Gotham dreams of back to back.

On the eve of the CONCACAF Semifinal, US Soccer hinted at the idea of something US women’s soccer fans have been clamoring for: a tournament between the NWSL, USL Superleague, and forthcoming D2 WPSL Pro League. First reported by ESPN’s Jeff Kassouf — who was careful to mention that this won’t be a like-for-like recreation of the US Open Cup — the forthcoming tournament would be sure to have an impact on how a club from the USL Superleague could qualify ahead of a retooled CONCACAF Champions Cup. 

As for the current CONCACAF Champions Cup:

América vs. Gotham

Juan Carlos Ámoros’s Gotham FC finished the first 5 match stretch of the season with just 1 win, 5 points, and 2 goals scored. It looked grim, a fantastic underperformance from the defending champions. However, the bats returned from the international break ready to play. 13 out of 15 possible points followed as Gotham outscored opponents 9-1, culminating in Friday’s 0-2 win over Seattle.

That’s good news for Jaedyn Shaw and company as they prepare for a midweek trip to the Estadio Hidalgo, where they’ll face the recently crowned Liga MX champions, Club América. 

Gotham will face off with at least one familiar face on Wednesday.

Former Gotham attacker Geyse’s goal all but sealed América’s Liga MX title as she put América up 2-1 on aggregate over Rayadas. América’s strength goes beyond the former Gotham attacker, with Scarlett Camberos, Irene Guerrero, and even Sarah Luebbert off the bench providing crucial goal contributions for Liga MX’s highest scoring club. 

Gotham’s defensive record will have to hold up against a squad that scored 18 goals in the Clausura playoff alone.

However, the question isn’t “Can Gotham hold off América?”, the question is, “Can América break down Gotham in a way no other NWSL club has been able to since the international break?”

The (way too long) April international break is a nice break point for taking stock of how clubs have managed over the past 4-5 matches. Gotham was a flawed team over the first 5 matches of the season, leaking around 1.1 xGA against just 0.9 xG created. However, Juan Carlos Ámoros worked his magic over the 3 week break, and Gotham dropped just two points in the draw to Boston. Over this run, they’ve generated nearly 2 xG in the attack and boasted the league’s best defensive record. Maybe expected when they play Bay, Louisville, and Chicago – 3 of the 4 truly bad teams since the break – over that stretch, but Gotham wasn’t meeting the challenger over the opening stretch and was +3 expected goal differential vs Utah, who have boasted the 2nd strongest xGD since the break. 

What’s changed? 

Rose Lavelle – who has missed the last 2 matches – and Jordynn Dudley have been two of the best players in the league. Gotham has unlocked Dudley’s value in progressing the attack – over 1.0 g+ in dribbling + receiving goals added – while using that ball progression to pin teams back. They’ve only allowed 1 shot in transition over the past 5, and just 2.79 xG against from open play.

Looking ahead to Wednesday, it’s hard to see América finding any of those fast-break opportunities on Wednesday.

Pachuca vs. Washington Spirit

Meanwhile, Pachuca will have an uphill battle against the very in-form Washington Spirit. 

San Diego frustrated the Wave on Friday night as DC lost for the first time since opening night. However, it was the same old story. The Spirit had the better of the chances in the run of play, but they couldn’t match the Wave’s clinical finishing. Both sides finished the night with 4 shots on target, and the Spirit created the more dangerous chances both in open play and on dead-ball opportunities. Despite that, and despite both sides finishing with 1.9 xG on target, the Wave found the game winner through 18 year old CDM Kimmie Ascanio. 

So, Adrián González will have a motivated group in front of him and even split Claudia Martínez and Rose Kouassi’s time on the wing this weekend to keep his options open heading into a potential two-match week at altitude.

There will be an X-Factor on Wednesday. 

Pachuca will effectively be the home team, a big boost for a squad that most recently lost to Rayadas in the Liga MX Semifinal. Pachuca has been great at home this season, going 6-1-1 in the Clausura and winning each home leg during the 3-2 playoff win over Guadalajara and the 4-3 loss to Monterrey. 

Those scorelines should tell you that Pachuca allows opportunities but has been able to find dangerous moments inside their 4-4-2. That’s going to be important for the Spirit, who, despite outscoringopponents 6-4 over this 3 match away stretch, have only generated 2.85 expected goals. 

Will we see an all-NWSL final again next Saturday? Or will Liga MX – the most watched women’s league in the world – be able to pull off an upset?

Calamitous Chicago 

Let’s look back at that xG vs xGA graph I showed above:

The Chicago Stars have somehow gotten worse?

The Stars have won every match where they’ve scored this season, the problem? They’ve only scored in 2 matches, the 2-1 home win vs KC and the 2-0 home win vs Boston. They’ve been outscored 21-0 in their 8 losses including 0-14 away from Martin Stadium, and 0-11 over the last 4 matches. 

It’s not going well.

Martin Sjögren’s side is one of the worst in modern memory, and not even the return of Mal Swanson can save them. Houston Dash, Bay FC, Racing Louisville, and Chicago have been the 4 genuinely bad teams since the international break. 

Even among that crew the stars have been exceptional, owning a -4 xGD even compared to Louisville's -4.33 xGD over the last 5 matches. 

They've created more in the attack, but it's opened them up even further on the defensive side. 

All while Stanford standout defender, and Mac Hermann semifinalist, Elise Evans sits on the bench week after week. Would Evans solve any of this? It’s unlikely, but at this point, it’d be more palatable if the Stars seemed to be planning for the future rather than trotting out a back 3 with an average age of 31 last weekend.

Unlike Louisville, Houston, and Bay, Chicago is starting mostly prime aged players. Manaka Hayashi and Aliyah Farmer were the only starters under the age of 25, while Jameese Joseph, Leilanni Nesbeth, and Micayla Johnson appeared from the bench. Compare that to the myriad of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year pros regularly appearing for Louisville, Houston, Bay, and, quite frankly, most NWSL clubs. Even Gotham — a team most would think of as skewing older — started 3 21-year-olds in the attack during the 0-2 win over Seattle.

Why? Because it’s a great way to stay under the salary cap, and it’s a great way for the top teams to succession plan for the eventual departures of top stars. 

Some teams buck that trend. Utah, for instance, is one of the NWSL’s more veteran-focused teams, but the league is evolving towards the need of either a strong academy pipeline or strong NCAA scouting. Chicago should be able to benefit from both pathways. Chicago is a great youth market and should be able to reach into the other strong Midwest youth markets like the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. Unfortunately for Chicago, KC has been quicker to realize this potential in untapped youth markets, but even then, there’s a complete mishandling of assets throughout the club. 

Since Laura Ricketts’s group purchased the Stars in September of 2023— a definite good after Arnim Whisler’s culpability was exposed in the Yates Report — they’ve made the playoffs once, finishing 8th in 2024. The Stars finished last in 2023 (although not the current ownership’s FO) and 2025, and look destined to bring up the rear this season. All of this while the club struggles to find a long term stadium solution.

Ownership made promises in their initial press release. Let’s check in on that:

“Our respective backgrounds in professional sports, finance, turnaround management, commercial real estate, marketing and advertising, paired with our deep community ties, make for a powerful combination that will serve us well in reaching our ultimate goal: building a world-class championship organization on and off the pitch that sets the standard for excellence and accountability.” 

“We will strive to provide an environment in which players thrive, supported by experienced executives who are dedicated to our athletes, our fans, and the game,” - Laura Ricketts

B - No.

The standard for excellence and accountability - No, reporters are rarely given enough time to attend open trainings, and GM Richard Feuz hasn’t spoken to the media since Feuz went on a media tour — and said some bizarre things — following the firing of Lorne Donaldson last May.

An environment in which players thrive - The Stars are opening a training center in 2027, but despite the Chicago Fire building a soccer-specific stadium just outside downtown next year, the Stars are still committed to playing on turf at Northwestern’s Martin Stadium through next season. The Stars have attempted to become a tenant at Northwestern’s new football stadium, but that plan is on ice as is any plan to build their own stadium.

It’s maybe too soon to grade this ownership on those promises, but outside of the training facility, has any progress been made? The move out of Bridgeview was net-positive, but has that made an impact? Attendance at Martin is slightly ahead of last year’s attendance at Bridgeview — once you exclude the 26,942 who attended the Soldier Field double header — but the Stars have already experienced the lowest single game attendance of the Ricketts era this season.

The Stars seem to just be treading water until they can solve their facilities dilemma. How long can they keep going before something big has to change?

TemVP

Can I say enough good things about Temwa Chawinga? The Current have been much improved over the last 5 matches, and while they’ve allowed just as many chances as the disastrous opening stretch, Chawinga’s return has unlocked a needed dimension in the attack. Croix Bethune has thrived over the last few weeks, interchanging with Michelle Cooper and Ally Sentnor down the right side, while Temwa Chawinga waits to release down the weak side of the attack. Bethune now only trails Barbra Banda in goals added, and Chawinga has been… well… Temwa Chawinga.

The added dimension has resulted in Chawinga’s 5 goals over the last 2 matches. Incredible. There are still signs that the scheme is troubled — the 4-0 loss to DC where Trinity Rodman laid out the Spirit’s gameplan as “we know they want to play in the wide areas” — but as long as Chawinga is back to TemVP form, they’ll be fine.

A Lasting Legacy

There are currently 4 groups of NWSL clubs over the last 5 matches:

The title contenders — San Diego, Utah, Portland, Washington, and Gotham.

The good, but flawed — Kansas City, Denver, North Carolina, Orlando, Seattle, Angel City.

The Boston Legacy — Boston Legacy.

The Bad — Bay FC, Racing Louisville, Houston Dash, and Chicago Stars.

Of the two expansion teams, Boston continues to grip me. While Denver has found a baseline performance, the Legacy are both consistently improving and committing incredible mistakes almost every week. After starting 0-0-5, Filipa Patão’s side has gone 2-3-0. A 94th minute Bianca St-Georges goal sealed the Swans’ first win earlier this month. They followed up with another win last Tuesday, thanks to an Amanda Gutierrez stoppage time penalty.

Then, Boston traveled to Bay and went down to 10 following BSG’s historic horror tackle on Claire Hutton. BSG became the first NWSL player to pick up multiple red cards in multiple seasons, and yet, Boston pulled out a draw behind another Amanda Gutierrez penalty.

That led to this great quote from Patão post-match when asked about the club’s 153(!) fouls after 10 matches:

“Our goal never is make more fouls, or stop the game, or be aggressive in a bad way. ... We are not mean, we just want to recover the ball fast [and play in possession], just that, and play football. And football is contact."

Finally, the Reign’s scoreless streak has stretched to 5 matches following the 0-2 loss to Gotham. The Reign have been outscored 0-6 over this stretch despite a relatively even expected goals differential.

Would Sam Kerr fix this?

It was all but confirmed last week that the NWSL was adjusting the not-yet-officially-adopted HIP criteria because it would prevent clubs from using the HIP mechanism to sign Kerr. 

Wow, too bad no one pointed that out at the time, eh?

The Chelsea and Red Star legend could fill a Lynn Biyendolo-sized hole in the Reign’s attack, and, unfortunately, none of Laura Harvey’s current crop of strikers has been able to turn chances into goals with regularity. Kerr would certainly help, the 32 year old Australian scored 7 goals and 2 assists in returning to the WSL post-Asian Cup, where she also scored 4 goals and an assist. 

A few teams could use Sam Kerr in this current moment, but along with the Reign, Angel City, and Bay FC would be the landing spots where she could push the team into the next tier. 

Time will tell.