Week 19 recap: Going through changes

Gotham FC’s 5-match unbeaten streak in all competitions continues as the Bats came away with a comeback 3-1 victory over Angel City Sunday evening. After going into halftime down 0-1, the team pulled off the win with goals from Gabi Portilho, Rose Lavelle, and Jaelin Howell in the second half. This match marked Gotham’s second comeback win this season, the first of which was the team’s first since March 26, 2023.

In some ways, this game was just as dominant of a performance as the scoreline suggests, but in many other ways it was a lot closer. Stick around until the end for our analysis of some recent team news, but for now let’s get into this match and what it could say about the rest of Gotham’s season.

The first half

Gotham started this game with what we’re understanding to more or less be their preferred lineup. Ann-Katrin Berger was in goal; Bruninha, Emily Sonnett, Jess Carter, and Lilly Reale made up the backline; Jaelin Howell, Josefine Hasbo, and Sarah Schupansky played defensive, central, and attacking midfielder, respectively; and Gabi Portilho and Geyse played the wingers to Esther’s striker position. The only change we’d expect in the lineup on any other day would be starting Rose Lavelle over Sarah Schupansky at the 10, but we’re assuming that because Lavelle picked up a knock in the last league game against the Orlando Pride, the coaching staff remained cautious and let her start the game on the bench.

The Bats got off to a rough start—in just the 3rd minute of play, Angel City scored against the home side.

This goal starts with ACFC rookie Riley Tiernan battling with defender Emily Sonnett on the endline. The ordinarily very defensively sound Sonnett is caught completely off guard here, and Tiernan is able to get a cross off. Jaelin Howell heads the cross away from goal and it unfortunately lands at the feet of Kennedy Fuller who takes a wild shot from distance that happens to make it in. A combination of poor skill and bad luck sees Gotham on the back foot early on, but the good news is they had another 87 minutes of playing time to recover.

The team’s first big chance came in the 12th minute of play.

Here, Bruninha has a perfect overlapping run with Gabi Portilho, who is able to hold up play just long enough and time her pass to Bruninha perfectly. Suddenly, Bruninha has tons of space to cross the ball into the box from just outside of it, which Geyse almost gets to before it’s interrupted by Angel City defender Gisele Thompson. The ball falls to Jaelin Howell, who after scoring a wonder strike last week is ready to try again. It’s unfortunately not her time yet but this buildup was a positive sign from the Bats that they were willing and ready to fight back.

Gotham was able to keep the pressure up and force 3 corners within 5 minutes. None of them resulted in a goal, but we did get to see this promising shot from midfielder Josefine Hasbo.

But there was also some bad. In the 21st minute of the game, Angel City forward Sveindís Jónsdóttir was able to pick the pocket of Jess Carter and find herself in a 1v1 situation with goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger.

Fortunately for the Bats, Jónsdóttir is still settling into her finishing boots in the NWSL and the deficit stayed at 1 goal for now. 

Gotham’s last big chance of the half came in the 37th minute, when Gabi Portilho’s shot hit the crossbar.

Sarah Schupansky and Esther work together to win the ball in a dangerous area through their pressure, and Schupansky decides to have a look herself. Her shot is blocked by an Angel City defender, and as the visiting team is trying to move it the other way the ball is once again intercepted, this time by Gabi Portilho, who has a lot of room but unfortunately hits the crossbar.

Despite conceding early, Gotham led Angel City in possession (55% vs. 45%) in the first half, and registered the same number of shots and shots on target. Nevertheless, the team still ended the half with a one-goal deficit and a lot of work ahead.

The second half

Acting head coach Andy Spence made 2 substitutions to start the second half: attacking midfielder Rose Lavelle came on for attacking midfielder Sarah Schupansky, and winger Midge Purce came on for central midfielder Josefine Hasbo. In order to account for this, the team moved Esther back and played with 2 attacking midfielders, slotting Geyse into the striker role.

Gotham came out the gate swinging, as can be seen in the attack momentum chart below.

It took the team less than 2 minutes to score, thanks to some nifty play from wingers Midge Purce and Gabi Portilho.

Purce is speedy and technical enough to get past a frankly apathetic Madison Hammond and gets the cross off to Portilho, who this whole time is making a run centrally from out wide to get on the end of this ball. Individual brilliance and amazing teamwork sees Gotham right back in it within 2 minutes.

And 4 minutes later, Gotham has the lead.

Bruninha starts this play with a great ball forward to Purce that she herself ultimately gets on the end of. She attempts to cross the ball into the center of the box but Angel City goalkeeper Hannah Seabert intercepts it and gets a hand to it. Seabert fumbles, though, and Rose Lavelle makes no mistake taking advantage of the error and earns her first goal of 2025 in style.

Gotham kept the party going, with a goal from Jaelin Howell in the 67th minute to extend their lead to 2. This goal marked Howell’s second goal in 2 matches, and her 3rd overall NWSL goal.

The play starts with great connection from Lilly Reale and Gabi Portilho to get the ball into the box. Portilho and Geyse are then able to draw 4 defenders toward them, leaving Jaelin Howell completely open for this absolute banger. 

At this point, Angel City’s hopes are dwindling and Gotham has full control of the game and the ability to focus solely on suffocating Angel City’s attack, and the rest of the game sees them in cruise control. The only real challenge the team sees is in the 4th minute of stoppage time, when Sveindís Jónsdóttir comes away with the ball and an open net ahead of her.

She’s unable to actually finish the opportunity, and Gotham’s 2-goal lead remains intact with 2 minutes left in stoppage time.

In some ways this was a dominant performance from Gotham. They had far more touches in the attacking third (186 vs. 75), higher overall possession (59% vs. 41%), much higher passing accuracy (78% vs. 69%), and more shots/shots on target (16/6 vs. 14/2). However, despite all that, Gotham was able to put up only 0.09 more xG than their opponent (2.25 vs. 2.16). Goals win games, and Gotham was the team that scored more goals that evening, but it could very easily have been the other way around if Angel City had finished even one of their big chances. 

We’ll take it, though, and at the end of the day we’re glad that Gotham was able to maintain its composure after conceding first and pull off the comeback win. This season, the Bats have shown a newfound ability to come back after going down a goal or two, and this is a change we’re very excited to see.

And speaking of changes…

Team news

Late Monday night, journalist Jeff Kassouf announced that Jaedyn Shaw was headed to Gotham FC for a record-breaking $1.25 million in intra-league transfer funds to be paid to the North Carolina Courage. Both clubs confirmed the deal this morning.

On Tuesday—after Nealy Martin’s name was on the availability report for Gotham’s clash against Angel City with an “excused absence”—Gotham announced that the midfielder was being traded to Angel City FC in exchange for $85,000 in intra-league transfer funds at her own request.

These are both big changes for the team. Martin has long been a staple of Gotham’s midfield, even captaining the side on some occasions this season, and she will be dearly missed. However, with head coach Juan Carlos Amorós moving Jaelin Howell back to the defensive midfielder position as of late, this move makes sense for all parties. Nealy Martin is too good of a player to spend the majority of a season on the bench, or to slot in at center back when needed, and while we obviously wish she was still with the Bats, we understand why she opted for a fresh start on the opposite coast. Nealy Martin will always be a Gotham FC legend, and we wish her the best of luck at Angel City.

The Jaedyn Shaw news was unfortunately a little more of a mystery and a surprise to us. Shaw undeniably has a lot of raw talent that was being underutilized at North Carolina Courage, so it makes sense that the attacking midfielder is seeking a change, especially as she sits just at the bubble of senior national team call-ups. However, she plays a position where Gotham is already struggling with an abundance of riches—with Rose Lavelle and Sarah Schupansky both being exceptional in the role, and with consistency being very important in the push to playoffs, we’re left wondering just how much of a role Shaw will be able to play. It’s important to note that Kassouf reported that Gotham would be restructuring Shaw’s existing contract to keep her with the club through the 2029 season, so this is definitely a signing that can prove to be beneficial in the long term (and this makes the $1.25 million price tag feel a little more reasonable).

Our best guess for how Shaw will be deployed in the rest of this season and beyond is that, if she’s ready in time, she will hopefully get some minutes in the remaining CONCACAF W Champions Cup fixtures. In the meantime, Gotham sometimes has the capacity to play with two attacking midfielders instead of one attacking and one central midfielder (as they did in the second half of this match, as Esther dropped back to be with Rose Lavelle and Geyse slotted in at the 9), so if they continue to develop that system there would definitely be room for Shaw to play alongside Rose Lavelle. Our hope is that if this move pushes Sarah Schupansky to the bench, that the coaching staff invests in developing her as a winger in Gotham’s system, because we would still very much like to see her talents on the field and she led the NCAA in assists in 2024 while playing on the wing.

Jaedyn Shaw has been tested in many different positions in her short playing career, and has shown that she is most effective as an attacking midfielder. We would say it’s unlikely we’ll see her anywhere else on the pitch for Gotham, but if there’s anything Juan Carlos Amorós likes to do, it’s convert a player to a new position. So we’ll see what Gotham’s plan for this very talented player is. Although she hasn’t had the strongest season so far at North Carolina, Amorós’ Gotham specializes in player development—the coaching staff has consistently been able to bring out the best in players like Nealy Martin, Delanie Sheehan, Yazmeen Ryan, Ella Stevens, and most recently Jaelin Howell, so we trust this organization to bring Jaedyn Shaw back to the scary and creative attacker that she’s been in the past.

Looking ahead to next match

Gotham starts a 3-match road trip this week with their game against the San Diego Wave on Friday, September 12th at 10 PM ET on Prime Video. The Wave currently sit in 3rd in league standings with 8 wins, 6 draws, and 5 losses, 3 points ahead of the Bats. The Wave has had an unpredictably strong season in 2025, but the past three matches against Louisville, Seattle, and Houston have resulted in 2 losses and a draw for the California side. The Wave still have a lot of talent that is working really well together, so the best we can do is hope that both San Diego and Gotham’s recent momentum continues and the Bats are able to pull off this win away from home.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.