Week 6 recap: It's a real rivalry now

The players of Gotham FC are hopefully currently getting the repose of their life after finishing out the road trip from hell with a convincing 3-0 win over the Washington Spirit. The Bats struck early, with rookies Lilly Reale and Sarah Schupansky combining in the 3rd minute to open up the scoring (all while the crowd at Audi Field was singing happy birthday to Makenna Morris, but more on that in a bit!). Then, Esther scored her 6th NWSL brace, her 5th NWSL brace within 10 minutes, her 3rd brace this season, and her 2nd brace against the Washington Spirit with a penalty in the 32nd minute and a header off a Schupansky corner in the 39th. Gotham was able to maintain a clean sheet and finish the game with a 3-0 scoreline.

The league marketed this game as a rivalry, and as a result we could not avoid clips of that god awful penalty shootout all week. Fans and members of the media alike pushed back against this declaration, arguing that a rivalry had to build organically and could not be imposed, which is true. 

Here’s our dirty secret: we’ve felt this was a rivalry all along. The Spirit were the only team that beat Gotham twice in the regular season last year, and then they came from behind in the semi-finals to ultimately beat us in a penalty shootout. Even Esther mentioned in a post-game sideline interview that the players were shown a lot of film from the semi-final game and that served as a huge motivator for the team going into this match. On a personal level, we hate to see the Spirit win, but the truth is they had no reason to feel any kind of way about Gotham—we were just one of many teams that they had beat—until now.

Saturday’s game took place on Spirit forward Makenna Morris’ birthday, and she joined Nealy Martin in the “losing-on-your-birthday” club in very unfortunate fashion. Spirit fans at the always remarkably packed Audi Field started singing “Happy Birthday” to her in the 3rd minute of the game, and right as they hit that final “to you,” Schupansky sent the ball into the back of the net.

THIS is what makes a rivalry! The last 15 or so minutes of the game felt like constant booing from the stands—Gotham was getting under their skin! Not even Spirit head coach Jonatan Giráldez was exempt from the feeling, earning himself a red card at the death for “entering the opposite technical area in a confrontational manner.” After torturing Gotham relentlessly last season, the Spirit finally have something to be mad at us about. We’re not saying that it has suddenly become a full-fledged rivalry overnight, but there is definitely something brewing now, and we are excited to no longer be the only ones at the party.

Thanks for coming to our TED talk. Now here’s the match analysis you were promised.

Gotham fixed its lineup woes

We talked last week about how Gotham’s injuries forced them to play one of the worst lineups we’ve seen from this team, with defensive midfielder Nealy Martin at right back and right back Bruninha as an attacking winger. This went catastrophically against the Portland Thorns last Tuesday where Gotham lost 4-1. It was clear that the team needed to make a change, but it was less clear whether they had the personnel to make the change.

This week, we saw Bruninha return to right back and Martin to her natural defensive midfielder position, and as we now know, it made a world of a difference. Geyse and Ella Stevens being fit to play for 45 minutes each allowed the team to start the former and sub in the latter at the half, so Gotham had a natural attacker on each wing for the entire duration of the match. Juan Carlos Amorós’ Gotham side uses a complicated system in its high press, and players learn their role in that system in their primary positions. So, having a full XI of players in natural positions enabled the team to excel on the pitch. 

But other than that, Amorós doesn’t really feel the team made a lot of changes, at least tactically. In the post-game press conference, he mentioned that the team focuses on processes more than results and does not want to change absolutely everything based on a good or bad game. He noted that he believed this continuity also gave players confidence and a better understanding of their role in the team.

Gotham worked as a unit

The midweek game against the Thorns saw Gotham looking all out of sorts both in and out of possession, particularly after Portland had gone up. The team fell apart defensively, and on an Amorós-led Gotham side, defending is a team effort. As Sarah Schupansky noted, “As a whole team, all 11 of us out there needed to be better defensively, staying more compact in our press, knowing when we're in our press and when we're kind of in our block.”

So what changed this match? According to Lilly Reale, it’s that the team “implemented ways that we could be a little bit more aggressive and try and put ourselves in the more dominant position.” And Schupansky said, “a lot more communication was done today… we were a lot more on the same page compared to Tuesday, which helped a ton.” We can see that team effort and communication in each of the three goals Gotham scored in this match—let’s take a look.

Goal 1: 3’ Schupansky (Reale assist)

A few weeks ago, we talked about how Gotham adjusted from its typical possession-based build-up to a more direct style of play as a result of team chemistry taking a while to develop. We don’t want to jinx anything (or get too ahead of ourselves), but the team chemistry feels pretty developed here. 

Before this clip starts, Jess Carter sends the ball forward to Gabi Portilho. Then, Portilho creates space for Reale out wide by drawing two defenders to herself. Reale receives the ball in a ton of space and sends in a low cross to Schupansky, who is able to run into the space created by Esther drawing in defenders up top and Portilho drawing in defenders further back in the box. Both Lilly Reale (in the post-game press conference) and Ryan Campbell (on Kelley O’Hara’s “Sports Are Fun!” podcast) mentioned that players are told to miss the first attacker when they are looking to cross the ball; here, Esther and Portilho’s movement allows Reale to do exactly that and send the ball to Schupansky, who as the last attacker knows that she will be the target. 

On the goal, Schupansky noted, “it was not too tough to score because Lilly [Reale] played such a great ball across and it was a great team buildup and I know the coaches are really proud of that just because it's something we've been working on and something we wanted to implement today.” This was a goal built from team chemistry and great execution of the game plan.

Goal 2: 32’ Esther

Gotham’s second goal came from a penalty earned and scored by Esther. Esther earned the penalty after she was fouled in the box, but how did she get there?

Here, we see a different aspect of Gotham’s game plan at work—the high press. Geyse’s relentless pressure allows her to intercept a build-out pass inside the box and land the ball at the feet of Esther. From there, Esther’s clear look on goal is interrupted by Spirit defender Rebeca Bernal, from whom she draws a foul to earn herself the opportunity to score a penalty.

Which she converts, helping heal fans’ collective trauma from the penalty shootout in the semi-finals last year.

Goal 3: 39’ Esther (Schupansky assist)

Gotham’s final goal of the game came from a classic Esther header off of a corner. Esther is initially unmarked, and as she gets on defenders’ radar, Sonnett uses her body to keep a couple of them from interrupting Esther in time. Esther reads the trajectory of the ball brilliantly, and creates the space for herself to redirect it into the far post before Aubrey Kingsbury even knew what hit her. Suddenly Gotham are up 3-0 against the 3rd-best team in the league.

There were multiple players involved in the build-up to each of the goals in this match. Gotham seemed to be playing with a renewed chemistry, particularly in comparison to the Portland game. Reale commented that “it makes it easy to gain that on-field chemistry when you’re just having a lot of fun off the field.” 

Gotham manufactured some good luck

Gotham scoring three goals early on and then having the privilege to spend the rest of their time game-managing resulted in the Spirit having a higher xG value (and a much higher non-penalty xG value) this game. In fact, Gotham didn’t take a single shot after the 60th minute of the match.

The xG differential in this match reflects that Spirit actually did create a lot of good chances this game and missed every one of them. On paper, the Spirit undeniably produced more than Gotham did, but in the end didn’t have anything to show for it.

So how did Gotham come away from this match with such a resounding win? Part of it was luck, but luck does not exist in a vacuum. Let’s take a look at what Gotham did well to “manufacture” this good luck and maintain a clean sheet.

Missed chance 1: 34’ by Gift Monday

Luck manufactured by: Ann-Katrin Berger.

Okay, so this one was less so a missed chance and more so one of many incredible saves made by AKB this match. Gift Monday generated 0.73 post-shot xG on this chance that was originally 0.19 xG. What this means is that 19 times out of 100, her shot (taking into account shot, defender, and goalkeeper locations) makes it into the back of the net, and the quality of her header alone bumped that number to 73 times out of 100. AKB was expecting a shot that had a 19% chance of making it in, received a shot that had a 73% chance of making it in, and still kept it out of the net—huge props to her.

Missed chance 2: 45’ by Esme Morgan

Luck manufactured by: Ann-Katrin Berger.

A set piece opportunity sees Tara McKeown alone with the ball. AKB comes forward and tightens the shooting angle, preventing McKeown from making a shot herself and instead forcing her to pass to Esme Morgan. Morgan has a clear look on goal but is off-balance and ultimately sends the ball high.

Missed chance 3: 54’ by Rosemonde Kouassi

Luck manufactured by: Jess Carter.

Gotham’s last two results leading up to this match were dominated by transition. Last weekend, Gotham intentionally lured Angel City forward to then exploit their weaknesses in transition on the counterattack, and last Tuesday Gotham got beat hard by the Thorns in transition. This chance was an opportunity for the Spirit to beat Gotham in transition, and it looked like they almost pulled it off. Jess Carter gets played by Rosemond Kouassi a bit here but ultimately is able to close off her shooting angle and force her into a shot that is not on frame.

Missed chance 4: 74’ by Ashley Hatch

Luck manufactured by: Ann-Katrin Berger.

Like the first, this is less of a missed chance and more of a great save. However, worth noting that Hatch’s header had a higher xG (0.45) than post-shot xG (0.24), meaning her shot slightly decreased the chance of this becoming a goal. This didn’t seem to be a result of anything Gotham did—her being unmarked was a rare moment of defensive weakness for the Bats this match—but Ann-Katrin Berger still deserves her flowers for this save.

Missed chance 5: 76’ by Gift Monday

Luck manufactured by: Emily Sonnett.

Monday is able to beat Bruninha to give herself the space to send a low cross across the box. Sonnett keeps track of the target, Ashley Hatch, and does enough to keep her from getting any the ball. The ball continues a slow roll across the field instead of ending up in the back of the net. Great job by Sonnett.

Missed chance 6: 83’ by Leicy Santos

Luck manufactured by: Jess Carter, Taryn Torres, Emily Sonnett, Jaelin Howell.

This was yet another chance that came off of Kouassi absolutely destroying Gotham’s left side. Kouassi created room for herself to drive further towards goal, and while she did so, Jess Carter and Emily Sonnett did well to cut off her first potential target (Ashley Hatch). Then, Taryn Torres and Jaelin Howell did a good job of keeping track of her other possible target, the runner in the box (Leicy Santos), and cut off service enough to leave Santos with very little space to put a shot off. Ultimately, her attempt went way over the bar.

Missed chance 7: 89’ by Rebeca Bernal

Luck manufactured by: Ann-Katrin Berger.

Leicy Santos makes a really clever pass to Rebeca Bernal here, and Bernal, suddenly in space, is able to turn 0.15 xG into 0.55 PSxG. The real hero here is AKB, who comes up with Gotham’s 1000th save in club history in spectacular fashion.

Missed chance 8: 90+1’ by Gabby Carle

Luck manufactured by: Ann-Katrin Berger.

The Spirit have a set piece opportunity from what seems to be the halfway line, and the ball miraculously lands at the feet of Gabby Carle at the far post who has no defenders between herself and the goal. AKB makes herself big and Carle’s 0.42 xG chance is ultimately wide of the goal.

Even when Gotham struggled enough defensively to give the Spirit a real chance, they were able to recover and not allow the Spirit a good look on goal. On the rare occasion that they did, AKB managed to keep Gotham in the game.

The Bats came into this game with a lot to prove, and disciplined offensive and defensive execution (and yeah, a little bit of luck) saw them earning their first NWSL win over the Spirit since September of 2023.

Looking ahead to next match

Gotham next plays the newly rebranded Chicago Stars at home on Sunday, May 4th at 1 PM ET. Chicago currently sits at 14th in the league, with one win and five losses, and has a goal differential of -11. As with any team in the league, there are still some players to look out for. In particular, forwards Jameese Joseph and Ludmila have been terrorizing defenders across the league, with Joseph scoring 1 of the team’s 3 goals so far this season and Ludmila scoring the other 2 (both of which were assisted by Joseph). Joseph and Ludmila are currently 17th and 26th in the league, respectively, for xG+xA per 90.

The Stars have had a rough start to their season, but are certain to be hungry for their second win, so Gotham needs to keep up this compact offensive and defensive performance in order to ensure they come away from the match with 3 points. It seems like Gotham is already planning on it, as Lilly Reale said, “we treat every game with the same mindset that we're going to go out there and show who we are as a team.”

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.