Gotham FC falls via penalty kicks to Washington Spirit in playoff semifinals | OneFootball

And with that, the 2024 season comes to an end. After the best season in club history which included many firsts and multiple records, NJ/NY Gotham FC fell via a penalty kick shootout to the Washington Spirit 3-0 after 120 minutes was not enough to break the 1-1 tie. This win puts Washington into next Saturday's championship against the winner of tomorrow's semifinal between the Orlando Pride and Kansas City Current.

Despite failing to win back-to-back championships, this season can only be viewed as a success. They had a club-best NWSL standings position, participated in the inaugural CONCACAF W Champions Cup, hosted the first home playoff game in club history, and broke the club attendance record multiple times. Everyone on and off the field with Gotham can walk away from this season with their heads held high.

On the whole, this was not Gotham's best performance of the season. Part of that can be put on them just not playing as well as fans know they can. A lot of credit has to go to the Spirit, who ended the NWSL season as the only team to have multiple wins over the NJ/NY side in 2024.

Watching this game, it was evident that the tactical level from both teams was at another level compared to 99% of other NWSL games. A ton of credit goes to both managers and sets of players for such a high quality match, even though the result went the other way.

Gotham FC's loss is a tough pill to swallow

Gotham FC began this game with two huge chances early on. Just 45 seconds in, Esther González ripped a shot from the top of the box off of the crossbar. A few minutes later, Ella Stevens headed a corner off of the outside of the post. This was then followed by a chance for the Spirit that forced Ann-Katrin Berger into making two huge saves to keep the match scoreless. Both teams would end up trading chances for the rest of the first half but they headed into the break without finding the back of the net.

Going into the second half, Jenna Nighswonger came in for Jess Carter who had picked up a yellow card. The breakthrough would come in the 56th minute when Esther headed home a Yazmeen Ryan cross to give Gotham the 1-0 lead. Special shoutout to Rose Lavelle who played a spectacular reverse pass to Ryan to get the goal-scoring move started.

For the final half an hour of normal time, Gotham started to fall into the bad habit of becoming too defensive late in games where they only have a one-goal lead. That goal should be a huge momentum swinger in their favor that they then kick on from to get a second to put the game to bed. For whatever reason they do not, or are not able, to do so and instead play a much more defensive, counter-attacking style. Their quality this season has meant this has not been a problem for them but that run unfortunately ended today.

After a large period of time of sustained pressure, Washington won a free kick deep in Gotham territory that they were able to convert on. In the third minute of stoppage time, rookie Makenna Morris swung the ball into the box that fellow rookie Hal Hershfelt managed to get her head to and guide it just beyond Berger's reach, sending the game to extra time.

At the beginning of extra time, Gotham FC found some of the attacking momentum they had at the start of the game before things came to a screeching halt. Bruninha, who had come on as a sub in the 65th minute, picked up her second yellow card of the game after a clumsy and unnecessary challenge on Trinity Rodman. The momentum built up to begin extra time had suddenly lipped back in favor of Washington.

Gotham had one last chance to find the winner lose to the 120th minute mark off of a fantastic Esther header from a corner she had originally won, but Aubrey Kingsbury came up big once again to send the game to a penalty kick shootout.

This is where the game completely unraveled for the Bats as they were unable to convert any of their three penalties. All three of Esther, McCall Zerboni, and Nighswonger went to the keeper's right and all three were saved by Kingsbury. None of them were good penalties as they were all at a savable height and nowhere near far enough into the corner of the goal. Washington would convert all three of their penalties from Ashley Hatch, Lena Silano, and Tara McKeown and send Gotham home.

One thing that stood out compared to last year is the reduction in responsibilities for two young players who played a huge role in winning last year's championship. For the second consecutive playoff game, Nighswonger came off the bench. This is in stark contrast to the regular season where she started 23 of the 26 matches and was third on the team in NWSL minutes played with 2,008.

The same can be said of Bruninha who saw her minutes reduced relatively early in the regular season. She only had eight starts and 866 minutes played compared to 16 starts and 1,382 minutes played last year. A large part of this reduction in minutes for both players was the career resurgence of Mandy Freeman and the mid-season signing of Jess Carter, both of whom started in each playoff game this year.

And pretty surprisingly, both Nighwonger and Bruninha, who played every minute of last year's playoff run and were rock solid in all three of those games, provided the two biggest turning points in this game that ultimately turned things in Washington's favor.

Nighswonger was the one who committed a clumsy foul late in stoppage time that led to the free kick that Washington scored the equalizer on, and Bruninha's red card ultimately made Gotham's job of finding a winner in extra time much harder. Two silly mistakes came from players who know better.

Pointing this out isn't meant to sewer these two, far from it actually. It just goes to show that despite these two having excellent seasons and seeming like they had everything figured out, there is still room to grow. And from everything seen from them, they are two high quality professionals who will view this game as a major learning experience and come back from it next year as better players.

Positives from the Gotham FC match

If there is one positive to take away from this game, this game was fantastic for the NWSL as a whole. Having a game with 19,000+ in the stands, a level of coaching and tactics rarely seen in games past, as well as a competitive level and chippiness from both sides all on display on a national stage on CBS makes this game a fantastic endorsement for American soccer fans to continue watching this league going forward.

It also felt like the Gotham vs Washington rivalry finally arrived today. For a long time, the league has tried to push a rivalry that hasn't quite materialized the same way it has in other sports between these two cities. Mainly because this is the first time where both teams managed to have strong competitive seasons in the same year. Too often in the past games between these two would mostly fall flat due to one team being at the top of the table and the other at the bottom or even sometimes both at the basement of the league.

This was really the first time these two teams have faced off with a lot on the line. And it showed on the field with nine yellow cards, a minor shouting match between Trinity Rodman and Emily Sonnett, and a general competitive level from both teams rarely seen before. It also appeared in the stands with a small, but loud contingent of 1,000ish Gotham fans who made the trip down to D.C. trying to drown out the surrounding Spirit fans.

With both teams seemingly in the beginning of their contention windows, it looks like this rivalry has not only finally arrived. It does not appear to be going anywhere any time soon. Gotham FC's matches against the Spirit will be ones to circle on the calendar.