Gotham FC even more super for title defense
On the backdrop of the dais set up to welcome the newest members of Gotham FC, there was a single star added to the team’s crest, symbolizing the team’s first National Women’s Soccer League championship in 2023.
The windows of the Rainbow Room offered panoramic views of Midtown Manhattan on a snow-globe Friday morning, and slick video highlight packages played on the screens.
There was every reason to smile.
And still, the S-word was dropped in abundance. Superteam.
That’s what happens when a defending champion signs four marquee free agents in a five-day swoop, as Gotham did this winter in adding Crystal Dunn, Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett and Tierna Davidson, all of them former World Cup winners with Team USA.
“We want this type of attention,” general manager Yael Averbuch West said. “We really want to embody the New Jersey/New York mindset, which is we want to be the best and we want other people chasing us. We want that target on our back, so I think we have been aiming for this. We are very comfortable with it, and we enjoy the pressure.”
Averbuch West said Gotham has focused on developing its “desirability” as a destination, in everything from the team’s playing style under head coach Juan Carlos Amoros to the resources available off the field. The organization conducted an internal survey, asking its players how likely they were to recommend Gotham to their friends and peers in the league. The results gave her confidence when she spoke to free agents.
“I think there’s something really special in the way that they’re pushing the whole entire organization,” Sonnett said.
As in the WNBA, the superteam concept is new to NWSL, which is in just its second offseason with free agency.
But a talking point during Friday’s festivities: This wasn’t a package deal.
For Dunn, a 31-year-old midfielder from Rockville Center, it’s a homecoming, “an exceptional opportunity to have all my worlds come together and to play in front of my family and my friends,” as she said.
The other players said they independently were attracted to Gotham’s renaissance, not long removed from a moribund last-place finish in 2022.
All four players signed three-year contracts, per the team, and the math worked under a salary cap set at a total of $2.75 million for the coming year.
“I think Yael and Juan really sold a great vision of what this club wants to get to, and we all wanted to be a part of it,” Lavelle said. “I think it’s obviously a really strong roster and I think that is going to be exciting playing games with.”
That said, Gotham isn’t beginning the 2024 season from a position of sustained superiority. For the balance of 2023, they performed like a mid-table team, eking into the playoffs on the final day of the regular season before going on an enchanted three-game run through the postseason.
“When I was thinking initially about this year, we are planning from the point of finishing sixth place in the league,” Averbuch West said. “So we’re very happy with the championship. But also we feel that we have a lot of room to grow.”
Lavelle, a wizard on the ball whose career has been plagued by injuries, Dunn and Sonnett pencil in as the new midfield. Davidson, a center back, replaces Ali Krieger, a mentor from the national team who retired after last season.
“I hope to be able to continue to push the standards she set for the back line and the team as a whole and keep that legend going,” Davidson said.
The NWSL season begins March 15 with the newest iteration of the Challenge Cup — a one-off match with Gotham hosting San Diego Wave, last season’s firstplace finisher in the standings — and runs through the summer with a month-plus-long break for the Olympics tournament.
Gotham becomes the growing league’s headliner, welcoming the superteam label and demanding your attention for the new starstudded lineup.
“Best believe I’m going to be applying a bit of pressure on those that say that they are sports fans in this area,” Dunn said. “To me, talk is cheap. If you’re going to say that you support sports in this area, then there’s no reason why you’re not making that trip to Red Bull Arena.”