Week 15 recap: Best draw ever

The NWSL’s rivalry week kicked off Saturday afternoon with Gotham’s clash against the Washington Spirit at Sports Illustrated Stadium with a season record 13,860 fans in attendance to watch the most thrilling scoreless draw of the year. The club was using the occasion to mark the one year anniversary of its “Keep her in the game” initiative, and things seemed to be going Gotham’s way in the beginning, with the Bats having all of the attack momentum until around the 30th minute.

Then Geyse made a tackle that was flagged by VAR, and since VAR can’t give out a yellow, she was instead shown a red, sending Gotham to 10 players for the rest of the match.

Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós had a lot to say about this card. “I’ve told [the referees] before: don’t influence the game that much. For example, I told Stephanie yesterday, I was watching a match where there was an accidental step and it wasn’t a red card. Today, the same action is a red card. That lack of consistency is frustrating. There are also little incidents—steps, fouls—that go unpunished, and it adds up.”

Luckily, the team are now experts at playing a player (or even 2) down, and managed to turn 0.9 xG by the Spirit into 0 goals. Let’s get into how they got the job done.

They almost didn’t

Let’s just get this out of the way. We love AKB, we think she’s one of the best goalkeepers ever, and we love that she has the confidence to do things like this.

Last week we discussed her heart-attack inducing antics and how she somehow always wins the ball. We would like to take full responsibility for jinxing her, as this week the Spirit almost went up early off of this giveaway.

We hope she kissed the post after that and took a second to reflect on what it means to be a goalkeeper. At the end of the day though we still love her and she still kept a clean sheet. 

And speaking of goalkeepers, this week Ryan Campbell announced on Kelley O’Hara’s “Sports Are Fun!” podcast that she and Gotham agreed to a 3-year contract extension that will keep the goalie in the tri-state area through the 2028 season. We are so excited to hopefully see more of her in the upcoming CONCACAF W Champions Cup matches.

We were also spared from conceding by this Jaelin Howell goal line clearance header late in the match.

And finally, the team learned from its mistakes from last week. The Spirit clearly did their homework and noticed that Gotham conceded from not being prepared for a short corner. They decided to try their luck on a side that was a player down but fortunately did not find success.

Now on to the rest of the match.

The lineup

So head coach Juan Carlos Amorós straight up lied when he said Esther González would be on very limited minutes this game, and to not expect a start. It was a very pleasant surprise to see her name on the starting lineup and to see her play until the 88th minute of the match, but we also hope she got the rest she needed after a demanding Euros tournament.

Rounding out the forward line were Khyah Harper and Geyse on the wing. Harper earned her second start in a row to kick off the second half of the season after Amorós spoke of an impressive summer break from her, and her first start on the wing as opposed to at striker. Geyse played an excellent first 30 minutes before the referee decided not to keep her in the game. 

In the midfield we saw Sarah Schupansky in attacking midfield, Rose Lavelle in central midfield, and Jaelin Howell as defensive mid. This changed a bit after the red card—Schupansky moved out wide, leaving just Lavelle and Howell in the midfield. 

Finally, in the defense we saw Jess Carter return to center back after a quick stint at right back last week, with Emily Sonnett as her partner and Mandy Freeman and Lilly Reale at right and left back, respectively. Reale ended the game with the highest Sofascore and Fotmob rating of the team.

Debuts and returns

We saw some players take the field for Gotham for the first time (or for the first time in a while) in this match. Most notably, we saw the debut of defender Kayla Duran, whose initial national team replacement contract just got extended through February 2026. We must admit that we were a little skeptical of her being put in this match specifically, when Gotham still had another 15 minutes to fight off the Spirit while being a player down, but she definitely rose to the occasion with her defensive actions.

We loved the limited minutes we saw from Duran this match and are excited to see more of her as the season continues, and are mostly excited to have more defensive depth as the CONCACAF W Champions Cup group stage starts this upcoming week. 

Also making her return for the first time since April (when Gotham last played the Spirit) was forward Gabi Portilho. Portilho returned to the club last week after winning the Copa América with Brazil and subbed in for Khyah Harper at the beginning of the second half. Despite not starting, Portilho logged the second-highest positionally-adjusted g+ this match for Gotham.

Gotham’s downslide this season began when Portilho became unavailable due to injury, so it’s huge to have her back. We’re so excited to see what her return will do for Gotham’s attack going forward, and for the team to perhaps finally have some consistency on the front line.

Finally, we saw the return of Esther for the first time this summer after she took a week off after her Euros campaign with the Spanish national team came to a close at the end of July. Esther attempted a team-high 3 shots this match, 2 of which were on target, and led the team in progressive carries.

All in all we’re pretty happy about the team’s performance in this match, especially after going a player down. While Gotham didn’t get the three points we always hope for, they showed a lot of potential for the future. The Bats played a scrappy game to officially win the series against the Spirit and hold them scoreless in a season for the first time in history. Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós noted that Jess Carter said in the postgame huddle, “If we play like that every week, no team is going to take three points off us. That’s the standard we want to set.”

Looking ahead to next match

Gotham’s next game is at home against the Houston Dash on Sunday, August 17 at 4 PM ET. The Dash currently sit in 12th place in league standings with 4 wins, 3 draws, and 8 losses, and the last time these two teams met it was a low xG thriller that ended in a 0-0 draw. Houston is on a bit of a hot streak, having scored 2 goals in each of their last 2 matches, with a goal apiece from midfielders Kiki Van Zanten and Sophie Schmidt in each of the matches. Hopefully Gotham will be able to put a stop to this scoring streak and earn their first 3 points of the second half of the season.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.