Week 18 recap: We're so back

Gotham FC has its first win of the second half of the season in the books after a resounding victory over a struggling Orlando Pride late Friday night. The Bats won 2-0, with goals from Esther and Jaelin Howell and a strong defensive performance to secure their 8th clean sheet of the season and AKB’s club record-breaking 15th clean sheet for Gotham FC. This performance didn’t happen by accident—let’s get into it.

The lineup

Before we get into things, a bit of team news: Gotham announced on Thursday that the club had loaned midfielder Stella Nyamekye to USL Super League side Fort Lauderdale United FC through at least the end of the calendar year. This move freed up an international spot for Gotham to sign England forward Princess Ademiluyi from WSL side West Ham United FC, as the club announced today.

This signing is through 2029, and according to journalist Jenna Tonelli, Ademiluyi is likely to be loaned out through the end of the year.

Regardless, Gotham will have too many internationals entering the 2026 season, so it will be interesting to see how they rectify that. They could acquire another spot through a trade, extend Stella Nyamekye’s loan with Fort Lauderdale United, opt not to permanently sign Geyse, or extend Ademiluyi’s supposed impending loan.

Back to the lineup: for the next 6 or so weeks, Gotham’s lineups are going to be determined by the midweek matches. In league play last week, it was about giving those who played earlier that week appropriate rest. This week, it was likely about giving those who will play on Tuesday appropriate rest. Gotham’s CONCACAF match this week is against Salvadoran team Alianza FC, who failed to qualify for last year’s competition after a play-in loss to Vancouver Whitecaps FC Girls Elite and who lost last matchday to the Washington Spirit 0-7. Because of that, head coach Juan Carlos Amorós was likely prioritizing having a better lineup for the matchup against the Pride, so we got to see what is probably his preferred lineup.

In goal, as always, was Ann-Katrin Berger. On the defensive line, Bruninha got one of her first starts as a right back this season, while Emily Sonnett, Jess Carter, and Lilly Reale filled out the rest of the defense. In midfield, Josefine Hasbo got her first ever NWSL start (and full 90)—we’ll get into that later—with Jaelin Howell playing defensive midfielder and Rose Lavelle playing attacking midfielder. And finally, up top we saw Esther González play the striker with Brazilians Geyse and Gabi Portilho on either wing. 

Last week we talked about how Amorós’ hands were a little tied with the lineup after the midweek Monterrey game, and so this week we’re excited to see that some of his true preferences are in line with the direction we were hoping this team was headed in. In particular, we were thrilled to see Amorós allowing Lavelle to play as the attacking midfielder rather than an amorphous attacking/central midfield position that doesn’t allow her talent to shine, as well as slotting Bruninha in at right back and giving Hasbo the opportunity to play as the club’s first true central midfielder in a long time. Let’s see what a difference these lineup choices made.

The Hasbo show

Josefine Hasbo got her first ever NWSL start this match and played a full 90 minutes and we were very impressed with what we saw. Her performance exemplified why having a true central midfielder is so important, and her stability in the midfield gave Gotham the option to build out attacks both centrally and using their width. 

She did an excellent job of winning balls in the midfield, completing the most tackles and interceptions on the team and recovering the most loose balls. She also made sure those balls went somewhere, having been dispossessed exactly zero (0) times, having the most progressive passes on the team, and having a medium pass completion rate (15 to 30 yards) that was second to only AKB and Emily Sonnett, two players whose positions lend themselves to high pass completion. In her debut start, she had the highest positionally-adjusted interrupting g+ and the 5th highest net g+ on the team. Let’s take a look at some of the moments that got her to these statlines. 

Moment 1: 7’

Here, Hasbo puts her body on the line to intercept a heavy touch from Orlando’s Prisca Chilufya and make sure it gets to a teammate. Although Esther eventually loses the ball on the sideline, this was a great move from Hasbo that could have sparked a serious attack.

Moment 2: 9’

This moment is called a foul in Gotham’s favor, but even if it wasn’t the team would have been okay, seeing as Hasbo still manages to get the ball to a teammate.

Moment 3: 11’

The interception of the throw-in is a team effort here but ultimately it’s Hasbo who is able to get the ball forward with a perfect through-ball through pressure to Esther.

Moment 4: 12’

Hasbo again kickstarts the attack for the team with an excellent forward pass to Rose Lavelle whose one touch pass to Esther is broken up by the Pride defense. But fear not, Hasbo’s efforts will soon pay off!

Moment 5: 12’-13’

And there it is. Again, with at least one defender right on her heels, Hasbo has the first build-up pass that leads to Gotham’s first goal of the game.

And speaking of this goal, the quick, short, tiki-taka passes we saw in the buildup were very reminiscent of this goal away at Angel City last season.

Good times. Hopefully we’ll see more of this productive creativity (and more of Ella Stevens) in the rest of the season.

Moment 6: 42’

Hasbo then almost gets a goal of her own. Her perfectly opportunistic run into Moorhouse’s rebound is denied only by an incredible feat of goalkeeping.

So anyways, Hasbo had a great game. Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós agreed, stating that, “She did an amazing job today. She’s a very intelligent player—reads space well, stays composed on the ball, finds the right areas to play forward, and sacrifices herself defensively. Step by step, she’s understanding not only how we play but also how her teammates around her play.” He later added, “She was outstanding today, and I’m very, very pleased with her performance.”

The rest of the team

Since the end of the summer break, Gotham has earned 4 points from its matchups against Washington and Orlando, and a combined 2 points from the games against Chicago, Utah, and Houston, all of whom were in the bottom three in league standings when they played Gotham. If we zoom out further, Gotham got the full 3 points in its first matchup against the Spirit and lost in its first matchups against the Pride and the Current by very slim margins, while also failing to score against teams like the Dash and the Chicago Stars. One of Gotham’s big problems this season is that they play to the level of their opponents, which was great this week but is really annoying most of the season when they’re not playing a top tier team. But that’s a problem for next week. For now, let’s get into the best parts of the Bats’ first win in 5 games.

The stats

This match was classic Juan Carlos Amorós Gotham. The Bats nabbed an early lead to have the cushion they needed to sit back and dictate play for the rest of the game. In the first half of the match, Gotham had higher possession, more shots, more shots on target, and more xG. After building up a 2-goal lead, the team sat back in the second half, allowing Orlando to have 64% of the possession and twice as many shots/shots on target (8/2 vs. 4/1), and yet the Bats still created more xG than the Pride in this half. So while the team allowed Orlando to push forward, they didn’t allow them to create any meaningful threats. Good things happen when Gotham’s game goes according to plan.

Other notable stats:

• Higher overall xG (1.54 vs. 1.21)

• Higher PSxG (1.94 vs. 0.13)

• Higher xG per shot (0.17 vs. 0.10)

The chances

Last week, after creating 18 shots against the worst placed team in the league and coming away with 0 goals, Amorós pointed to decision-making in the final third as the culprit behind Gotham’s scoring drought. Let’s look at some of the chances that this new and improved lineup created this match and whether that decision-making has improved.

Chance 1: 11’ 

Wow. Okay so this play starts with a beautiful curling ball forward from Bruninha to Gabi Portilho. Portilho pulls the ball back right before it crosses the endline, and miraculously it ends up at the feet of Lavelle. Lavelle has the space to take a centering touch before taking a shot, and perhaps the pressure of the moment gets to her as she one-times it and it goes just wide of the near post. This is good though! A lot closer than the team got in most of the game last week.

Chance 2: 13’ (goal)

The team immediately learns from its mistakes here. Instead of taking a quick shot from a decently good position, Esther cuts the ball across from the defenders to give herself time to figure out where to shoot, and once she gets there there’s nothing Anna Moorhouse can do to stop it. Excellent.

Chance 3: 15’

Then, Gotham immediately overcorrects. Rose Lavelle does an incredible job to get past the defender here, but then once she’s through, she takes a few touches too many and the chance is gone. But boy are we lucky to have a player with her skill.

Chance 4: 24’

Sonnett got left behind after going down during a set piece, so she had the opportunity to strip the ball away from Orlando and play striker here. The referee incorrectly called this is a foul, even though there was no illegal contact and Orlando midfielder Angelina went down due to the re-aggravation of her existing rib injury. What could have been…

Chance 5: 28’

Another brilliant ball forward from Bruninha. This time it’s to Esther, who immediately tries to replicate the same thing with limited success. This is an instance where Esther could have made a better decision in the final third.

Chance 6: 32’

This whole play was waved offside anyway, but we cannot for the life of us understand why Rose Lavelle opted to pass left to Geyse instead of shooting. We’re going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume there was a reason that we can’t see from this angle.

Chance 7: 45+1’ (goal)

So obviously Jaelin Howell showed us that this is technically possible within the laws of our planet’s physics, but we still don’t quite understand how this happened. Jaelin Howell, take a bow. And Geyse deserves credit too for wrestling the ball away from Pride defender Emily Sams and keeping it alive in the box.

Chance 8: 73’

This was almost perfect. Midge Purce steals the ball near the halfway line, and she and Esther work together beautifully while Katie Stengel stealthily makes a run at the far post. In the end, Esther’s pass is just a little too far back for Katie Stengel, leading her to sky it. But seriously, we would love to see more of this.

Chance 9: 82’

Katie Stengel earns herself a breakaway here, and her lone mistake is taking too long to shoot and instead passing out wide. By the time her teammates have the chance to shoot, Orlando also has the chance to defend. We will say, it was a tough situation, though. 

Chance 10: 84’

And two minutes later, she does it again. This time, she does everything perfectly. She gets past the defender and suddenly has acres of space to shoot. She chooses a spot that makes for an easy save for Moorhouse.

Gotham came away from this game with 2 goals and 3 points against the second-tightest defense in the league. So they obviously improved their decision-making in the final third. For all the criticism we had here, we are very impressed by what we saw from the team. They were connecting and communicating in a way that was sorely lacking in the last match against Utah, and it paid off. And we just want to say, starting Bruninha at right back, Rose Lavelle at attacking midfielder, and Josie Hasbo at central midfielder was one of the best lineup decisions made all season.

Also, Juan Carlos Amorós earned himself a yellow card that puts him over the threshold, so he will be serving a suspension in the next league match against Angel City. Whoops.

Looking ahead to next match

Gotham’s next match is this Tuesday, September 2nd, against Alianza Women FC, at 9 PM on Paramount+. Because of the short turnaround, we expect to see a lot of rotation. We’ll probably see Khyah Harper and Katie Stengel up top, with a starter from this past match probably filling in on one of the wings (likely Geyse, since she was the first player to be subbed out). In the midfield, we’re anticipating some combination of Sarah Schupansky, Taryn Torres, Sofia Cook, and Nealy Martin. In the backline we will probably see Mandy Freeman and Kayla Duran, and the rest of the spots could be filled by Sonnett and Carter splitting halves, Nealy Martin filling in at center back, or Taryn Torres playing left back like she did against Monterrey 2 weeks ago. In goal we’re really hoping to see Ryan Campbell get a chance, as this is likely the lowest level team we’ll see Gotham play this season, but if the coaching staff doesn’t feel she’s ready for the start we’ll definitely be seeing Shelby Hogan between the posts. Hopefully Gotham can keep the momentum from its last match against Monterrey going.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.