Week 5 recap: Juan Carlos Amorós, we owe you an apology

Around two weeks ago, Gotham FC announced that head coach Juan Carlos Amorós had signed a five year contract extension with the club, keeping him in New Jersey through the 2029 season. At the time, Gotham had only a loss and two draws to its name in the calendar year, scoring only one goal in the three-game stretch, and many were skeptical of this move.

It’s no secret that Gotham had a lot of turnover ahead of the 2025 season. They lost several integral parts of Gotham’s system, most notably Yazmeen Ryan, Delanie Sheehan, and Jenna Nighswonger. Gotham also had to start the season without Rose Lavelle and lost Tierna Davidson for the rest of the season less than a week before this announcement was made. 

Offensively, Gotham seemed to be floundering in the midst of all of these personnel changes. There seemed to be no shift in the style of play even with a new cast of characters who had different skill sets than the last group and who were still working on understanding Gotham’s system. With 2 out of 3 midfielders being new to the team, Gotham’s typical playing-out-of-the-back style was ultimately unproductive—the team was huffing and puffing but in the end wasn’t connecting like it used to. Gotham generated a total of 2.8 xG during this stretch and only had one big chance and one goal total to show for it. Five more years of Amorós using the same system without adjusting for circumstances felt imminent and daunting. 

Then, Gotham came back from international break with a bang, winning 3-1 at home against North Carolina Courage. This week the team defeated Angel City FC 4-0 on the road; Esther bagged her second consecutive brace, Lilly Reale forced an own goal, and Midge Purce and Geyse combined for Geyse’s first NWSL goal. From scoring 1 goal in the 3 matches to scoring 7 in the next 2, Gotham’s game has suddenly changed—Juan Carlos Amorós recognized the need to adapt and successfully implemented it in two straight games. Here are the changes we saw in Gotham’s game and how they played out in this 4-0 victory against Angel City.

Gotham scores more goals

For most of the 2024 season, we didn’t score many goals.

Gotham ran its 2024 season like a business—the plan was to score early on and then spend the majority of the match suffocating their opponent’s attack. It’s understandable why Juan Carlos Amorós took this approach. Gotham had an immensely packed schedule that season and around one-third of its squad was regularly called up for international duty, so load management needed to be a top priority and Gotham had the personnel and chemistry to pull this approach off. After a few early draws, Gotham started scoring 2 goals by its 9th match of the season, but the general philosophy remained the same.

Part of the shift towards scoring more goals happened at the end of the 2024 season, following Gotham’s 13-0 victory over semi-professional Jamaican side Frazsier’s Whip in the CONCACAF W Champions Cup.

It took Gotham 9 matches to score more than once in 2024, and they didn’t score more than twice in a game until week 23. This season appears to be different—Gotham seems to be ditching the very disciplined and lower energy schedule management play style that defined their 2024 season in favor of play that is more free and exciting to watch, and with that comes the freedom to score more goals.

Gotham plays more direct

It’s not just that Gotham is scoring more goals—there’s also a huge difference in the way Gotham is scoring. Even in the two highest-scoring games of the 2024 season (5-1 vs. Bay and 4-1 vs. Utah), 1 goal was a penalty, 1 goal came off a corner, 3 goals came from winning the ball high up the pitch and then making horizontal passes, 2 goals came from short passes that started off in Gotham’s attacking half, 1 goal came off a rebound, and only 1 goal came from a long pass across the length of the field. 

Gotham has typically generated attacks by very carefully playing out of the back, with controlled horizontal movements of the ball that slowly worked up the field. Gotham famously led the league in touches in both the attacking third of the pitch and the attacking penalty box—the team pressed high up the pitch and maintained possession of the ball for relatively long periods of time in attacking areas. Gotham’s goals this week were the complete opposite—of the style of attack, goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger said, “every time when they tried to counter on us we’d punish them and I think that was the key point most of the time.” Let’s take a look at these goals.

Goal 1: 18’ Esther (Portilho assist)

In the 18th minute of the match, Jéssica Silva sent a ball across to Gabi Portilho, who in turn shuffled it to Esther, who had a great turn before cutting the ball across with her right foot and putting in a shot with her left foot. It was a brilliant finish from Esther, but the real story of the goal lies in the buildup. 

Taryn Torres picked up a loose ball in the midfield after Sarah Schupansky was mowed down by an Angel City defender (the referee chose to play the advantage instead of stopping play) and she had the vision to send a beautiful ball into space to Silva on the right wing. A defensive midfielder sending a through ball directly to a winger is not something we’ve seen a lot of from Gotham so far, but this kind of direct play put Gotham up 1-0 on the road.

Goal 2: 67’ Own goal (Reale assist)

This goal was yet another example of very quick and direct vertical play that we haven’t seen a lot of from Gotham under Juan Carlos Amorós. Jenna Nighswonger, Amorós’ typical starting left back in his stint at Gotham so far, was no stranger to contributing to the attack, so left back Lilly Reale’s goal contribution is not novel in that sense. However, Nighswonger usually carried the ball down the wing and sent horizontal crosses into the penalty box from high up the pitch, consistent with Gotham’s possession-based horizontal buildup play. 

Here, Lilly Reale sends the ball pretty much directly forward. Obviously, her ball took a deflection from a defender, but if it hadn’t there’s a pretty good chance it would’ve landed at the feet of Esther who had split Angel City’s center backs and would’ve had a clear look on goal. Although this goal didn’t play out exactly as it was drawn up, a goal is a goal and it wouldn’t have happened without Reale’s vertical vision.

Goal 3: 75’ Esther (Schupansky assist)

Okay, so this goal wasn’t really about direct play. But take this moment to appreciate the fact that Gotham has a seemingly supernatural being in Esther González on our team, and that we scored on our only corner of the night.

Also, shoutout to Sarah Schupansky for bagging her first professional assist—we can only assume it will be the first of many!

Goal 4: 85’ Geyse (Purce assist) 

Here, Taryn Torres starts off the play by recognizing that Midge had space on the right side of the pitch and sending a long ball forward. Midge then drove the ball through ACFC defender Savy King and pulled the ball back to deliver an absolute dime of an assist to Geyse, her first since the 2023 championship. Geyse converted the chance into her first Gotham goal, sending it across the goal off the volley. She celebrated with a backflip, capping off this super fun, quick, and direct buildup with a super fun celebration. 

Bonus: 15’ Chance that didn’t turn into a goal

Gotham was so close to opening the scoring three minutes before they actually did when Sarah Schupansky and Jéssica Silva connected on a long ball across half the length of the field. Silva’s attempt on goal was ultimately saved, but Schupansky’s vision to make this pass is both reflective of this change in play style and a good indicator of a newly strong offense.

Gotham finishes their chances

Gotham’s 2024 season was plagued by a persistent finishing problem. The club finished the year as the only top 4 team that had more xG than actual goals scored, was 11th in the league for PSxG per shot on target, and was 12th in the league for xG per shot on target. Gotham was 5th in the league on total shots, so they were creating chances, but ultimately weren’t producing much quality out of them.

This match, Gotham scored 4 goals off of 1.4 xG. The team attempted 12 shots, 4 of which were on target, and 3 of which turned into goals. In 2024, Gotham scored an average of 0.28 goals per shot on target, and in this match that number was a cool 0.75 (if we don’t include the own goal). 

Of the game, Berger noted, “I think we created some good chances and when we created the chances we were quite ruthless and I think that’s nice to see now.” The Bats put on an extremely clinical performance in LA and if this pattern continues, we are in for a very fun season.

Unsung hero: the defense

While the focus of this piece has been offense, we would be remiss not to mention the role defense played in this victory—the team didn’t allow a single shot on target throughout the match. A strong defense has always been a hallmark of Juan Carlos Amorós-led Gotham side, and the team really embodied that in this game. “Everyone understands how important it is to defend together as a team,” Amorós’ noted. “And I think today the team did give a masterclass of that.” 

On the defensive end, we’d like to give special shoutouts to Nealy Martin, for playing completely out of position at right back and absolutely nailing it, and to Emily Sonnett for holding it down as the heart of our defense and for this move in particular.

Looking ahead to the next game

This was match 1 in Gotham’s week from hell this season, where the Bats play three games in one week to make up for missing a game week due to the CONCACAF Champions’ Cup playoffs later this spring. Gotham’s next match is against the Portland Thorns tomorrow night (4/22) at 10:30 PM ET.

If Gotham can keep up the stellar defense they’ve shown all season and the prolific offense we’ve seen these past two matches, they are set up to be pretty solid against Portland this week. The main thing to prioritize for the team is load management during this busy week. We should expect some rotation in this match, and hopefully the team’s new philosophy will continue to shine through. 

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.