Forget the stars, it's NJ/NY Gotham FC's depth that is so key

HARRSION, New Jersey — NJ/NY Gotham FC‘s 2-1 NWSL quarterfinal victory over the Portland Thorns at Red Bull Arena on Sunday had all the pomp and circumstance of a playoff game: United States international Rose Lavelle scored a late, dramatic game-winner in front of a club-record crowd for the defending league champions.

But the key to Gotham’s victory on Sunday was consistent with a theme from throughout the squad’s season; for all the hype around this being a “super team” stacked with USWNT players, the club that has played more matches than any other NWSL team this year has leaned on its depth to find balance in every scenario.

“I feel like we had a lot of momentum the whole game, but obviously Portland is still dangerous even when you have the momentum,” Lavelle said after the match. “It felt like we were knocking on the door, but I don’t feel like we had a lot of clear chances. The goal, Delanie [Sheehan] did all the heavy lifting there, served it on a platter for me.”

Sheehan came off the bench in the 90th minute, replacing captain Lynn Williams — another USWNT player. Seven minutes later, with her back to goal, near the endline and seemingly trapped, Sheehan broke free from a two-on-one, evading two-time World Cup winner Becky Sauerbrunn’s tackle to find Lavelle near the six-yard box. The goal in the seventh minute of second-half stoppage time was the second latest playoff goal in regulation tine in NWSL history, per Opta. Gotham had found a way again.

Sheehan, a fourth-round pick in the 2021 draft, was a key cog to Gotham’s surprising NWSL Championship last season. Even after the offseason influx of USWNT stars Lavelle, Crystal Dunn, Emily Sonnett and Tierna Davidson — who also scored on Sunday — Sheehan has held her own in midfield, playing in all 26 games and starting 25 this season. She came off the bench on Sunday due to a nagging injury, but her impact was instant.

“I’m lost for words with this group,” Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amoros said after the match before rattling off the team’s hectic schedule in two other cup competitions. “Everyone [has been] ready to step in and help the team perform, win, and compete and compete and compete. Because in football, that’s all that matters sometimes. You can play fantastically, but you need to win.”

Gotham won consistently this season while calling upon its depth, including an impressive victory over the Shield-winning Orlando Pride in late October to help clinch the No. 3 seed.

Portland entered Sunday’s match on very different terms. The Thorns have plenty of talent, too, but the perennial title contenders were the No. 6 seed and underdogs in these playoffs due to erratic performances throughout the season, including a seven-game winless streak this fall that nearly saw them miss out on the postseason entirely. Reminders of those problems returned on Sunday.

The visitors struggled to escape their own end of the field for large stretches of the first half. Gotham pinned back Portland with long spells of possession, and the Thorns’ clearances frequently went straight to a Gotham player ready to restart another sequence and run at the visitors once again. At one point in the first half, Thorns forward and U.S. international Sophia Smith had multiple conversations with her defenders in which she appeared to motion with her hands to get the ball forward.

Smith was so often the lone answer for Portland this season during times when the Thorns lacked cohesion. She left Sunday’s game limping in stoppage-time after having her right ankle evaluated, an injury that nagged her since winning the Olympic gold medal in August and kept her sidelined for nearly a month this fall.

At the center of Gotham’s midfield was another unheralded player: Nealy Martin, the team’s lone holding midfielder. Martin, who went undrafted out of college in 2021, is Gotham’s do-everything midfielder — a role so literal that twice last year, including in the NWSL Championship, she put on a goalkeeper jersey in emergency scenarios.

Martin swept up play in front of Gotham’s back line throughout Sunday’s match, shutting down Thorns counterattacks and regaining the ball in high areas before shuttling the ball back up-field to create relentless waves of pressure.

“I’m there to break up transitions, to just kind of clean up play and let my attackers do their job,” Martin said after the match. “I think we could have been more dangerous in the final third, but we had 15 shots or so and we were creating. Sometimes the game just goes like that. I trust my attackers to do the job, and they did.”

Davidson opened the scoring in the 67th minute, burying a free kick that Lavelle served in and Williams flicked on toward the back post. It was the breakthrough that Gotham had anxiously anticipated.

The lead was short-lived, however. Thorns forward Reilyn Turner nodded in the equalizer eight minutes later, setting up a tense finish between the two teams who met in last year’s semifinal in Portland. Thorns forward Morgan Weaver hit the post late in the match to momentarily silence the raucous crowd of 15,540, but Gotham found its winner deep into the 12 minutes of time added largely in part due to a painstakingly long VAR check earlier in the half.

Depth paid off again for Gotham, a team playing its 40th game of the season. Two weeks ago, Gotham had to sign seven national team replacement players just to field a team in a cup final. Amoros still felt they were the better team that night, despite the 2-0 loss.

His words were partly coach speak but also rooted in the reality of a squad that knows its identity. For all of Gotham’s star power, their “organized chaos” approach, as the coaching staff has called it for the past year-plus, is designed for any player on the roster.

Sheehan, Martin, and Yazmeen Ryan — who recently earned her first USWNT call-up — proved that again on Sunday, alongside the star Lavelle. Gotham ended Portland’s season — and forward Christine Sinclair’s career — and advanced to next week’s semifinals against the Washington Spirit.

“Our midfielders… they are instrumental to our way of playing, our way of pressing, our way to manage the game with or without [the ball],” Amoros said.

“They’ve been fantastic. The way we play is very complex. We demand a lot from them in terms of their efforts, connection with the game and technical ability, and I think every single one of them has been fantastic.”