Defending NWSL champs Gotham set to chase back-to-back titles

It started before Gotham FC’s final regular-season game a year ago, a way for head coach Juan Carlos Amoros to deliver a bit of extra motivation to his team.

“Let’s not make this Ali Krieger’s last game!”

And it continued like that for weeks, as Gotham snuck into the sixth and final playoff spot then embarked on a magical postseason run that prolonged the career of the veteran defender and captain, who had announced she would retire after the season. Always with the same message after another dramatic playoff win as a road underdog:

“It’s not Ali Krieger’s last game!”

“It was kind of like a running joke, but the team was rallying, and we were just so excited,” Krieger said.

Until, after Gotham completed a worst-to-first turnaround and secured their first NWSL championship with a heart-stopping 2-1 win over OL Reign, the mantra received a jubilant edit.

“It really is Ali Krieger’s last game!”

“Having the team have my back was really incredible, and I think that’s something special for me that I’ll never forget,” Krieger told The Post this week, with a year of hindsight on the franchise-altering November.

“We weren’t necessarily — and I could say this out loud — the best team on the field, but because we had that culture in the locker room, that’s what helped us be so successful.”

Krieger’s past year has been “really tough” in some ways, she said.

She had to navigate her retirement as a player. She went through a public divorce from former teammate Ashlyn Harris. Her father died in March.

But with “a few endings, there’s also a few new beginnings, so I’m really happy,” she said.

Krieger, 40, now has more time to spend with her children, ages 3 and 2. She’s the co-host of “Futbol W,” a weekly ESPN show devoted to women’s soccer. And she has thrown herself into the work of growing the sport on the event circuit.

That includes being Gotham’s first club ambassador, a business-side role with a throw-in of looking to mentor the team’s younger players. In September, she walked into the East Room with President Biden as Gotham became the first NWSL champions (“hopefully not the last”) to be recognized at the White House.

“I really want to help the club get to a point where we’re the best environment and the best club team in the world,” the two-time World Cup winner said, “and we can build a legacy here of championships and winning.”

The effort of adding championships begins in earnest Sunday afternoon, when Gotham opens the playoffs at Red Bull Arena against the Portland Thorns.

The outline of the matchup is familiar from last year, only this time Gotham is the talent-rich favorite and the Thorns are the long shots who rallied to reach the playoffs and feature a captain — the legendary Christine Sinclair, the all-time leader in international goals scored — who is headed into retirement.

“I can kind of relate,” Krieger said. “Which is why it’s going to be a great game. They’re going to be extra-motivated … and they’re going to do everything, claw, scratch, fight to the end, to see her win and just get her flowers and end out on top.”

In an expanded eight-team NWSL playoff field, Gotham is part of a clear top four — along with No. 1 Orlando, No. 2 Washington and No. 4 Kansas City — after finishing a club-records-setting season on an eight-game unbeaten run and with a mark (17-4-5) that easily would have topped the standings last year.

“They’ve been playing great football, they share the ball well, they’ve been attacking so lethally, just making it really, really difficult for teams to even play out [of their defensive end],” Krieger said. “I think there’s not many teams that are actually capable of beating Gotham right now in the form that they’re in.”

Believe it or not, Sunday’s quarterfinal will be the first home playoff match in Gotham history — a neat symbol of the club’s remarkable renaissance over the past two years, on either side of Krieger’s retirement.

“Just coming off of the season that we had, being the reigning champs is great, that we can finally be celebrated,” Kreiger said. “But also, there was this chip on our shoulder last year because we felt like we were the underdog. … So now I’m just, not that I’m worried, but I think Gotham has to come in and still pretend like this is the final.”