Week 8 recap: Okay, this isn't fun anymore

Gotham lost 1-0 on the road to Racing Louisville on Friday, with the lone goal of the match coming from an absolute rocket from 10 yards outside the box by defensive midfielder Taylor Flint. This result marked Gotham’s third loss of the season, now sitting in 7th place in NWSL standings with 3 wins, 3 draws, and 3 losses in 2025.

This game was another tough watch from the Bats—let’s get into it.

Lineups and substitutions

We didn’t intend for this to become a regular segment on this newsletter but we cannot talk about this game without talking about the huge effect that the personnel had on the outcome of this match. Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós spoke on this a bit, noting that, “when you prepare the game plan, [injuries] obviously have an influence because you already need to think ahead of those subs.”

Availability-wise, this game was not too different from last week’s match against the Chicago Stars, with the only changes being Jess Carter being healthy enough to play for a half and Midge Purce being healthy enough to start. Gabi Portilho remained out, however. With the injury-induced turnover that Gotham saw on the front line earlier in the season, Portilho was a consistent piece on the wing, starting every single game where Gotham scored goals and contributing to 3 of them. Her absence has certainly been felt in the past two matches where Gotham has scored none at all.

Last week, Gotham dealt with minutes restrictions by starting a couple of people out of position, and then making substitutions that allowed players to return to their natural position later in the match. This week, Juan Carlos Amorós took a different approach, starting the best 11 available players in each position. The intention here was that Gotham would score early with this more ideal lineup, and then be able to close up shop later on in the game as they made the subs necessary to adhere to minutes restrictions. However, Gotham did not score early, and the subs still needed to be made. 

Gotham’s first subs of the match came in the 46th minute, with Sarah Schupansky and Jess Carter making way for Ella Stevens and Mandy Freeman. The latter is explainable by minutes restrictions, as both Jess Carter and Mandy Freeman are coming back from injury and still working their way up to a full 90. This was a substitution where the team had its hands tied, but it was still not ideal, as Freeman is not as experienced at the center back position as Jess Carter is.

Amorós noted that the Stevens for Schupansky sub was one of two tactical subs he was allowed to make this match. This change moved Esther to the attacking midfielder position and had Stevens fill in as striker. Esther has been much more effective for Gotham as striker than as attacking midfielder, but clearly Amorós was upset enough with what he was seeing with Schupansky to consider this change a positive one. 

The next substitution was in the 61st minute, after Gotham was already down 1-0, and this is where we started to see the effects of Gotham’s game not going to plan. Midge Purce, surely hitting her minutes limit for the match, stepped out for Mak Whitham, who took her place out wide. Mak Whitham is 14 years old and in her first year in the league, and had never played more than 10 minutes before this match, so putting her on with 30 minutes to go was certainly less than ideal for the Bats. Schupansky being taken out earlier and Sofia Cook seemingly not being ready to step in yet meant that Esther had to keep playing at the 10, which meant Stevens had to keep playing in the 9, which meant that an attacking winger had to sub in. Gotham choosing to put Whitham on indicates a lack of trust in Khyah Harper. Sure, you could argue that the club only has her signed for a year and would probably want to prioritize the development of Whitham, who is signed through 2028. However, this was not really a player development moment—the game was still very much open with 30 minutes to go. There wasn’t a ton of choice here for Gotham, but we would point to this substitution as the moment that the team threw in the towel. 

Gotham’s final subs came 7 minutes later, with Sofia Cook and Taryn Torres coming in for Geyse and Nealy Martin. The former was yet another result of minutes restrictions, with Geyse still working her way up to a full 90, and the latter was Gotham’s second of two tactical subs made on the night. Cook’s substitution allowed Esther to move back to the striker position and Stevens to move back out wide, and the attack momentum was pretty much all with Gotham from here.

Amorós’ explanation of the Torres substitution was that, “with Taryn what we were looking for was to try to have a little bit more penetration on the ball.” Perhaps he felt that he didn’t have the quality (or ideal match-up) on the field to build up attack through possession and liked his chances better with a more direct play approach. As we know now, that resulted in nothing, but it was a valiant effort on the part of Juan Carlos Amorós to try a new play style when the old one wasn’t working. 

We all know that Gotham has been plagued by injuries this season, but they’ve also been plagued by a lack of trust in their bench. We haven’t seen a ton from players like Khyah Harper, Emerson Elgin, and Stelle Nyamekye (they haven’t gotten many game minutes and we don’t see what happens in practice) so we can’t speak to whether this lack of trust is warranted. We can, however, recognize a failure on Gotham’s part to create a roster that includes a bench that they can trust to contribute meaningfully to the team’s performance, or honestly even just not mess up the game plan. It was also announced yesterday that Gotham will be playing in the 2025/26 edition of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup, which is great news for the team, but terrible news for load management later this season. Until management either finds trust in these players or signs other players that they have more belief in, there will be a harsh upper limit on what this club can achieve, and we saw that on full display this match. 

When speaking about the substitutions and juggling multiple players on minutes restrictions, Amorós claimed that, “for me it’s always about protecting the players, making sure that they are good for the long run.” However, the team cannot protect its players in this way until it starts to make more use of its bench.

Gotham FC, control freak

Gotham FC, or at least the Gotham FC of the past year and a half, is a bit of a control freak. When things go well for the team (which they often do) it’s because they are able to control the game enough to have it play out the way they want to. Gotham likes to aggressively press forward, score an early goal or two (the most important thing is Gotham scores first) and then completely suffocate the opposing attack until the final whistle is blown. Since the start of the 2024 season, Gotham has won 18, drew 5, and lost 0 games when scoring first, so this plan has been extremely successful.

However, Gotham does NOT like it when they are scored on first. In that same time period, when they conceded first they won 0, drew 2, and lost 7 games (and 3 of those losses have come in this season so far). The club often falls apart when things don’t go according to plan, and we did in fact see that this match (although to their credit, this was also influenced by a tricky injury situation).  

Here are some things that prevented Gotham from controlling the tempo of this match:

1. Louisville pressed aggressively

2. Louisville constantly won back the ball in the midfield 

3. Louisville was incredibly defensively structured

Louisville’s press

Racing Louisville gave Gotham a taste of their own medicine by playing in an aggressive high press this match. The Bats were suddenly caught on the back foot and looked all out of sorts offensively and defensively—being pressed so aggressively by the opponent makes it hard to think, and that was very evident in this match. Gotham struggling against high-pressing teams opens up the opportunity for any opponent to exploit this weakness, especially while our midfield still does not have the chemistry to hold onto the ball and progress it forward.

Louisville consistently succeeded in winning the ball high up the pitch through their press, and a perfect example of this came in the buildup to their goal.

Here, we see a Louisville player pressing Lilly Reale from one direction, forcing her into a pass in the other direction that goes directly to another Louisville player. That interception leads to a series of events that ultimately results in the lone goal of the match.

And speaking of this play, Taylor Flint finds herself in so much room to receive the ball and prepare for a shot. Sure, this was difficult to predict, but come on, Gotham could’ve managed this situation a little better. 

Louisville winning balls

Gotham was dispossessed 19 times compared to Louisville’s 6 this match. They also recovered 34 loose balls compared to Louisville’s 44. Louisville had more miscontrols this game—19 to Gotham’s 18—but the difference maker for them was being able to win and recover balls and more importantly, hold onto them.

Let’s take a look at what the teams did differently when giving up and winning the ball in the midfield.

When Louisville wins the ball here, they are able to turn and throw numbers forward to create a meaningful attacking chance. To Gotham’s credit, we see them quickly recover defensively to prevent this chance from turning into a goal.

Conversely, when Gotham wins the ball back, the only option they see is to pass backwards, and this ends up with Gotham almost succumbing to Louisville’s high press (note that what Kayla Fischer does here to AKB is very illegal, but Gotham was still at risk of losing the ball in a dangerous spot in a more legitimate way). Louisville loses the ball here, but they are so effective at cutting off Gotham’s passing options that they still win the play. 

Gotham was just outplayed in the midfield, and this was a match where they really felt the absence of Delanie Sheehan. Sheehan was excellent at winning balls, holding onto balls, and progressing the ball forward, all things that the Bats struggled with in the midfield this match. Gotham’s solution at the central midfield position this season, Jaelin Howell, has been a great player, but she hasn’t been a 1-for-1 replacement in a system that sometimes feels like it needs a 1-for-1 replacement for Sheehan.

Louisville’s defensive structure

On the rare occasion that Gotham managed to get into the attacking third, Racing Louisville was able to clog the midfield enough to throw numbers back in time and remain defensively structured enough to prevent Gotham from getting anywhere close to scoring a goal. Let’s take a look at what Gotham has done with some of these possessions in the attacking third.

In this clip, we see Gotham finally able to move into the attacking third. From there, they pass the ball around awkwardly, often switching the point of attack horizontally because there doesn’t seem to be an option forward. The possession ends when Lilly Reale is unable to beat her defender on the left side and the ball ultimately goes out of bounds for a goal kick.

In this clip, Gotham gets a little bit closer, even making it into the penalty box. However, Louisville’s defense forces Gotham to play backwards, moving through the center backs to eventually switch over to the left side, where Geyse is ultimately dispossessed at the edge of the penalty area, opposite to where we initially started. The box is lava. 

Finally, this clip is less of what Louisville did right and more of what Gotham did wrong. We see two moments of bad chemistry on the forward line within a minute of each other. In the first, Sarah Schupansky is not where she should be to receive Geyse’s ball across, and Louisville ends up with the ball. They end up sending that ball out of play for a Gotham throw in and Gotham gets another chance at goal. This time, Midge Purce does an excellent job of getting closer to goal but she takes a shaky shot herself instead of passing back to Schupansky who is wide open. Both of these instances (but especially the second) could have turned into early goals for Gotham that allowed them to control the tempo of the rest of the game, but poor forward chemistry is holding the team back in the final third, particularly as injuries continue to change the lineup.

Racing Louisville was in the driver’s seat this match, executing their own game plan (remain structured defensively, hope for a moment of luck, and close up shop) to perfection. 

Defensive midfielder Nealy Martin spoke on the result, saying that, “any given week, any team can win a game in this league—and that's what makes this league great. Every team is going to drop points they probably don't think they should have. We need to capitalize when we can and continue to learn. We still have a long season ahead of us and a lot of games to be played. We can't dwell on this for too long. We can't dwell on what should have been or what we think could have been. We have to take it on the chin and keep moving.”

The positives

While this match didn’t end in a result for Gotham, there were still some good moments that we can look back on as signs of hope for the future. 

Moments of team chemistry

First, our best chance of the match (0.34 xG) and a rare example of forward chemistry. Lilly Reale delivers a free kick that is cleared by a Louisville player. She then recycles the ball and passes it forward to Sonnett who gets it right at the feet of Esther, who sends a cross right to the head of Geyse. Geyse is not able to get a shot on target here, but we got to see good team chemistry at play. 

We also see great chemistry on the forward line here. Mak Whitham draws defenders to herself and drives the ball through them in the midfield. She then passes into the space she created for Ella Stevens on the left, who is able to deliver a perfectly-weighted cross over to Esther, also in some space. Again, the header is off-target, but Gotham was able to create something and momentarily break down this structured defense.

Moments of individual brilliance

Lilly Reale has the confidence, presence of mind, and accuracy to take an absolute screamer of a shot that misses the goal by 🤏 this much.

Also a Lilly Reale moment, she comes up big for the team with a headed goal line clearance, keeping Gotham in the game just before the half.

Finally, Sofia Cook has a great moment at the death. She manages to hold onto the ball through multiple defenders and creates space for herself to take a shot just outside the box. The shot itself was kind of shaky, but we are very excited to see more from her in the future. Juan Carlos Amorós agrees, saying that, “the more time we play together, the more we get to know each other on the pitch and compete. Having Sofia Cook back in, I think everyone started to see what she can bring. It is who we are going to be, and I think the longer the season goes on, the better we're going to be.”

Looking ahead to next match

Gotham’s next match is against San Diego Wave this Friday at home. The Wave currently sit at 4th in league standings with 4 wins, 2 draws, and 2 losses after dropping points at home when the Portland Thorns were awarded a last minute penalty this weekend. 

The Wave have been an unexpectedly dangerous team this year after a lackluster 2024 season and the notable offseason departures of USWNT stars Naomi Girma and Jaedyn Shaw. This team has filled in the pieces well and has developed a lot of chemistry over the course of this season. The players to look out for the most are attackers Delphine Cascarino and Gia Corley, but honestly they have all been playing excellently as a team this season—they almost managed to secure all 3 points against the Thorns despite going a player down in the 41st minute! 

This match will definitely be a challenge for the Bats, who have struggled to create chemistry in a constantly rotating lineup. There will be a fireworks show at Sports Illustrated Stadium following the match—hopefully we will have something to celebrate.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.