Week 6 recap: Scoring again

In perhaps the most odds-defying result in recent history, Gotham FC took down Bay FC 3-0 on a cold and rainy afternoon at Sports Illustrated Stadium. The Bats’ streak of starting out the season 2-2-2 is now three years strong, with an own goal, a collaboration between Jordynn Dudley and Rose Lavelle, and a successful penalty kick from Esther González earning them their second win of the season. 

In just one game, Gotham scored more goals than they had in the previous 5 games combined. What made this possible?

First, what made it seem impossible

The Bats had quite the predicament coming into this match. The team was already dealing with three injuries at right back when this week’s availability report revealed that a center back (Emily Sonnett) and a left back (Lilly Reale) were also not healthy enough to play this game. This left the Bats with one (1) fully healthy defender, as well as Tierna Davidson who is still working her way up to full match fitness.

How did Gotham deal with this? Jess Carter and Tierna Davidson started the game at center back, Midge Purce put in yet another shift at right back, and debutant Guro Reiten got quite the welcome to Gotham FC as she was asked to fill in at left back in her very first game for the club. At the half, rookie Andrea Kitahata came on for Reiten at left back. Then, around 60 minutes in, Davidson left the game and defensive midfielder Jaelin Howell shifted back and played as center back for the rest of the game. Finally, in the 85th minute, rookie Talia Sommer took over for Purce at right back. 

The rest of the lineup was thankfully pretty standard. The Bats started with what seems like their new preferred midfield of Jaelin Howell, Savannah McCaskill, and Rose Lavelle. Esther started as striker, with Jaedyn Shaw and Jordynn Dudley playing as the wingers. Neither are natural wingers, but their tendency to drift central was balanced out by both fullbacks’ history as wide attacking players. 

Gotham played this game with a defense that on paper was held together by duct tape and rubber bands, and yet managed a clean sheet. What did they do to pull off this result?

Possession

The Bats were at a defensive disadvantage in this game, so they knew their approach had to account for that. Their strategy, according to acting left back Guro Reiten? “If you keep the ball, that’s the best defense you can have.” And it worked—for the first time in club history, Bay FC was held to zero shots in the first half of the game. Besides just generally maintaining possession of the ball (61% in the first half), Gotham did a great job of preventing counter attacks by winning second and third balls and constantly winning back possession.

In this example, Jaedyn Shaw loses the ball, giving Bay FC a counterattack opportunity. Savannah McCaskill stays alert and pounces on their sloppiness, and all of a sudden Gotham has the ball again and is able to reset and start their attack over.

And here, Gotham does not give up on the play. Despite losing the ball multiple times, the Bats are tenacious enough to win it back before Bay has a chance to generate any sort of attack.

This is the perfect example of how focusing on winning second balls boosted Gotham’s attack. The ball is constantly in contention here, but the Bats win it every time and it ends in a shot on target.

And finally, making sure to retain possession of the ball no matter what is what led to Gotham’s first goal of the game.

It’s important to acknowledge the part that Bay FC played here in making it very easy for Gotham to win most of the contested balls by being kind of clumsy and sloppy. But our hope is that this game gave Gotham the confidence to execute this idea, even against more disciplined opposition.

Bonus: Jaelin Howell really taking retaining possession to heart (and also maybe drawing inspiration from the gymnast at halftime?).

A relentless attack

Not only did Gotham emphasize retaining possession of the ball, but they also made sure to do something with that possession. The Bats absolutely pelted Bay goalkeeper Jordan Silkowitz with shots, forcing her into a league record-tying 12 saves in this game. Silkowitz earned player of the match honors on Fotmob despite letting in 3 goals, which says a lot about the quality and relentlessness of the attack that Gotham created in this game. And the 14 shots on target created by the team were the most for the Bats in a single game since Opta started collecting data in 2016.

We mentioned in the last section that retaining possession in the final third is what got Gotham their first goal. Let’s take a look at the rest of the buildup.

Obviously, this was an own goal that was first and foremost the result of some poor communication by Bay FC’s defense. But Gotham had more to do with it than it may seem. 

Two things stand out here. First, at the time of Rose Lavelle’s cut back pass, Gotham has three players in or just outside the 6 yard box (as well as Rose Lavelle on the end line). This leads Bay FC to commit 6 defenders to this zone, which both makes the area right around the goalmouth really crowded and opens up space for Savannah McCaskill to take a shot at the top of the 18.

McCaskill has the space and time to take a great shot that is blocked by a Bay defender in the aforementioned crowded 6 yard box. The attackers close to the goal run in and apply pressure, forcing Bay into a mistake that results in the ball going over the line.

The Bats also found the back of the net by themselves in this game. 

The highlight of this goal was rookie Jordynn Dudley’s silky moves at the edge of the 6 yard box that ended up being the assist to Rose Lavelle’s goal. Lavelle herself said “I just whiffed the ball, so I felt like the build-up to the goal deserved a little better finish on my end.” Dudley’s assist and the moves leading up to it totaled 0.26 g+, compared to the 0.07 g+ that came from the shot itself. Dudley and Lavelle both had great games (0.58 and 1.23 total g+, respectively) and these goal contributions were very deserved. We’re excited to see Dudley continue to grow her confidence in this league.

Gotham benefitted from incompetence on the part of their opponent once again for their third goal of the game. 

The defender here gets none of the ball while bringing Rose Lavelle down and the referee does not hesitate to point to the spot.

Esther delivers Bay goalkeeper Jordan Silkowitz her first ever penalty conceded in NWSL play and brings herself within 2 of Gotham’s club record for NWSL regular season goals.

3 goals is a big feat in itself, but newcomer Guro Reiten thought the team “could have scored a couple more goals maybe.” Let’s take a look at some of the best moments that didn’t turn into a goal.

Reiten herself had a big part to play in this one, delivering an almost perfect ball forward to Esther that could have put the striker in a favorable 1v1 situation with the goalkeeper. 

In fact, Reiten had quite a few moments where it looked like she’d earn herself an assist in this game. Here, she delivers a dime straight to Jaedyn Shaw’s head.

And here she does the same thing with Rose Lavelle. We’re excited to see more of this from Gotham’s newest player, especially when she finally gets to play in her natural position up top.

Dudley also deserved more than just the one assist.

She has a laser of a pass to the feet of Rose Lavelle, who trips up her defender to create a 0.28 xG shot. After it gets saved, Lavelle recycles the play and cuts it across to an open Esther who then skies it. 

Finally, we loved the aggression from Rose Lavelle in this moment to win back possession of the ball and then turn and take advantage of the space she had in front of her to run forward and shoot. Her shot ended up just wide of goal, but it showed great intent from the attacking midfielder.

Looking ahead to next match

The Bats face a quick turnaround this week, as they travel west to face the Chicago Stars on Wednesday, April 29. The match will take place at 8 PM ET and be broadcast nationally on Victory+. The Stars sit in 13th place in league standings, but are just two points below Gotham FC with 2 wins and 4 losses. Their most recent matchup against the Boston Legacy ended in a 2-0 victory for the Stars. Their new starting goalkeeper, Katie Atkinson (née Lund), has averaged 8 saves and 1.71 goals prevented per game in her two starts with the Stars, so she will definitely pose a challenge to the Bats. Hopefully Gotham’s newfound penchant for scoring will persist.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.