Gotham FC opened its NWSL title defense by winning just one of its opening six matches, punctuated by a fairly dismal 2-0 loss in Washington in late April.
This was your so-called superteam, a championship roster infused with several free agents famous for their turns with the U.S. women’s national team?
Well, no, but it was step one in a dramatically new-look team finding its stride — a not-always-smooth, seven-month-plus process culminating in No. 3 seed Gotham being in its best form of the year, right on time for Saturday’s playoff semifinal against the No. 2 Washington Spirit back in the nation’s capital.
“One factor is obviously the time together,” head coach Juan Carlos Amorós said.
“For everybody, it was kind of finding out your groove and your role within the season,” midfielder Delanie Sheehan said.
Gotham’s home 2-1 quarterfinal win over Portland last Sunday featured just four of the same starters from last year’s final (Esther González, Lynn Williams, Yazmeen Ryan and Nealy Martin).
Two world-class newcomers (Rose Lavelle and Tierna Davidson) scored the goals.
Goalie Ann-Katrin Berger, a midseason arrival, marshaled a defense that finished tied for the fewest goals conceded during the regular season.
“I think that we still can improve, which is a scary thought in my personal opinion,” Williams said after that game. “But you have learning curves and bumps in the road all the time. It’s not that bump … it’s how you learn from that and grow from that. And luckily for us, the beginning of the year wasn’t that great, but we are now able to learn and grow while winning — and that’s the most exciting, especially now, when [if] you lose, you go home.”
Gotham is unbeaten in its past nine matches in NWSL competition, including the playoff opener, having scored multiple goals in seven of those, including the past five in a row (16 goals during that span).
“The most noticeable feeling from our squad is that we score more goals,” said Sheehan, one of the team’s vital holdovers now going for back-to-back titles. “I think in the beginning of the season, we struggled to put goals away and really create solid opportunities. And I think that part of our game, especially counterattacking, has really taken it to the next level.”
The Spirit were responsible for two of Gotham’s four regular-season losses, having also won 2-0 at Red Bull Arena in July.
But if the Spirit also are a different team from their previous meetings, it’s not entirely in a good way.
They lost Croix Bethune, the league’s presumptive Rookie of the Year, and fellow midfielder Andi Sullivan to season-ending injuries, and striker Ouleymata Sarr has been sidelined, as well.
But they still have Trinity Rodman, a game-breaking talent ranked as the No. 8 player in the world in a comprehensive new ESPN poll this week.
And they’ll have the backing of a raucous, sold-out crowd of 19,000-plus at Audi Field.
“I think this group of players, this team, we’ve shown that we are ready to compete in any environment,” Amorós said. “It’s going to be a fantastic atmosphere there.”
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