NJ/NY Gotham FC became first-time NWSL champions on Nov. 11. Unlike some of her teammates, Lynn Williams has experience celebrating championships.

With Gotham’s win over OL Reign in the NWSL final, Williams earned her fourth NWSL Championship title — while scoring a goal in the process.

On the latest episode of the “Snacks” podcast, Williams and fellow U.S. teammate Sam Mewis discussed Gotham’s championship celebrations or, as Williams called it, “the second game.”

“There were beer showers, obviously. There was a slip and slide. I don’t know who started the slip and slide, but I was like, I’m getting involved,” Williams said. “It was so cold after getting up. I was like, I have a regret. I cut my foot on a bottle cap. So I have made a crucial error in taking off my cleats because I need these. We made some TikToks. I wanted to apparently just catwalk the whole time.”

Mewis laughed through Williams’ descriptions of the locker room celebrations and asked if Williams smoked a cigar. 

“I saw Juan [Carlos Amorós] with a cigar, and I was like, ‘Where’d you get that? I’m gonna get one.’ And then there was just a box of cigars on the ground. And I was like, lit well, I’m gonna steal one of these. And then we were like, ‘Who has the lighter?’ And they were like, ‘You guys can’t smoke in here’. And I was like, ‘Yes, we can,’” Williams said. 

“So then somehow we got lighters. And then I was like, ‘Wait a second. Where’s the cutter? Like, you need to cut it.’ We couldn’t find that. So then I was ripping them apart with my teeth. I was just like, here, rip. Next one, spit it on the ground. Go to the next one. Rip it here. Next one. Like I did five different people. And they were like, ‘You’re disgusting. Like, are you tasting tobacco?’ And I was like, ‘Yes.’ I was like, ‘Who cares? We need the cigars.’”

Williams was not willing to share all of the details about Gotham’s celebration, though. A seasoned NWSL Championship winner knows that some parts of the celebration are best kept secret.

“So we had our big party. That’s all the information I’m gonna tell you guys because the other things, nobody needs to know,” Williams said.

Sam Mewis provided an update on her knee injury, which has kept her off the pitch for the U.S. women’s national team since 2021.

The USWNT and Kansas City Current midfielder underwent a second surgery on her right knee in January 2023, and she detailed her progress before and since the procedure on the latest episode of the “Snacks” podcast for Just Women’s Sports.

Her goal right now is to “get as healthy as possible,” she told co-host Lynn Williams. But Mewis, 31, described the months leading up to her decision to have the second surgery as “one of the lowest points of my life.”

The initial injury occurred during a November 2017 match for the USWNT, after which she was sidelined for about six months. While she knew she was dealing with “a really serious injury” to her knee cartilage, she returned and became an integral part of the 2019 World Cup-winning squad.

Mewis managed to play through the injury until 2021, when her knee stopped responding positively to rehabilitation, she said. She played in the Olympics, winning the bronze medal in August, but has not played for the national team since then. She played in two preseason Challenge Cup matches for the Current in March 2022, and those mark her latest appearances in a professional match.

As time went on, she kept getting presented with “worse and worse choices and options” for treatment, she said.

“I think that was the lowest point, I just felt so frozen and numb by the prospect of not getting to have the career I thought I was going to have and I thought I had worked for,” she said.

After considering all her options, she chose to undergo another knee surgery in January, which followed an arthroscopic surgery in August 2021.

Mewis described the procedure as “a big deal,” which is why she hasn’t talked about it much to this point. The surgery placed cartilage donor grafts in her knee, which she said was a “really difficult decision.”

“I felt like I had taken all of these steps to try to get back to playing and I just kind of kept hitting a wall,” she said. “I kept failing in my rehab and having to start over and try all these new things and get more injections.

“And we just had reached the end of the line, where I didn’t like any of the options that were offered to me, which were basically stop or try and get this big surgery. And so it took me like months to make this decision

“There were no guarantees when it came to the surgery either. It was a big surgery. I was on crutches for eight weeks and no impact for, like, eight months.”

Williams remained by her friend’s side as she made the decision.

“You didn’t know what the outcome of the surgery is going to be so you had to be in the right mental space to make sure you were OK with going through this really big, maybe life-changing thing,” Williams said, noting that it was hard to know how to support Mewis as she grappled with her injury.

But Mewis was glad to have Williams’ support, she said.

“I could not decide what to do. And I was so lucky to have you there with me as a friend. I just felt so conflicted,” she said, noting that she sought input from a number of surgeons. “I just wanted more opinions. I wanted somebody to tell me that there was another option and that they knew what I needed to do to fix it. I asked everybody’s opinion, I almost feel like I got too much information.

“And that made me even more conflicted. And I was really just sad. All I wanted was to play.”

Ultimately, Mewis opted for the surgery. She did her rehab at home, where she was surrounded by loved ones. And in hindsight, she believes that she made “the best decision I could with the options that I had.”

She also has gained a lot of perspective over the last couple of years, she said. Her goal now is to “get as healthy as possible.” She is still going to the gym and physical therapy, and she is working toward her goal of getting her knee back “as good as it can get.”

“It still isn’t ever like what I would have chosen,” Mewis said. “It’s so hard to talk about, because I’m in a better place now. So I’m almost laughing about it. But I really wasn’t well.”

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.”

Lindsey Horan gave Savannah DeMelo a much-needed confidence boost ahead of her first career start for the U.S. women’s national team — which happened to come at the 2023 World Cup.

Speaking on the latest episode of Just Women’s Sports’ “Snacks” podcast, DeMelo described her World Cup call-up itself as a surprise. She had not received any prior call-ups in 2023, and she made her first appearance with the USWNT in the send-off match ahead of the tournament.

The 25-year-old midfielder also detailed nerves she felt upon learning that she would be starting in her first-ever USWNT game in the tournament opener against Vietnam. She played 27 minutes as a substitute during the send-off match against Wales, and she wasn’t a part of the starting team during a scrimmage against the Philippines.

“We had a day off. And then the next training session after that, (then-head coach Vlatko Andonovksi) had come up to me,” she said. “He was like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna put you with the starting group. And I was like, ‘Oh, for what reason?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I’m gonna start you against Vietnam.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, OK.’”

As soon as she joined the starting team, Horan – who served as a co-captain at the World Cup – helped her settle her nerves.

“I remember as soon as I went on that team, Lindsey came up to me, and she looked at me and was like, ‘You totally deserve this. Don’t think anything of it.’ And that gave me so much confidence,” she said. “Just like, I respect her so much as a player and a person. So her saying that to me really settled my nerves. … Then we had, like, three more training sessions and then it was the game.”

Still, DeMelo doesn’t think “anything could prepare me” for her first USWNT start – let alone at the World Cup. So she took it “day by day.”

“The more I was becoming familiar with our formation and set pieces, it gave me more confidence, like, ‘OK, I’m prepared for this.’ Because I think when I first came to camp, I knew nothing, like the way we pressed, our set pieces are so detail-oriented,” she said. “So I think I was a little shocked. But then once I became more knowledgeable in the system and what we do, I felt a lot more confident mentally too.”

Savannah DeMelo’s World Cup call-up was a surprise to many – including the midfielder herself.

Speaking on the latest episode of Just Women’s Sports’ “Snacks” podcast, DeMelo described herself as “in shock” when then-U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski told her she had made the World Cup roster. While she knew she was on his radar, she hadn’t gotten called in for the team in any of the previous 2023 camps.

Andonovski had wanted to see her continue to improve with her club, Racing Louisville. And she did, becoming one of the NWSL’s leading scorers ahead of the World Cup. And after the April camp, she heard from Andonovski “weekly” about her club progress, she said.

“It definitely was a little more stressful when I did get that feedback,” she said. “And obviously Vlatko had been telling me things he wanted me to work on. So then I’m like, oh, I want to make sure I’m doing that in the game while also implementing what my team needs from me. So it was kind of that balance.”

Racing Louisville general manager Ryan Dell had told DeMelo that she remained Andonovski’s long list for the World Cup.

“So it wasn’t like a complete shock. But still, the odds were not in my favor,” she said. “So when he called me and said I made the team, I was really in shock.”

Still, the opportunity to play at the World Cup was a dream come true for DeMelo. She made her first USWNT appearance in the send-off match against Wales, and then she started the first two group-stage matches.

“It was definitely something I had always wanted. Like, obviously growing up, you want to be a part of a World Cup team. It’s like all of our dreams,” she said. “But I wasn’t getting called into camp, so it was not on my vision board. I knew I wanted to work hard and give myself the best possible chance. But no, definitely just with the help of my (Racing Louisville) teammates and the team was doing well — that’s I think what helped me get there, but I did not see it coming.”

The NWSL is in its 11th year of existence, and a lot has changed for the league in that time.

Rose Lavelle and Emily Sonnett reflected on those changes in the most recent episode of Just Women’s Sports‘ “Snacks” podcast. Lavelle joined the league in 2017 as a member of the Boston Breakers, while Sonnett started in 2016 as a member of the Portland Thorns. Both are now teammates on the OL Reign and the U.S. women’s national team.

The first thing that came to mind for Sonnett in speaking about the improvements for NWSL players? The hotels. Lavelle offered a more pointed take, calling out the field conditions in her first season, when the Breakers played at Harvard University’s field.

“No disrespect, it was like concrete,” she said.

As Sonnett told “Snacks” co-hosts (and fellow NWSL players) Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams, players can now tell which clubs want to “make the jump” to compete. With the introduction of free agency, players and teams are able to align on their priorities. Each free agent is able to consider a team’s style of play and can join a club that best suits them or gives them a challenge.

“Now these clubs can be like, ‘We want to build a dynasty,’” Sonnett said. “And you see how much they want to put in and that makes the competitiveness of other owners to come in, and now you have to be competitive and I think that’s where it’s heading, just like Europe. For me to understand where the league’s going is really, really fun. … I think the process is going to be really good for the NWSL.”

The league also has separated from U.S. Soccer, which gives USWNT players more autonomy over where they want to play.

“You get to pick where you want to go. It’s not like before, where it’d be like national team players or internationals were designated to certain teams,” Lavelle said. “And so then maybe all of the league had the same style because there’s not the ability to go and, like, really pick and buy the players that you want.”

Gotham FC could go from worst to first in the NWSL, an astonishing transformation witnessed firsthand by Ifeoma Onumonu.

The 29-year-old forward joined Gotham FC in 2020, and she has played for four different head coaches in her time with the club. Freya Coombe left for Angel City in 2021, then Scott Parkinson was fired following a 4-0-8 (W-D-L) start to the 2022 season. Hue Menzies took over as interim head coach through the end of that season, and Juan Carlos Amorós took the reigns ahead of the 2023.

Under Amorós, the club has gone from a league-worst 4-1-17 record last season to 8-6-6 season. With 30 points, Gotham FC is in third place with two matches left to play, and a chance to surpass the San Diego Wave and Portland Thorns for the NWSL Shield.

“I feel like I’m on a different team every year because every year I’ve been here, it’s been a different coach,” Onumonu said on the latest episode of Just Women’s Sports‘ “Snacks” podcast. “And I think that has been sort of the key is the coaching and the staff in general. I think this is the most staff we’ve ever had. I think obviously the players that we’ve brought in this year is a change too. But I think in culmination with all those things, that’s what’s led to the season that we’ve had as compared to last year.”

From Onumonu’s perspective, 2022 was “just a mess” and was “really hard.” She doesn’t feel like the team was set up for success.

This season, though, the team entered with a clear plan and expectations.

“There’s not this mentality, that underdog mentality, because Gotham/Sky Blue has always been that team that it’s like, ‘Ooh, at the bottom of the table.’ It’s not a secret,” she said. “Like, even before I got here, it was like, very much up and down, up and down, mostly down. … I think the club has grown so much. I think that’s part of the reason why we are where we are now.”

“Snacks” co-host Lynn Williams served as a key offseason addition, and the midseason signing of World Cup champion Esther González provided an additional boost. And the buy-in from all the players is something Williams has noticed in her first year with the club.

“It just seemed like everybody who was here last year said, ‘No, we’re just gonna buy into this, and we want to do better,’” she said. “Because you have not had the success you wanted in prior years. So I don’t know, I just like being on this team.”

Everybody has a Julie Ertz story. And on the latest episode of the “Snacks” podcast, Lynn Williams shared one of Ertz’s tenacity.

Ertz said goodbye to soccer, and to the U.S. women’s national team, last Thursday in her final game. In a “Behind the Crest” video from U.S. Soccer, the 31-year-old midfielder opened up about her career, saying she feels “blessed.”

“I feel like I’ve been so blessed to have the career that I’ve had, but it is, like, emotional, I think,” she said. “But then there’s just some part in your heart that is just like, you just know. And I think that is closure enough for me. And I think that’s why I’m just so grateful to have this last game to just close the chapter and say bye. I think anytime you say bye, it’s just sad, but also at the same time what a joyous time it is to reflect.”

One of those moments to reflect upon comes from Ertz’s early days with the national team. As Williams told Sam Mewis on their Just Women’s Sports podcast, USWNT players were talking about one of Ertz’s first opportunities with the national team ahead of her final match.

The tale featured Ertz as the fourth-string center-back for the USWNT. But a series of injuries forced Ertz into the starting lineup.

“I think that everybody can recognize the impact Julie has had on the game and on the national team,” Williams said. “… From that moment she just was like, ‘You know what, I’m gonna take my opportunity and run with it.’ And I thought that that was such a good message for everybody who wants to be on the national team.

“You never know when your opportunity is gonna come, and you never know how you’re gonna get it. Just continue to stay ready and when you do get that opportunity make the most of it. And I felt like that was just her career summed up in one moment. She just made the most of every single opportunity she got on the field.”

@justwomenssports “She just made the most of every single opportunity she got on the field” 🔥 #julieertz #uswnt #ussoccer ♬ original sound - Just Women’s Sports

As the injury crisis in women’s soccer continues, players want to see changes.

On the latest episode of Just Women’s Sports‘ “Snacks” podcast, Canada star Janine Beckie – who missed the 2023 World Cup with an ACL tear – told USWNT players and co-hosts Lynn Williams and Sam Mewis that teams must set a new standard in order to help prevent injuries.

During the latest international break, three players tore their ACLs, including Scotland’s Caroline Weir. Beckie tore her ACL in March while playing in a preseason match for the NWSL’s Portland Thorns.

After her own injury, she called out the packed schedule for women’s players, telling Reuters that as games for women increase, so must the resources.

“You’ve changed the schedule to mimic the men yet you’re not giving the female players the same level of resources,” she said. “Premier League players are playing 40-, 50-plus games a season and are able to maintain fitness levels because they’re treated like gold, which they should be. If you’re going ask an elite athlete to play 50 games a season, you’ve got provide them the top-of-the-line care.”

She expanded upon that thought on “Snacks.”

“My point in saying that was you’re asking these players to play under a really, really heavy load, and then you’re not counterbalancing that with extra recovery sessions, equipment, more medical personnel,” she said. “I think like, at [Manchester] City for the men’s team, they have some stupid ratio of three players to one physio, or something like that. Like, they just have a wild amount of medical staff. … If that’s how they’re operating, that’s how it should be. And you see these Premier League teams that have their big-time players available all the time, so they’re doing the right things off the field.”

Unfortunately, Beckie says, the reality is that men’s soccer players likely don’t have to worry about their facilities as much as women’s soccer players. Additionally, no women’s club is likely to have every resource.

“We have to continue to push that standard in our own environments,” she continued. “Because if we don’t change the resource availability for our players, we’re just going to continue to see these mayhem moments happening more and more frequently.

Williams agreed, noting that there are club teams where people are “wearing three different hats.”

“So then things slip through the cracks. And so if we can change that, start there and just have those resources, I think that’s a good first step,” she said. “It is amazing to see, I think Portland is up there with doing incredible things. You have your whole setup, it seems like you go into training and you have everything right there. We need more teams to continue to push the top so it forces the bottom to come up.”