Gotham Super Team loading? 🔜🗽

It’s Monday, January 8th. Give us four minutes, we give you everything The Women’s Game.

NEW YEAR, BIG GOTHAM: NWSL’s reigning champions celebrated the New Year before a big crowd in NYC, with the newly accrued USWNT legend Crystal Dunn dancing in their midst. 

I. Looking forward to 2024 ⚽🌍

The Women’s Game Newsletter is back after the holiday break (Happy New Year, fellow fanatics) dripping with joy to bring you the most gripping events in the global game this 2024. After 2023’s historic World Cup down under- coupled by the launch of this nascent newsletter- the coming season of women’s footy promises to deliver fascinating new curves and exciting evolutions in the women’s game. And we can’t wait to write about them. 

What’s in store? 

The USWNT closed a calamitous year with the earliest signs of moving on and the appointment of a world class coach. Hope springs eternal, though waits for summer for Emma Hayes. 

This spring, the stars and stripes remain in the interim care of Twila Kilgore as they meet a new challenge in the inaugural Concacaf W Gold Cup. The first women’s edition of Concacaf’s long held event will feature top teams from Conmebol as well, thus pitting fierce football foes from the Americas north and south in a twelve team tournament transpiring across Texas and California. The US will play Mexico, Argentina and the winner of Guyana or the Dominican Republic in the group stage first.      

Shortly after, NWSL sets off upon its twelfth regular season, welcoming two new teams to the league in Bay FC and the returning Utah Royals. Now pitting 14 clubs across a 190-match season, this will be the first season delivered to the public by way of an exciting new broadcast deal with CBS, ESPN, Prime Video, and Scipps. With a transfer season already robust in its rattling, fans can look forward to the always-entertaining NWSL Draft going down this Friday, January 12. 

Across the sea, the UEFA Women’s Champions League wraps up a riveting group stage this January that could see strong sides like Real Madrid or Bayern Munich bounced early. For now sitting atop a closely fought Group D, imminent USA manager Emma Hayes hopes to tear through to the final, where she’d have a chance to lift the one club trophy that’s eluded her illustrious career. 

This July through August, Paris hosts the 2024 Olympics. Teams high on success from the 2023 World Cup will look to build momentum on a new stage. Those who stumbled will look to recover. The USWNT is high up on the list of those who crave their comeback when the lights shine down on France. 

With much transpiring beyond the above and surrounding the footballing world, we hope to bring you the bits that inspire and evolve the game, from every corner that we can. To more. 

II. Gotham Super Team loading? 🔜🗽

Gotham FC lifted their first NWSL Championship trophy in franchise history this past November, but have wasted no time in the ensuing weeks to prepare for the impending season. With players retiring and key cogs like Kristie Mewis moving on (joining West Ham United in WSL), Gotham has made miasmic moves to evolve their ranks and send a clear message to the league: this team intends to expand upon last season’s riches. 

Dropped like a holiday present alongside the New Year’s Eve ball in Times Square (where a few of the Gotham greats celebrated before a festive crowd) former Portland Thorns veteran, multi-club NWSL Champion, and World Cup Champion Crystal Dunn became the first of a few free agency coups for Gotham. A Long Island original, Dunn will finally move home with the move, telling CBS: "Every place I've gone, I've always felt like my heart is in New York."

The next to deliver in Gotham’s off-season extravaganza was center back Tierna Davidson, who missed out on this past World Cup as she was returning from an ACL injury. Calling Gotham’s style of play “exciting” and “fluid” in an interview with CBS Sports, the 25-year-old free agent and 2019 World Cup Champion said in the same interview how lucky she feels to have played with the (now) retired national team great she may likely replace in Gotham’s backline, Ali Krieger. 

As heads began to scratch as to how they were able to collect such a dazzling collection of US national team players, NWSL champions and stars of the league, Gotham added two more national team players and big name NWSL players in Emily Sonnet and Rose Lavelle, both joining the east coast champions from OL Reign. 

With four World Cup winners accrued through free agency and secured on multi-year contracts for the reigning champions of the league, many wonder, is this now a super team? Perhaps. But with Kansas City Current’s stumble from 2022’s final to the bottom of 2023’s table after big moves last offseason as a caution, and the unpredictable parity of NWSL as another, much still remains to be seen. 

MORE: Listen to some of Gotham’s new signings talk for themselves in our sit downs with Crystal Dunn and Emily Sonnett from within the past year.

III. Heartbreak for Sam Kerr 🇦🇺💔

It feels cruel to type once more of the excruciating injury that dogs this sport, but over the weekend the news came from Chelsea that Australia’s goal-scoring star, Sam Kerr, has torn her ACL. 

The blow came while training with Chelsea in Morocco, ruling the striker out of Women’s Super League play, the remaining UWCL season, and very likely the Olympics this summer. For a player that’s as much a delight off the field as she is while dominating the game wherever she goes on it, it’s been a hard year as a separate injury kept her from much of her home World Cup last summer. When she did get to play, she delivered among the best goals of the whole affair, sending a Sam Kerr signature stunner past Mary Earps in the Matildas’ meeting with England’s Lionesses in the semifinal. 

With heavy heart, the global game of women’s football continues to ponder the pressing question of how to address and prevent the clear disparity in ACL tears which impact women three to six times more often than men. 

UEFA’s newly published study into injury in women’s elite clubs found that while thigh muscle injuries are most common, ACL injuries are most “burdensome” on the women’s game. 

MORE: How Sam Kerr’s injury puts the human back into a superhuman career

IV. News and Notes 📰

1. Rebecca Welch became the first woman’s referee in the Premier League as she oversaw Fulham vs Burnley this past December.  

2. England’s goalkeeper Mary Earps has been named BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2023. 

3. A recent article sheds some insight into players’ views on fan behavior, a subject that has arisen with some frequency over the past year as players reveal invasive or overly demanding expectations from the fans. 

V. Parting Shots 

When UWCL kicks back off this January, Lindsey Horan will have to miss a match. Why? She picked up a red in Lyon’s 2-2 draw with Brann this December. What do you think; was it deserved?