How NJ/NY Gotham FC Is Turning the Page After a Tough Offseason | OneFootball

On a cool autumn day in Washington, D.C., NJ/NY Gotham FC were mere minutes away from making it to back-to-back NWSL championship appearances. All that stood in their way was a penalty shootout with their east coast rivals, the Washington Spirit.

A storied veteran with World Cup experience, Spanish international Esther stepped up to the spot first for the visitors. With her right foot, she shuttled the ball towards the bottom left corner of the net, but Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury was there to make the save. Gotham would not score a single penalty in the shootout, harshly ending the dreams of a second championship.

Even without a trophy, the club had a productive 2024 season by many measures. The team signed four U.S. women’s national team players along with a slew of international talent, constructing one of the deepest rosters in league history. Many dubbed it a super team of the modern NWSL era. Despite the semifinal loss, things were still looking up for the team that just two years prior was at the bottom of the NWSL standings.

Then, the departures began.

Through trades, free agency, and retirements, nearly a dozen players left including veterans like Crystal Dunn and Lynn Williams and up-and-coming stars like Yazmeen Ryan and Delanie Sheehan. Jenna Nighswonger, Maitane López, Sam Hiatt, McCall Zerboni, Cassie Miller and Abby Smith all left the club this offseason. Some were certainly seeking more playing time, others likely bigger contracts, but this amount of offseason movement did not seem normal.

As the departures continued, panic set in among fans and supporters—what could be going on at Gotham FC?

“We had amazing results on the field last year, and it wasn’t an easy year for us,” general manager Yael Averbuch West says. “There’s a lot of learning and growing that we are doing as a club.”

Averbuch West and the organization are taking on every challenge, whether internal or external, with the understanding that it will not always be a smooth, upwards trajectory, but they’re okay with taking on the challenges as they come, as long as the club continues to look to improve year over year.

“We are always assessing things in terms of what’s best for the club and the player—so everything we do is an ongoing and constant assessment of that,” Averbuch West says. “Obviously in this moment I’m aware of the uncertainty and the chatter surrounding it. I think one of the hardest things for me is to be aware of that but also feel the difference between that and the confidence we have in our roster here and the direction we’re going.”

Fostering joy and development at Gotham FC

It was certainly difficult to escape the chatter around Gotham’s offseason. During NWSL Media Day last month, Lynn [Williams] Biyendolo told Pro Soccer Wire that she and the club were no longer "a fit," noting that it was "all around, on the field, off the field." On The Women's Game podcast, while telling host Sam Mewis what she’s looking forward to playing for her new club, the Seattle Reign, she added, “I don’t want to get into everything with the end of Gotham, but I am really excited to be a part a team that looks like they're just enjoying each other and having fun and a culture that looks like it’s a healthy, fun, loving environment to be around. I think that that’s super important. At the end of the day, it’s a game, a sport, and we should be having fun doing it.”

Several former players have similarly alluded to a lack of joy at Gotham last season along with experiencing poor communication between players and staff. For Averbuch West, acknowledging areas for improvement is a necessary aspect of growth even when it’s hard, and that change in professional sports is an inevitable part of the process.

“There’s always decisions that need to be made in professional sports,” Averbuch West says. “Sometimes it’s a good fit, other times we need to make difficult decisions, but big picture, holistically, we’re always looking at how we can get better on and off the field as a club, and I think we’re going in a really good direction.”

To start preseason, the club took a trip to Spain to not only train and play exhibition matches against international opponents, but focus on the ever-important team bonding aspect that helps create that team chemistry in all facets of the organization.

“It’s been really good here in Spain,” says Averbuch West. “The team feels great, the staff feels great, we’re confident on the field—it’s really high quality and high level already, and it’s coming together really nicely.”

While abroad, the players have not only put in valuable training sessions, but gotten to bond and build out the relationships that are crucial to on-field success. For newcomer Jaelin Howell, who joined Gotham this season via the trade that sent Biyendolo to the Reign, the trip across the Atlantic has helped her feel immediately right at home with her new squad.

“It’s been going great. I’m so happy to be here and so excited,” Howell says. “This club is something like I’ve never seen before in terms of their resources and what they pour into the players and staff. So far, even though it’s been a short amount of time, I’ve had an unbelievable experience. Spain is going to be great for us to really get to know each other on and off the field and build relationships.”

For many in the returning core group, including fan favorite Nealy Martin, Gotham’s competitive environment has been a driving aspect in the trajectories of their careers. For Martin specifically, the growth she’s displayed in the last two years since the club picked her up off the waiver wire has allowed her to thrive, leading to her first call-up to the U.S. women’s national team last month.

Martin's performance with Gotham earned her an invite to the last USWNT camp. / Aaron Meullion-Imagn Images

“Feeling valued is something that is invaluable and something that is sometimes hard to find,” Martin said. “But once you find it, it’s inexpressible how it feels to play for someone who values you.”

Building for success through evaluation, feedback and communication

Key to Averbuch West’s process since she took over as general manager in 2021 is listening to feedback from players and staff, never being satisfied with the status quo and understanding that even though she may not always get it right, she’s always looking to improve.

Averbuch West relies on athlete mentality and her experience as a player, always thinking about what she can do to be better, and the ongoing process of building for success. Her ultimate goal remains to create a player-centric environment with a roster that fans can be really excited to support every year, even if it looks different.

“The offseason is the time that change happens, but really, we’re always evaluating how we can continue to get better,” she says. “As a club we’ve had some success on the field, which is amazing and we’re really, really proud of that, but at the same time we’re trying to build for sustainable success. That means in these early years of becoming a sustainably successful club, we’re going to have change, and change can look a lot of different ways.”

On Feb. 3, Averbuch West wrote an open letter to fans, citing the work the club is doing to improve training facilities, hire specialized staff and continuously improve, noting that the journey won’t always follow a straight path. “It calls for hard decisions. It calls for living with missteps. And it calls for constant evaluation.”

She added in her open letter: “Throughout the year, based on our assessment, we determined a need to (1) better articulate our club’s philosophy and values to players and staff; (2) further support players and staff to navigate a fiercely competitive environment; and (3) continue to refine our team mentality.”

According to Averbuch West, a big focus going into the 2025 season has been the integration and onboarding of new players and staff. In the efforts to intentionally build culture, it is important to clarify exactly what it means to be part of Gotham FC. Ensuring everyone at the organization understands the expectations is a main objective for the club this year.

“We’re working hard to be able to clarify those things and to make sure that not just clarifying them by saying them and writing them down, but that we operationalize them,” she says. “It takes a good amount of time to do that really well. It’s not a quick offseason project.”

For striker Ella Stevens, who had a breakout season with Gotham last year, the club’s environment is what provided her with the opportunity to prove herself, recording a career-high seven goals and four assists, culminating in her first call-up to the U.S. women’s national team last month.

“This club gave me a chance that I don’t know if I would have gotten at other places,” Stevens says. “I was able to come in and perform, and try and prove myself. I feel like I was given opportunities to do that on the field. I think that’s the biggest thing and it keeps the team competitive, raises the standards, and that’s why I wanted to come here, too.”

Her assessment fits right into what Averbuch West hopes to build. “I think one of the things we’ve recognized is the need for, as we ramp up the competitiveness of our environment for players and staff, we also are on a mission to ramp up the support we provide and that’s always the balance. We purposely are going to have a very competitive team every single year and we also need to provide support, provide the balance to that, whether it comes in the informal moments like being in Spain together, or through intentional work.”

Part of that intentional work was bringing on former goalkeeper Michelle Betos as assistant goalkeeper coach. Betos will also work on her mental performance certification and assist the team in hiring a mental performance coach.

“I can be a connector, sitting in those chairs and looking at it and knowing what I would feel or what my teammates have felt, and being able to express that to make sure the messaging is in line with intentions,” Betos told Sports Illustrated in a previous interview.

In her open letter, Averbuch West says the club’s goal was never to form a super team, but establish Gotham as "a perennial title contender." However, with so many stars comes big salaries, and with big salaries come concerns over the NWSL’s salary cap.

Although the cap and player salaries are not public, it stands to reason that with the likes of Tierna Davidson, Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett, Williams Biyendolo and Dunn, Gotham would likely be at or very close to the top, making it difficult to retain young talent who were on longer term contracts at lower salaries. Even so, Averbuch West sees the salary cap as only a single factor in a holistic consideration rather than having a unique impact on this year’s offseason.

“I think the salary cap is impactful every year, so yes it’s a factor and a part of the assessment, but what we are trying to do is make sure we have the best group of players who want to be at the club, who we think are going to help us achieve our objective this year, the year after, and beyond, and set us up for success,” she says.

Even with the big departures, Gotham retained several of its top tier talent including Davidson, Lavelle and Sonnett along with Martin and Stevens. The club even made a splashy signing in Brazilian midfielder and Ballon d’Or finalist Gabi Portilho. The club also re-signed free agents Midge Purce and Mandy Freeman, the latter being the longest-tenured player on the team’s roster having been drafted to the club in 2017.

“I really know the ins and outs [at the club], and I believe that they truly are trying to grow the women’s game and they want Gotham to be at the top of that,” Freeman said about her decision to re-sign, which included the opportunity to stay close to home on the East Coast and continue to improve her game. “I think the potential is limitless at this point. We have a new squad, but we also have a core group and a lot of experience still.”

Pointing to a backline which boasts Davidson and Sonnett along with an creative offensive frontline which includes young superstar Mak Whitham and FIFA Women’s World Cup winner and Spanish international Esther, Freeman and the returning players are confident that even with the new faces and the learning curve, the club has the potential to finish well again this year.

“Coming here, I knew the vision that Gotham had and the places it wanted to go and the heights it wanted to reach as a club, which was really exciting for me,” Lavelle says. “Regardless of who comes or goes, you always want to be able to retain good players, and people have to make decisions that are best for them, but I do feel like this is the new standard for the club—having a really high-caliber team that can keep pushing to be top of the table. That’s allowed me to grow a lot on and off the field.”

No matter the challenge, no matter who is on the roster, Gotham is always looking to improve, and as Averbuch West notes, they’re not done yet.

“That is truly our ethos,” she says. “We are never going to be finished improving, refining and being really honest about where we are and where we stand in this moment, both internally and as much as we can to the fans and to the media. We’re really confident in what we’re building, and I think that’s what’s very important.”

From the players and coaches to the front office staff, Averbuch West is confident in the strategy and direction of Gotham, and she believes the organization is building something that people will be really proud to support.

“I am really appreciative for the opportunity to share bits and pieces of it, to let people in on some of the thought processes,” she says. “I will continue to do my best to do that because it’s very important to me that we are honest and transparent, and that everyone can feel our ambition and confidence in what we’re doing, too.”

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