Gotham FC: 2025 NWSL Champions

 

The last time Rose Lavelle scored in an NWSL Championship, she was on the losing side, a member of the Seattle Reign team that lost to Gotham in 2023.

A Rose on any other team is an MVP.

For the second time, Gotham FC are the NWSL Champions, defeating the Washington Spirit 1-0. Gotham is now two-for-two in the Championship match. Lavelle’s goal earned her MVP honors – and her first NWSL Championship.

It took until the 80th minute for someone to break a scoreless, but heated, match. Bruninha’s fancy footwork on the left side of the box bought Lavelle time to get in place before nailing it home past a diving Aubrey Kingsbury.

The pressure from Gotham started almost immediately. With possession to start the first half, Gotham launched the ball from midfield down to the 18-yard box. It was an aggressive approach that ties back to GM Yael Averbuch West, who scored the fastest goal in NCAA history by the same method.

And that single play is emblematic of Gotham’s win – constant pressure.

Emily Sonnett was part of that Seattle Reign team that lost in 2023, but she and Lavelle are both on the right side of the game this time around.

No one in the league has more playoff minutes than Sonnett. She is now a three-time NWSL Champion, but this is her first with Gotham. Sonnett’s experience is invaluable to this Gotham team, GM Yael Averbuch West said.

“She deserves more recognition than maybe she's gotten,” Averbuch West said at NWSL media day. “She’s an important force for us in the field, and a huge leader for us in terms of the example she sets and how she plays a game.”

In front of a sold out crowd at PayPal Park in San Jose, the players of Gotham danced in the streamers soaking up the moment. The No. 8 seed, but not the underdog. No, those are champions.

Orlando Pride: 2024 NWSL Champions

 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Barbra Banda's goal stood up as the winner to lift the Orlando Pride to their first NWSL Championship in a 1-0 victory over the Washington Spirit on Saturday at CPKC Stadium.

With the win, the Pride became the first team since 2019 to follow up winning the NWSL Shield (best regular-season team) with an NWSL Championship, and the third time it has ever happened.

It also meant a first NWSL Championship for six-time world player of the year Marta, 38, who has been with the Pride since 2017.

"I f---ing waited eight years for this moment," the player from Brazil said during the trophy presentation. "[It's] most special because it's the first time my mom is in America."

She added after the match: "Incredible moment. Playing the championship final, take this trophy home and share this moment with my mom, it's something in my best dream, I [can't] believe. ... This moment, it's so special for me.

"This moment gave me so many answers. I've been in Orlando for so long and I see players come and leave. We had ups and downs. Some seasons we were OK but not good enough.

"I always ask myself what I'm looking for because I stay in Orlando. I was not satisfied with all of the other seasons. I feel like I don't want to leave this place without doing something really big. ... Tonight I had all the answers."

Banda broke the deadlock in the 37th minute when she latched onto a ball played in behind by midfielder Angelina. Banda cut back inside onto her left foot and distanced herself from Spirit defender Esme Morgan to hit a left-footed shot that beat Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury.

The goal was Banda's fourth of the playoffs, setting a new single postseason NWSL record, and earned her the Championship MVP award. She also scored in all three playoff games this postseason, which is a new league record.

"That was a great moment for me," Banda said. "As that ball came for me, I don't hesitate. I always want to take on the defenders, so I saw that opportunity and I had to put the ball into the back of the net. I saw the positioning of the goalkeeper, so it was great for me."

"For us," Marta quickly interjected, drawing a laugh from the room.

Spirit head coach Jonatan Giráldez argued with the fourth official following the goal, which came after a strong challenge from Angelina on Spirit midfielder Leicy Santos.

"For me, it's an excuse to speak about the physical conditions," Giráldez said after the match.

Kingsbury took blame for conceding the goal, saying it should have been a "routine save" before moments later Morgan said the goal was her fault.

"I think that's what I'm finding so frustrating, replaying in my head, is that we dealt with [Banda] so well for most of the 90 minutes barring just the goal and I'm kicking myself for it," Morgan said.

"I think I was just thinking in my head back to the away game, there's times where she goes down softly in the box so I was kind of reluctant to get too tight in case there was a dive involved."

The physical first half featured 14 combined fouls and three yellow cards.

Spirit forward Rosemonde Kouassi was cautioned in the 28th minute for dragging down Banda on a counterattack.

Three minutes later, Pride defender Kerry Abello received a yellow card for an open-field trip of Spirit forward Trinity Rodman.

Washington midfielder Hal Hershfelt entered the books for a hard challenge only moments before halftime.

Orlando's victory completed a turnaround for what was one of the league's worst clubs historically in years past. The Pride made the playoffs only once prior to this season, in 2017, and endured low points like a last-place finish in 2019 with a league-record 53 goals conceded.

This year, the Pride set multiple NWSL records, including points in a season (60), wins (18), consecutive wins (eight) and games unbeaten to start the season (23).

"I wish I could say when I got here [in 2021], I believed this club was going to turn it around, but there were times where we were at rock bottom, and I couldn't see any light," Pride defender Kylie Strom said.

"So, to go from that place to where we are now, I have no words to describe it. It is incredible and we're going to keep going. We're never going back."

Washington nearly equalized two minutes into the second half, when Kouassi got her head on Rodman's cross at the 6-yard box, but Pride goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse made a quick reaction save.

Orlando came close to doubling its lead near the hour mark when Banda broke free again in the open field. Marta, playing in her first NWSL Championship, sprinted to join her on the counterattack, but Banda did not play the ball centrally to her open teammate.

The Pride held on as Washington pushed for a late equalizer. Orlando had not lost when leading at halftime in 15 previous occasions this season.

Orlando is the fourth team in league history to win in its first NWSL Championship appearance.

Washington appeared in two previous finals, winning the title in 2021.

The Pride's championship is the first for an Orlando professional sports team. The team will be honored with a parade in downtown Orlando on Monday.

NY/NJ Gotham FC: 2023 NWSL Champions

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – A new champion was crowned on Saturday night as NJ/NY Gotham FC earned a NWSL Championship trophy following a worst-to-first campaign from last year to now. Gotham produced a 2-1 win as it relied on goals from forwards Lynn Williams and Esther González to best a Reign side that got on the scoresheet via midfielder Rose Lavelle in the first half.

 

The match was hampered after just five minutes as an injury to Reign’s Rapinoe saw her exit forced, writing an unfortunate end to the NWSL icon’s career. Replacing Rapinoe was forward Bethany Balcer, who jumped in and attempted to adapt to the circumstances straight away.

 

The first opportunity of the night came in the 21st minute when a cross into the box from Gotham defender Bruninha was headed to the opposite side of the area by a Reign defender where Gotham forward Lynn Williams was waiting. Williams was able to collect the ball and get a shot away that sailed toward the far post, but she could not get over it enough to direct it into the back of goal. 

 

However, Gotham did not have to wait much longer for the night’s opening goal, and it came through Williams again as she tapped home a Midge Purce cross to send her team ahead midway through the first half. In the 25th minute, Purce was sent down the right side of the field into space, and as she worked her way toward the endline she was able to pull a cross back and pick out Williams in the middle of the box. From there, Williams pushed an effort past Reign goalkeeper Claudia Dickey and in. The goal is Williams’s first playoff goal since the 2016 NWSL Championship and her first playoff goal scored in regulation time. In addition, the assist was Purce’s first in the NWSL Playoffs.

 

Four minutes later, though, the Reign found themselves level again as Rose Lavelle got in behind the Gotham defense and buried a chance past Gotham goalkeeper Mandy Haught to reset the match and even the score at one-all. Lavelle had been played clean through the Gotham defense, leaving her in a 1-on-1 with Haught in goal. Though the shotstopper did all she could to get back, Lavelle still squeezed a shot around her and in.

 

Another big chance in the first half came by way of Gotham midfielder Delanie Sheehan, who rattled the bar with a strong effort in the 38th minute after a loose ball had yet to be fully cleared away in the Reign penalty area. An initial chance for Williams, the forward could not get enough on her shot to get it through the Reign defense, but the ball bounced around the penalty area and eventually fell into Sheehan’s path. With a venomous right-footed effort, Sheehan ripped the ball off the underside of the crossbar and back into play before it was eventually cleared.

 

Gotham would continue to knock on the Reign’s door before the halftime break, and in the second minute of first-half stoppage time Gotham forward Esther González put her team in front. Midge Purce was on corner kick duty where she delivered a ball into the middle of the box where Esther was in position to meet it. Guiding her headed effort past Dickey, the Spaniard restored her team’s lead just ahead of the interval.

 

Into the second half, the Reign came close to finding a second goal on the night and a second equalizer as forward Veronica Latsko was played through on goal by Lavelle. Lavelle, who had done brilliantly to spin out of trouble just inside her own half, unleashed Latsko down the right side with a powerful through ball on the ground in between Gotham defenders. Latsko then latched onto the pass and approached goal, but her hesitation in picking a direction allowed Haught to get big and push Latsko’s effort away to preserve the lead.

 

Then, just as the fulltime whistle was looming, a dramatic ending saw Gotham goalkeeper Mandy Haught sent off for handling the ball outside the box as Reign attacker Elyse Bennett came sprinting toward a pass over the top. Haught had attempted to cut off the pass early, but in doing so it was ruled that she handled the ball outside the box and so after VAR review she was sent off and Gotham had to finish the match with 10 players.

 

The Reign were then awarded a free kick on the edge of the box with Gotham midfielder Nealy Martin stepping into goal for her side in the closing moments. Lavelle stepped up to take, but her effort clattered off the wall and was eventually cleared away, putting an end to the Reign’s opportunities in front of goal.

 

After 12 minutes of total added time played, the fulltime whistle sounded and Gotham FC won its first-ever NWSL Championship after finishing bottom of the league last season. 

Washington Spirit: 2021 NWSL Champions

In a National Women's Soccer League season that will be remembered more for its leaguewide off-field problems than its splendid play on the field, the Washington Spirit became a fitting champion Saturday, beating the Chicago Red Stars 2-1 in a thrilling extra-time finish.

To say that the Spirit's road this season to the final was a rocky one would be an understatement. The NWSL stepped in and banned their coach after player allegations of abuse failed to prompt the team's owner to act. A power struggle between that owner and another investor ensued, with the players publicly demanding the team be sold. And the Spirit had to forfeit two regular-season games after a COVID-19 outbreak, earning a hefty fine for protocol violations too.

In a word, the Spirit's season has been chaos. But the only way the Spirit could come back from a goal deficit and beat the Red Stars on the league's biggest stage was not by ignoring the chaos swirling around them -- the players simply had to embrace it.

"It's been a lot of different emotions but we've been leaning into them and soaking up the chaos and seeing what we could do with it," Spirit captain Andi Sullivan said. "I don't think you could create something else like it."

You probably wouldn't want to either -- the Spirit were hardly the only team in the NWSL dealing with off-field problems this season -- but the Spirit's unique ability to use the uncertainty to their advantage means there is no better team to go down in NWSL history as the 2021 champion.

"People have no idea what we've all gone through," veteran defender Kelley O'Hara said. "The resiliency and perseverance of every single player on this team is pretty incredible and something that I haven't had on any NWSL team I've been on. It's the best feeling ever to be ending on a win."

In the first half, however, it looked like perhaps an emotional toll had finally caught up with the Spirit. Whether it was the weight of the stakes or the drain of their off-field turmoil, something tamped down some of the Spirit's flair and flashiness, which had carried them through the playoffs to the final.

Trinity Rodman, the 19-year-old breakout who was named Rookie of the Year, looked frustrated as she created dangerous moments for the Spirit but couldn't tap into her previous magic. In the 11th minute, she had only to get around center-back Sarah Gorden for a breakaway, but the NWSL Defender of the Year poked the ball away. Later, after some ball circulation to create space for Rodman, she pulled the trigger from the top of the box, but it went straight to goalkeeper Cassie Miller.

"I was extremely frustrated with myself and our movement of the ball," Rodman said. "Once you can get out of your head and keep focusing on the next pass, the next shot, the next ball, that's gonna get you to the end."

Since early in the match, Rodman was seen at times bent over clutching her side as if she were cramped from overexertion -- but she never stopped. She leaned in even more and single-handedly shifted the match's momentum, leading a Spirit turnaround in the second half. It started in the 62nd minute when Rodman fired a rocket off the post from well outside the box, a chance that seemingly rattled the Red Stars' back line. Three minutes later, Rodman took on three defenders, finally breaking free with a nutmeg through the last defender's legs before another shot from distance. But her key contributions would be assists that followed, not goals.

In the 66th minute, Rodman slipped a ball to Tara McKeown, who was fouled in the box, earning a penalty that Sullivan buried to equalize. After the match moved to extra time, Rodman lofted a long ball to the back post in the 97th minute, finding O'Hara's head. It was O'Hara's first goal of the 2021 season.

"We never quit," Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Bledsoe said. "We never gave up on each other and that second half shows who we are."

For the Red Stars, it was a brutal end after it looked as though they'd overcome their own set of challenges.

Coming into Saturday, they were already missing starters Julie Ertz (left thigh), Casey Krueger (illness), Alyssa Naeher (right thigh) and Kealia Watt (right knee). Within 12 minutes, captain and midfielder Vanessa DiBernardo had to come off with an injury, replaced by Makenzy Doniak. More bad luck struck before the half, when Mallory Pugh went down with injury -- but, as has become the Red Stars' identity, they stayed locked in and scored in first-half stoppage time, despite being down a player. Arin Wright (nee Gilliland) lofted a long cross to the back post and Rachel Hill nodded it home.

After losing the 2019 NWSL championship and the 2020 Challenge Cup, the Red Stars have now lost their third consecutive final.

"It's been hard because we've had that taste in our mouth of losing a final like that," said Morgan Gautrat (nee Brian), one of Chicago's most consistent players this season. "It's why we go to practice every single day and we play every minute like it's the last."

For anyone who didn't know about the Spirit's off-field problems or the reckoning in the NWSL at large, Saturday's final had all the normal trappings of a celebratory finish to the regular season: full stands at Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky; supporters for each side banging drums and cheering; players putting in a high-level, competitive, focused performance. "The crowd brought it -- there were some people heckling me," O'Hara said, laughing.

But there were hints of the shadow cast by the tumultuous season that preceded the final. Local fans of Racing Louisville took it upon themselves to bring some large hard-to-miss signage for the Spirit: "We support Spirit fans. Sell the team, Baldwin." Spirit fans who made the trip brought their own signs urging majority owner Steve Baldwin to sell amid a public and ugly power struggle for control of the club. Baldwin, who stood by former Spirit coach Richie Burke even as players alleged abuse, has been pitted against Y. Michele Kang, the female minority owner who has earned the backing of Spirit players.

Other signs scattered throughout the stadium offered even weightier slogans like "Listen. Believe. Protect." And "#NoMoreSilence. Support NWSLPA."

Those signs were, of course, a reference to Burke, the coach accused by Spirit players of berating them with cruel name-calling and racial remarks. When Baldwin caught wind that journalists were looking into it, he claimed Burke had health problems and gave him a front-office job instead of firing him, which prompted the NWSL to step in and ban him. But the signs were also a reference to a larger backdrop of abuse and mistreatment of players that forced a reckoning in the NWSL this year.

The most shocking allegations came against former Portland Thorns coach Paul Riley, who two players said forced them to kiss as he watched, sent them lewd photos and showed up to film session in his underwear. A player filed a formal complaint in 2015, and Thorns owner Merritt Paulson and general manager Gavin Wilkinson let Riley quietly leave the club in what was framed as a routine non-renewal after poor on-field results. Riley quickly landed a new job, and was fired last month only when the players shared their stories publicly for the first time. The NWSL's commissioner, Lisa Baird, resigned last month under fire for refusing to investigate Riley earlier this year.

"It's been a really long year for every team, for different reasons -- a bunch of adversity on and off the field, and it's necessary to make this league better," Gautrat said, reflecting on Saturday's final. "But I do think it was a great showing -- 120 minutes of end-to-end soccer, good goals and excitement."

The NWSL championship wasn't even supposed to be in Kentucky. It had originally been scheduled to be played in Portland, Oregon, the city that has nicknamed itself Soccer City, USA -- but to accommodate a national noon East Coast broadcast slot, it would be played at 9 a.m. local time, which drew outrage from players and fans. The mishandling of the allegations against Riley from the Portland Thorns front office didn't make the location any more attractive.

But that the players managed to force the league to move its marquee event some 2,000 miles away was yet another testament to the power of the players. In a professional league, players shouldn't have to get involved in fixing off-field problems as often as NWSL players have, but they've risen above the challenges repeatedly, as the NWSL final put on full display.

That's as true for the Spirit players as anyone else, as no club has dealt with more problems -- at least in public -- this year. It's fitting that the Spirit have been the best team in the NWSL at coming back after conceding a goal first: their whole season has been a comeback of sorts. They haven't lost since Burke was finally fired months ago, a hot streak that carried them to the final, and on Saturday they made enduring a season of messiness well worth it.

"We've been in playoff mode since the end of the September -- we controlled what we could control, and that was winning," O'Hara said. "Here we are."