It’s playoff season in the NWSL, with four teams reconvening post-international break to fight for a star above their crest. The NWSL semifinals begin Sunday, November 5, at Providence Park where Gotham FC (8-7-7) will face the Portland Thorns (10-5-7) at 7:00 pm EDT. At 9:30 pm EDT, OL Reign (9-5-8) take on San Diego Wave FC (11-4-7) at SnapDragon Stadium, both teams vying for the opportunity to return to SnapDragon on Saturday, November 11 for the 2023 NWSL Championship.
Gotham and Portland split their series this season, both taking away a win at home. The 2-1 victory in July for Gotham was followed by a 1-0 Portland victory in early October. In all-time meetings, Portland controls the series 11-6-4.
Gotham: uncharted territory.
A 2-0 win on the road against the North Carolina Courage is what got them here. After a trip down the coast with success, Gotham will now head cross country with hopes to do it again.
Head Coach Juan Carlos Amoros got his first taste of the NWSL playoffs as the interim Head Coach of the Houston Dash in 2022, losing in the first round to the Kansas City Current. Gotham has made two previous trips to the NWSL playoffs, in 2013 and 2021, losing both semifinal matches. Their 2-0 win against North Carolina in the quarterfinal on October 22 marked the first-ever NWSL playoff win for both coach and club.
Now comes game two.
Gotham has the poorest record of all semifinalists. While OL Reign have one more loss, they also have one more win.
Including Challenge Cup matches, Gotham have not had back-to-back wins since July. Excluding Challenge Cup matches, Gotham have only won back-to-back regular season games once all season – all the way back in April with Matchdays 3 and 4. Post-World Cup, the team again has the worst record of all semifinalists, having gone 1-3-3, picking up just a single win in the final seven weeks of the season. In the first two months of the season, the team was 5-1-2.
The Gotham team flying out to Portland is evidently not the team that started this season, with new additions and injuries picked up along the way. With each match comes the possibility of it being Captain Ali Krieger’s last, as the USWNT legend announced her end-of-season retirement at the start of the year.
Portland’s second-place finish in the regular season earned them a bye week for the quarterfinals, sending them straight through to the semifinal round. This break comes after going 3-1-3 in the final third of the season. Portland’s success has come with a squad that’s been much more consistent than Gotham’s, despite the Thorns suffering injuries to key players in the attack and defense.
Portland: we’ve seen this story before.
It’s 2022, and Portland lose the shield on the final day of the season to OL Reign by a single point, courtesy of a 3-3 draw with Gotham FC. The second-place Thorns go on to beat San Diego 2-1 at home before earning their third NWSL Championship with a 2-0 match in DC against Kansas City, and they do it with a new coach.
It’s now 2023, and Portland lost the shield on the final day of the season to San Diego by two points, courtesy of a 5-1 loss to Angel City FC that was a must-win. The second-place Thorns now go on to play Gotham at home, in hopes of defending their title and bringing home a fourth NWSL Championship. And they once again will do it with a new coach.
The parallels are hard to ignore. The 2022 Thorns record of 10-9-3 would’ve earned them enough points to clinch the shield, going two over San Diego, but alas, they once again see a second-place finish, failing to rise to the occasion in the final hour of the regular season.
Players to Watch
Ali Krieger is going out with a bang, earning a Defender of the Year nomination in her final NWSL season – and with good reason. Krieger has kept Gotham in the running with highlight-worthy saves and will be going toe to toe with some of the strongest attacking threats in the league in Portland’s Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver.
Sophia Smith is coming back from injury late in the season, but she doesn’t need much opportunity to slice through a defense and get the ball to the back of the net. Smith made her first post-injury appearance in the dying minutes of Portland’s 1-0 victory over Gotham, but seems to be working back to a more influential role. The 2023 Golden Boot winner won’t make things easy for the Gotham defense.
Will Portland earn the chance to vie for their fourth NWSL Championship win in San Diego? Or will Gotham, fresh off their first-ever NWSL playoff win, get a second and punch their tickets to the final?
NWSL Semifinal games will air on CBS Sports Network in the US. International viewers will be able to watch on NWSLsoccer.com.