Week 13 recap: Comeback kids

Guys, it finally happened. For the first time this season, Gotham came away with at least one point after conceding first. And more importantly, for the first time since March 26, 2023 (and the second ever time in head coach Juan Carlos Amorós’ tenure here) Gotham came away with the full three. 

The Bats are entering the summer break with a 2-1 victory over Bay FC, where goals from Esther González and Geyse lifted the team to a victory after conceding an early goal in the 11th minute. After conceding so early on (and especially with 2 starters out on red card suspension), it felt like it might just be yet another home loss for Gotham. But a few minutes after that, it felt like a switch had been flipped, and suddenly the Bats were playing with a new intensity and hunger that we couldn’t quite determine the source of. Our best guess is that they were playing for Esther and her shoe.

Statistically, this wasn’t Gotham’s match. Bay generated way more xG (2.8 vs. 0.9), created more shots and shots on target (11 total shots and 5 on target vs. 8 total shots and 3 on target), and had higher pass accuracy (75% vs. 73%). Bay also had more passes in the opposing half (140 vs. 99) and touches in their attacking penalty area (24 vs. 19). When we look at g+ adjusted to each player’s position in this match, here’s what we see:

Yikes. Gotham had 6 players with a positive value and 10 players with a negative value here, and were way outplayed by Bay. By all of these metrics, Bay should’ve won this game.

But as we well know, statistics don’t decide a soccer game, goals do. Whether Gotham scored more goals due to luck or skill, the soccer gods were on the Bats’ side that night, and we are so grateful for it. Let’s talk about what we can take away from this performance going forward—what should Gotham be doing more of and what should they be doing less of to ensure a better second half of the season than the first?

More: Keeping up the high press

Coming into this match, Bay FC had a lot of holes in defense. Starting goalkeeper Jordan Silkowitz out with an illness for the second week in a row, and center backs Kelli Hubly, Emily Menges, and Jordan Brewster were out with excused absences and injury. These absences caused the team to play Joelle Anderson at center back—although she has filled in at this spot for Bay this season before, she primarily played center midfielder last season, so she probably isn’t their top choice on the backline. 

This was a weakness for Gotham to exploit, and boy did they. Gotham’s signature style of play involves sitting high up the pitch when out of possession and exerting immense pressure on the opposing team in hopes of forcing an error and winning the ball in a dangerous attacking position. We haven’t seen this super consistently this season because it requires a lot of defensive discipline to avoid conceding on the counterattack, and Gotham’s defense has been constantly finding its sea legs again as the backline has adjusted and readjusted due to injury. However, it was a calculated risk they determined was worth taking this game with Bay’s shaky defense.

Things started out small, in the 10th minute.

Bruninha strips the ball from a Bay defender, but is quickly dispossessed. However, Gotham keeps up the pressure and forces Bay to keep passing backwards, and Bruninha ultimately intercepts a pass from the goalie and sends it past the endline for a goal kick. This play didn’t do much for Gotham offensively, but defensively they definitely killed some momentum.

Then, in the 19th minute, Gotham had a more productive moment of pressure.

Geyse puts pressure on Bay’s defense, forcing a pass back to the keeper. Esther is there to pressure the keeper, who bobbles in a pass to a defender who then sends the ball out for a Gotham corner.

In the 23rd minute, Geyse’s pressure forces a Bay defender to kick the ball out of bounds for a Gotham throw in.

Gotham was finding some success coming out of their pressure, and all of this culminated in their first goal of the match.

At the beginning of this clip, a Bay player is looking to keep progressing the ball forward but is ultimately forced to pass the ball backwards due to pressure from Gotham in the midfield. The ball gets all the way to the keeper, who passes it to a defender. Sarah Schupansky is able to steal the ball away from this defender with an interception that lands right at the feet of Esther who is able to capitalize. Suddenly, thanks to Gotham’s high press, the teams are level once again.

What we’re hoping is that Gotham signs another defender during the summer transfer window and that in the second half of the season the team is then able to find the defensive stability and chemistry it needs to sustain the high press that it pulls off so well. It was a pleasure to watch in this match (and in the 3-0 win against the Washington Spirit), and we really hope we get to see more of it in the rest of the season.

Less: Allowing preventable chances

Gotham has had some unlucky moments this season, but this was a game where they benefited from luck being on their side. The Bats allowed Bay to create 11 shots, including 5 shots on target, for a total of 2.8 xG, and this included 4 big chances. Let’s go through some moments of defensive weakness that could’ve been avoided.

First, let’s just get it over with. The goal.

The play starts with a nasty giveaway by Nealy Martin. Here, we start to see some of the vulnerabilities of 1) playing a high defensive line as a part of the high press and 2) having a defense so unstable that a midfielder is playing center back. Bay is able to win the ball in a dangerous position, but their ball ends up wide of the goal and Gotham’s defenders are able to catch up to prevent this initial play from turning into a goal.

Then, the ball bobbles around the box way too much and suddenly everything goes wrong for Gotham. In the end, it’s a rare goalkeeping error from AKB that leaves Bay forward Penelope Hocking seeing nothing but the back of the net.

This was Bay’s only chance that turned into a goal, but there were many others that could’ve easily spoiled Gotham’s party. Let’s take a look at a few, and see what exactly went wrong in each of them.

Chance 1: 16’

AKB giving Gotham fans a heart attack has unfortunately become a hallmark of the 2025 season, but somehow she always wins out in the end. Here, she manages to keep the ball away from Bay forward Racheal Kundananji in a dangerous position, but then her ensuing pass lands straight at the feet of a Bay player. Fortunately, a Gotham defender is able to clear the ball, but this was a chance that never should have happened. 

Lesson from this one: Just because something looks cool doesn’t mean it needs to be done.

Chance 2: 38’

The real issue we have here is Taylor Huff being left completely open on the far post. Her being unmarked results in a 0.51 xG chance that we are glad to say hit the crossbar (for context, Gotham’s goals this game were scored on shots with 0.17 and 0.10 xG).

Lesson from this one: Keep track of the runners in the box and communicate.

Chance 3: 76’

Ann-Katrin Berger won NWSL goalkeeper of the year last season for a reason. Besides being an excellent shot-stopper, she is unbelievably adept with her feet. In her time in the NWSL, 47.7% of her 40+ yard passes have found a teammate (for context, the league average for goalkeepers in 2025 is 35%). This game, her launch pass completion % was 29.4%, so this was an uncharacteristically bad game for Gotham’s starting keeper.

Here, we see one of the 70.6% of launched passes by AKB that did not find their target this game. After gaining possession of the ball, Bay FC are able to slowly move it forward.

Just outside of the box, Bay midfielder Dorian Bailey is able to slip a pass through four Gotham defenders to an unmarked Penelope Hocking at the far post. Unmarked!! Gotham FC (and all its fans) owe Penelope Hocking an edible arrangement or something for somehow failing to convert on that chance because for a second it looked like it was all over. 

Lesson from this one: Keep track of the runners and also uhh try to intercept passes?

What’s important is at the end of the day, the Bats got the job done. And they weren’t the only team with defensive lapses—Gotham’s first goal came from a defensive error, and in their second, Bay’s defense helped them earn both the goal and assist of the week.

More: Fielding players in the right positions

We talked last week about how Gotham was going to be forced into a puzzle this game, with center back Jess Carter and central midfielder Jaelin Howell out on red card suspension. Watching this match, it looked like Gotham started each half going through some growing pains from playing all of these players out of position. Rose Lavelle in particular had a shaky start, which makes a lot of sense given how out of position she was—her average position this game was further back than that of Taryn Torres, and she ended up with the lowest Fotmob rating of all starters this game.

At the start of the second half, new signing and rookie Josefine Hasbo, who seems to naturally play as a central midfielder, took Lavelle’s place. Gotham’s second half also started off poorly, with the attack momentum going Bay’s way, but all in all the Bats had a better second half defensively than their first. They conceded fewer shots (5 vs. 6), fewer shots on target (1 vs. 4), fewer big chances (1 vs. 3), and less xG (2.08 vs. 0.81) and PSxG (1.45 vs. 0.06). 

A rookie playing in her natural position yielding a better defense than one of the best players in the world playing out of position really speaks to the impact of fielding players where they’re most comfortable. Of course, there are a lot of extraneous variables at play here—gamestate definitely affected Bay’s performance after they conceded the second goal, and it’s possible that Nealy Martin found her footing as a center back in the second half—but we still strongly feel that games go better when people are able to play in familiar positions.

And speaking of rookies, Juan Carlos Amorós noted in post-match media availability that Gotham fielded 6 rookies this match and was still able to pull out a come-from-behind win. Not too shabby. “We've never really been a team with many rookies over the past few seasons, but it's kind of a breath of fresh air in the locker room, off the field, and on the field,” noted defensive midfielder Nealy Martin. “They're all so talented, and I'm just so proud of them. They're like my kids.”

Looking ahead to next match

Gotham’s next regular season NWSL match is away against the Chicago Stars on Friday, August 1 at 8 PM ET. The Bats’ first matchup against the Stars ended in a 0-0 draw—hopefully Gotham will find themselves better equipped to take on Chicago this time around. Chicago currently sits at 13th in league standings, with 1 win, 3 draws, and 9 losses to their name, and have lost 3 and drawn 2 of their last 5 matches. We can’t speak much to this matchup just yet, as we’re not sure whether either of the teams involved have any new signings lined up in the summer transfer window, but we’ll offer a more insightful preview closer to the actual matchup.

If Gotham decides to play any friendly matches during this long break, we’ll be here to report on them, and we’ll also keep you up to date on any and all transactions by the club. But for now, from The Bat Signal, HAGS.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.