Gotham rides series of magic moments to win NWSL championship

SAN JOSE, Calif -- The week leading into Saturday's NWSL Championship was dominated by distress over the future of Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman, and the league's inability to retain its biggest star due to the limitations of the salary cap.

But as the final minutes ticked away at PayPal Park on Saturday, Gotham FC midfielder Rose Lavelle was the star of the moment, the player who found that "magic," as head coach Juan Carlos Amoros called it the day prior, for a 1-0 victory over Washington.

Brilliance in those moments that matter carried Gotham through another unlikely playoff run to its second championship in three seasons.

Lavelle's trademark left foot curled a shot into the net in the 80th minute in one of the rare moments of transition in a match that was mostly a midfield stalemate. Gotham's victory completed a storybook playoff run and left the steady, consistent Spirit stuck as runners-up for the second straight year.

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Gotham's championship triumph is the epitome of knockout soccer and the right timing to survive and advance. Gotham did exactly that throughout these playoffs, scraping by at times to defeat the record-setting Kansas City Current in the final seconds of extra time before knocking off the defending champions Orlando Pride in stoppage time on their only shot on goal in that semifinal.

On Saturday, a series of unfortunate events upended the Spirit and benefitted Gotham. Moments before Lavelle's goal, Spirit midfielder Hal Hershfelt went down with an injury and Washington played several minutes down a player as Hershfelt received treatment on the sideline. She eventually hobbled back onto the field to bring the Spirit back to 11 players as head coach Adrian Gonzalez prepared a substitute, but the match went on, and Gotham fullback Bruninha broke through down the left side and delivered a cutback cross to Lavelle 18 yards out in the central area that Hershfelt had otherwise commanded throughout the match.

Hershfelt and Croix Bethune patrolled the midfield for Washington, but Lavelle, Jaedyn Shaw, and Jaelin Howell canceled out the Spirit's attempt to control the central areas. Gotham was neither flashy nor spectacular, but they were once again successful. It wasn't luck, and in truth it wasn't really magic -- not in the Hocus Pocus kind of intangible way.

The "underdog" label for this Gotham team was always superficial. This is a team that won the Concacaf title earlier this year, a team that pushed toward the top of the league a year ago, a team filled with stars, from Lavelle to Shaw and Esther González.

But it is also a team that has wildly underperformed throughout the year, which is why it had to take the hard road to this title.

Gotham's success is also ironic: A team that Amoros built to be interchangeable and fluid was dragged through the playoffs largely by its stars.

Shaw registered a goal and an assist in the quarterfinal win over the top-seeded Current, followed by the game-winner in the semifinal over the 2024 champion Orlando Pride. On Saturday, it was Lavelle's left foot that made the difference.

Gotham, with two championships in three years and a Concacaf crown, has mastered the art of knockout soccer.

And that is the beauty of the NWSL and the playoff system, the unpredictable "superpower" the commissioner Jessica Berman and executives rave about. Nobody could be fooled into thinking that Gotham was the best team over the course of the NWSL season. Kansas City set records for points and wins while clinching the Shield by a commanding 21 points.

But Gotham earned its trophy by beating that Kansas City team, followed by last year's champions.

The NWSL's biggest story was and still is Rodman and her future. Rodman, however, was mostly a non-factor for the 30-plus minutes that she played off the bench on Saturday due to the limitations of the MCL sprain that she sustained last month. For the second straight year, the USWNT star played through pain on the losing end in an NWSL Championship loss.

After the match, she sat on the bench briefly before slowly walking across the field to embrace her boyfriend, tennis star Ben Shelton. Whether that was Rodman's last walk across an NWSL stadium for the foreseeable future is unknown.

Saturday, however, was about a Gotham team that kept finding a way to win throughout November, even when it was outplayed. This is the sweet uncertainty of sports, and especially the NWSL, at its finest.

Sports -- and championships -- are about moments. They are moments of brilliance for one team and poor fortune for another. Gotham bided its time through the "high highs and low lows," as Lavelle described it on Friday.

A day later, one moment of brilliance from Lavelle delivered the ultimate high.