Week 22 recap: Peaking at the right time

Gotham FC’s unbeaten streak continues as the Bats took down the Portland Thorns in a resounding 3-0 win at Sports Illustrated Stadium on Friday night. Goals from Midge Purce, Rose Lavelle, and Katie Stengel and a complete team performance saw Gotham hang onto its 3rd place spot in standings, but not just on goal differential this time.

Watching this performance was an intense whiplash from last Sunday’s uninspiring 1-1 slog against Bay FC—unlike last week, Gotham was moving as one unit and the players had a very strong understanding of where their teammates were. What exactly made this performance so strong?

Lineups

We generally like to focus on Gotham only in this newsletter but it’s hard to tell the story of this match without getting into the Thorns’ lineup. After losing 3 wingers this year to season-ending injuries, Portland opted for a very conservative 5-4-1 against the Bats. This starting XI included 3 center backs, 2 fairly defensive wingbacks, and a lone attacker in the yet-to-take-off-in-this-league Deyna Castellanos, with the team’s best healthy attackers (Reilyn Turner and Pietra Tordin) and 3 other forwards (Mimi Alidou, Alexa Spaanstra, Valerin Loboa) on the bench. In other words, Portland was parking the bus. Losing so many forwards to injury is tough for any team, especially when considering how much it disrupts the construction of attacking chemistry, and with the second-lowest goals allowed in the league Gotham is a tough defense to break down. So we understand why Thorns coach Rob Gale might’ve seen this conservative approach as his team’s best chance of getting a point out of this matchup, and we are very flattered by the level of respect shown to Gotham here. But it would be foolish not to recognize the gift that this lineup ended up being. Portland did end up substituting Turner and Tordin into the match, but by those points Gotham was up by 2 and 3 goals, respectively. 

Back to the Bats. In anticipation of the upcoming mid-week CONCACAF Champions Cup match, Juan Carlos Amorós’ side saw a slight bit of rotation. Most notably, left-back Lilly Reale and winger Gabi Portilho got some much needed rest as Mandy Freeman and Jaedyn Shaw took their places in the defense and on the wing, respectively, and striker Esther González got subbed out at the half for Katie Stengel. With Shaw playing out wide, Amorós opted to play a double pivot of Jaelin Howell and Josie Hasbo deep in the midfield, giving Rose Lavelle the freedom to play as a lone attacking midfielder. Bruninha, Emily Sonnett, and Jess Carter filled out the rest of the back line while Midge Purce played on the opposite flank as Jaedyn Shaw. Reale and Portilho did eventually come into the match, with the former replacing an injured Bruninha in the 62nd minute and the latter replacing Jaedyn Shaw in the 79th.

Gotham remained structured as ever out of possession, and it worked brilliantly—the Thorns were limited to just 4 shots totalling 0.18 xG. Gotham never allowed Portland to get comfortable, letting them carry the ball only 1,267 yards (compared to Gotham’s 1,711), with only 549 of those yards being progressive, despite the two teams having similar possession numbers. If you look at the average positions of the players on the pitch, Gotham pushed Portland’s players pretty far back and forced a lot of them to occupy pretty much the same space, a strategy that they were never going to get any productive play from.

I mean, come on. Portland played a 5-4-1 in hopes of controlling and halting any play out wide and instead ended up getting crowded into the middle. This absolute demolishing of the 4th place team entering this week makes it feel like Gotham is peaking at just the right time—forward Midge Purce said, “We've always been kind of a second-half-of-the-year team, and I think we're starting to cook now.” Let’s walk through some of the best moments from this match, both on an individual and a team level, that give us hope.

Team chemistry

Last week, we talked about how Gotham’s one good moment of the game came from its signature high press that involves winning the ball back high up the pitch. So would you be surprised to hear that all three of the Bats’ goals this week came the same way?

Goal 1: 10’

This goal started when Gotham won the ball in the midfield.

Josie Hasbo and Jaelin Howell put on the pressure here to force a turnover, and Mandy Freeman is ready and able to pounce. Then, Gotham has some quick and precise passes through lines, culminating in Midge Purce sending a long ball forward to Esther. Esther is able to hold onto the ball and even send a cross in, but that pass is blocked and deflected out for a throw in deep in Gotham’s offensive half.

New weapon alert: Jaedyn Shaw occupies two defenders here which gives Mandy Freeman the room to deliver this cross into Midge Purce’s run. Freeman has a great delivery and Purce splits the center backs with ease, but partial credit for this goal is also due to Portland, who seem like they decided to just stop defending halfway through this play.

After spending most of the season on the back of Esther, it’s exciting to think of the possibilities of having an attack so dynamic that defenders don’t know who to double team (and that double-teaming a Gotham attacker only hurts the defense).

Goal 2: 43’

This time, it’s Sonnett who pressures, and Hasbo (a name we’re getting used to hearing a lot) is there to pick up the leftovers. Again, Gotham has quick passes forward in the transition and then Jaedyn Shaw and Rose Lavelle combine in an absolutely mind-boggling way. Shaw somehow both sees Lavelle’s run in between the two defenders and also has the ability to pass the ball perfectly into that run while there are at least 3 red and yellow shirts between the two of them. Once Lavelle is through on goal, she knows exactly what to do and Gotham’s lead is doubled.

Goal 3: 73’

Consider this us formally retracting everything we’ve said about Katie Stengel this year because she does all of the work here. She does a great job reading Portland’s pass and intercepting it in a dangerous area, she passes to Rose Lavelle at the perfect time, and she finds a shot through a really tight angle. The only other person who deserves a smidge of credit here is Rose Lavelle for her wicked backheel assist. But other than that, Katie Stengel, take a bow.

These three goals weren’t the only instances of team chemistry we saw. 

Some context for this clip: right before this, Gotham had a set piece opportunity followed by 2 back-to-back corner kicks, and Portland finally had control of the ball with a goal kick when this happened. Gotham worked together to steal the ball from Portland pretty much immediately, and then with some quick passes forward in possession, they get themselves in a goalscoring position.

And here, Midge Purce does a brilliant job of disrupting Portland’s pass and exploiting the acres of space around the center circle. Gotham, at this point up 3 goals, are more than eager to pass the ball back and use this as an opportunity to retain possession of the ball, but this had the potential of turning into a promising attack on the counter.

Gotham played with the perfect combination of creativity and precision in this game, and as their reward got 3 points and 3 goals (although it could have been many more).

Individual brilliance

It’s hard to talk about individual brilliance without talking about the most brilliant individual, Rose Lavelle. So we’ll acknowledge that she had an incredible game that made us very excited for her future at this club and that prompted head coach Juan Carlos Amorós to say, “In my opinion, Rose is one of the 10 best players in the world, no doubt about it.” But who we really want to focus in on here is Jaedyn Shaw. 

Despite playing on the wing instead of her preferred central attacking midfielder spot, Shaw had quite a game. She bagged her first Gotham assist and had the third-highest positionally adjusted g+ of the match, behind only Rose Lavelle and Midge Purce. If you zoom in on her g+ numbers, the bulk of it comes from passing.

The thing to remember with g+ as a statistic is that it is the sum of individual events, so high g+ values can be the result of a consistently good game or of a singular high-value event. With that in mind, Shaw’s passing g+ was still quite high (0.14 higher than second place, and 0.17 higher than third). Let’s try and look at some of the moments that would’ve boosted that score.

First, her assist on Rose Lavelle’s goal.

She somehow has the vision to see Rose Lavelle’s run and has perfect timing and placement on her pass that splits the two Portland center backs here. This pass is her best by outcome, but we saw brilliant vision and execution like this throughout the game.

Here, she has the most casual and controlled nutmeg through a Portland player perfectly into the run of Rose Lavelle. This chance eventually turned into Jaelin Howell’s shot from outside of the box that rattled off the crossbar.

So shoutout to Jaelin here. An incredible shot that was unlucky not to see the back of the net.

Here, Shaw almost perfectly slips the ball through 2 defenders to Esther. She made up for it later with her assist to Rose Lavelle, of course.

And in this clip, she’s able to control the ball with her head to send it to Esther who’s now in a 1v1 position with a Portland defender.

Finally, there was her involvement in this goal that was called offside by a hair.

Shaw is able to get on the end of Jess Carter’s last-ditch ball and has the vision to see the room for Midge Purce to make a run and be through on goal. It’s a shame it was offside, because this connection was exquisite.

So yeah, Jaedyn Shaw is pretty good at soccer. Her vision in this game was extraordinary, and we are happy for both her and the team that she was able to pull off that performance after a tough year.

Other players we want to shout out here are Mandy Freeman (5th highest passing g+ and 6th highest net g+ of the game, as well as an assist and some beautiful passing) and Midge Purce (2nd highest net g+, highest dribbling g+, and 2nd highest receiving and shooting g+ of the game; 1 goal; and overall an amazing game).

Looking ahead to next match

Gotham next plays the Washington Spirit in their final group stage match of the 2025-26 CONCACAF W Champions Cup this Wednesday, October 1st at 7 PM ET. Although this is classified as a home match for the Bats, it’s taking place at Subaru Park in Pennsylvania. Kudos to any Gotham fans who will be able to make it out there to cheer the team on, but if Philadelphia is too far, you can stream the game on Paramount+. This is a crucial match in CONCACAF play, as a win or a draw would see Gotham going through to the semi-finals next year, and a loss would mean biting our fingernails until October 15th and hoping that the Spirit can pull off a win or a draw against Monterrey then. With the rotation we saw this match, we can expect to see some regular starters on Wednesday, but either way it will be a tiring week for the Bats. The Spirit have some momentum going into this match, having demolished the Houston Dash 4-0 on Sunday, so hopefully Gotham can find it in themselves to pull off a result against this very tough and in-form opponent.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.