first-round bye or had to leave training to fulfill U.S. women’s national team duties. The two top-seeded teams — the San Diego Wave and Portland Thorns — fell in the semifinals after long periods of not playing together, making room for the lower-seeded Reign and Gotham in the championship match.
Yet while none of the five NWSL MVP nominees will appear in the final, Press and Heath did give the players and teams who did reach this point their due. They pointed to Gotham forward Lynn Williams and Reign midfielder Emily Sonnett as potential game changers.
Heath highlighted Rapinoe and Krieger’s retirements, which give the match a great storyline. And both were excited that this tournament will end with a first-time NWSL champion. Press and Heath missed the 2023 season with injuries, but Heath won two NWSL titles with the Portland Thorns, and both played with Rapinoe and Krieger on the 2019 USWNT World Cup squad.
“Really, really interesting obviously, two teams that have never won a championship that, for the first time ever, they’ll make history and that’s so exciting,” Heath said. “If you look at a player like Pinoe and Krieger, they both have never won an NWSL Championship either. So it’s huge, one of them is going to do something at the end of their career for the first time.”
Preview the 2023 NWSL Championship by tuning into the Just Women’s Sports Super Show Presented by State Farm, featuring surprise guest appearances by NWSL stars. Watch here.
Abby Wambach sees “untapped potential” in Lynn Williams.
On the latest episode of Just Women’s Sports‘ Snacks podcast, the all-time leading scorer for the U.S. women’s national team gave Williams had high praise and some friendly advice for Williams. Wambach called Williams, who plays forward for Gotham FC and the USWNT, “better soccer player than I ever was.”
Williams, who co-hosts “Snacks” with USWNT teammate Sam Mewis, has recently come into her own for the national team after spending years as one of the best players in the NWSL. She made her World Cup debut this summer.
“Lynn, watching you play and seeing how you’ve come on strong, personally speaking, I think that you have so much untapped potential, and the person that’s holding you back is you, like where you are in your head,” Wambach said, noting that she wants to see Williams let loose on the field.
“Like, I see you in your head out there, and I want to go onto the field or come into the locker room and just be like, ‘Go for it. Just go,’” Wambach continued. “You are such an incredible athlete. You are a better soccer player than I ever was. I was not very good at soccer. I was good at scoring goals. You’re a better soccer player, you’re more mindful.
“The way that you play, I just don’t want you to ever hold yourself back. I want you to surrender to the possibility that you could be the greatest soccer player on the planet.”
Hearing Wambach say that gave Williams “chills,” she said. The 30-year-old forward admitted that she does get into her own head at times, though she plays her best when she’s “not even thinking that much.”
“If you surrender to the possibility, regardless of if that ever happens or not, but if you could just surrender to that possibility, the world is your oyster,” Wambach said. “You go and then you create what you create. I believe in you and I believe in this team.”
Williams and Gotham FC will face OL Reign in the NWSL Championship match at 8 p.m. ET Saturday. The next USWNT camp is set for early December.
Jenna Nighswonger stepped into a Gotham FC roster full of U.S. women’s national team veterans and current stars. And the NWSL Rookie of the Year candidate still made a name for herself.
The 22-year-old credits her success to her teammates, who put her at ease as soon as she stepped onto the field — even as she navigated a position change.
Drafted out of Florida State as a forward, Nighswonger made her name in her first season as a fullback, becoming a mainstay for Gotham in her new role. While she is still working on her defensive skills, she has enjoyed bringing an attacking mindset to the position as well.
And her fellow players, including Gotham FC captain and defender Ali Krieger, have been “so helpful” in her finding her confidence on defense, she said Thursday. Even if it was a little intimidating at first.
“I think the biggest thing that stands out to me is I was just quite nervous to come into a team with names like Ali Krieger, Lynn Williams, Kelley O’Hara,” she said Thursday. “Just because I didn’t really know. I [had] never met them before.”
But in meeting the international stars on the Gotham FC roster for the first time, Nighswonger found them to be “such good people.” The roster for the New Jersey-based club features not just Krieger, Williams and O’Hara but also USWNT players Midge Purce and Kristie Mewis, as well as Nigeria’s Ifeoma Onumonu, Spain’s Esther González and Brazil’s Bruninha.
“Everyone on the team is just amazing and they’ve been so welcoming,” she said, noting that she’s grown more comfortable with time. “I hope everyone else feels [comfortable]. We just have such a great group of girls and I think that we’re all willing to work so hard for each other and do whatever it takes to get to the final. I think it’s just amazing how in a matter of like a few months I just feel so comfortable with a whole new group of girls.”
Nighswonger and her Gotham FC teammates will face the No. 2 seed Portland Thorns at 7 p.m. ET Sunday in the NWSL semifinals with a shot in the championship match on the line.
Sophia Smith, Becky Sauerbrunn and Alex Morgan are among the 13 players at the U.S. women’s national team’s October training camp still competing in the NWSL playoffs.
All those players are seeking to strike a balance between focusing on their national team duties and staying sharp for the NWSL semifinals on Nov. 5. Smith, Sauerbrunn and the Portland Thorns will take on Lynn Williams and Gotham FC, while Morgan and the San Diego Wave will face Emily Sonnett and OL Reign.
Other players competing in the postseason include: Sam Coffey, Crystal Dunn and Olivia Moultrie with Portland; Naomi Girma and Jaedyn Shaw with San Diego; Midge Purce with Gotham FC; and Alana Cook and Sofia Huerta with OL Reign.
“You come into camp and it’s so busy because you have so many different meetings — a set piece meeting, a defenders meeting,” Sauerbrunn said after Thursday’s scoreless draw with Colombia. “And so you’re just trying to remember, OK, these are the national team tactics. And then you get back to Portland and it’s like you’ve got to relearn everything that Portland was doing. And so it is really tough.
“You have to be wherever you are and give it everything that you’ve got with the team that you’re with. But it can be really tough because, I’m so excited to be back with Portland as well, but also I really want to beat Colombia in a few days.”
The USWNT will face Colombia again at 5:30 p.m. ET Sunday to finish out the two-match friendly series.
The U.S. coaching staff is aware of its players’ dual priorities, and they are “managing minutes with players in different parts of the NWSL season,” interim head coach Twila Kilgore said Thursday.
“The key is just that when they do go in, that they make a difference that they’re asked to make,” Kilgore said.
The U.S. women’s national team has a short amount of time to prepare for the 2024 Olympics – just nine months – and one thing that players have said they know will help is a connection in the locker room.
Speaking after Thursday’s 0-0 draw with Colombia, veteran defender Becky Sauerbrunn has noticed is that the team is at its most successful when everyone is “so connected.”
“You feel like you’ve got options and availability,” she said.
On the flip side, the team struggles when players feel “isolated and alone” on the field.
“When we struggle is when everyone feels isolated and alone and they basically have to pass on the isolation to another player,” she said. “And that player has to do something amazing to break the pressure.”
Instead, she said, players should “be able to use one another to break the pressure.”
Despite the scoreless draw with Colombia, players have been feeling a bit more freedom to find those connections, as witnessed in the previous two matches against South Africa — a 2-0 win and a 3-0 win.
Speaking on the latest episode of “Snacks,” midfielder Savannah DeMelo said the group got comfortable around one another in the September friendlies. But both DeMelo and Lynn Williams agreed that more freedom in play will help grow those connections.
“I just thought in the last two games [against South Africa] — I mean, I only played in the second game — but I just felt like we all played more free, and we had a structure,” DeMelo said. “But then Twila allowed us to do what makes us special within that structure. I even think of you, Lynn — you were able to do what you do that makes you special. And I think it just allowed us to play more freely and confidently.
“So I think moving forward, just allowing us to do that and have consistency, whether it’s who we play with, the training, I think that is going to help us just because of the tight turnaround.”
Williams agreed, noting that there had been more “communication on the field” because players felt like they could go back to doing what makes them great.
“There was so much more communication on the field of like, ‘What can you do to help me?’ ‘How can we solve this problem?’” Williams said. “I don’t know if it was happening at the World Cup as much. I just felt like it was way more free.”
And as the team finds its next head coach and finds some stability, that will hopefully get better and players will continue to find those connections.
“I think at times we feel like we’re on an island,” Sauerbrunn said. “When we’re at our best, there’s people around, we’re bopping, we’re moving. And we can do the isolations when we need because we have amazing outside attacking players and central players. But I really think the connection will bring us back to the success that we’ve had.”