Gotham FC narrowly keeps repeat title hopes alive on late Rose Lavelle

Throughout the ups and the downs of the regular season, the ebbs and the flows, the injuries and the glimpses of what a complete Gotham FC lineup could accomplish, Delanie Sheehan was one of the constants.

She’d played in all 26 NWSL games. She’d logged the second-most minutes. Sheehan hadn’t been one of the flashy offseason acquisitions — the midfielder had been with Gotham since 2021, before the title and the construction of the superteam — but still remained a critical part of their operation.

In the opening round of the playoffs, though, Sheehan didn’t enter until the 90th minute, when she replaced Lynn Williams on Sunday with the score knotted at 1.

Gotham’s possession eventually cycled toward her just seven minutes later, and after Sheehan maneuvered the ball through a pair of Portland defenders, she sent the ball toward Rose Lavelle and watched as she converted.

“Delanie did all of the heavy lifting there,” Lavelle, one of the flashy offseason acquisitions, said. “Kinda served it on a platter for me.”

One year after Gotham FC’s Cinderella run ended with a title, they nearly experienced the flip side of playoff lore.

The record-setting regular season that could end earlier than expected. The spectacle of the first home playoff match in team history, with a historic crowd packed inside Red Bull Arena, that could end in heartbreak.

And then Lavelle ensured that their quest for a repeat remained intact, snapping the tie in the seventh minute of stoppage time to give Gotham a 2-1 win over the Portland Thorns and setting up a semifinals showdown with No. 2-seed Washington Spirit on Saturday.

“Last year was amazing, full of fantastic people and winners, and we were able to win,” head coach Juan Carlos Amorós said. “This year, to be honest, is amazing, full of fantastic people and winners — and we are two games away to win that ring again.”

In a way, Lavelle scoring the game-winner was poetic. She, along with Tierna Davidson and Emily Sonnett, headlined Gotham’s offseason filled with marquee signings that only added to a roster that cracked the playoff field last season as the No. 6 seed and ripped off three consecutive wins to steal the title. And maybe Gotham wouldn’t have scripted it quite like what unfolded in the 67th minute, where Lavelle was the one who started a sequence ending with a goal and Davidson was the one capping it.

But when they constructed their new-look roster, they had moments like this — the 67th minute of a scoreless postseason game — in mind.

Lavelle started off a set piece and sent a ball toward the net. And Davidson, with just one goal previously in her NWSL career and playing for the first time since Oct. 12 due to a thigh injury, tapped the ball with her foot, maneuvered through traffic and finished a shot with her left foot.

“Especially as defenders, when we get up near the goal on set pieces, we try to make sure that we can affect the play positively,” Davidson said. “And for me, I think what was going through my head was just get it on frame. That’s what always creates the most chaos as a defender defending set pieces, so that was my main goal. And luckily, on frame meant in the goal.”

Just eight minutes later, though, Portland equalized. They cracked Gotham’s defense — one of the NWSL’s best during the regular season — when Reilyn Turner headed a ball into the net. Gotham had controlled most of the possession early in the first half, but until Davidson broke through, they struggled to convert strong ball movement and potential scoring chances into shots. Portland blocked some. Others went wide.

They nearly fell into a 1-0 deficit late in the first half, but Sophia Smith had her goal overturned after a review confirmed offsides. Then, Davidson gave Gotham the lead once the second half arrived. Then, Lavelle injected life into the 15,540 fans in attendance anticipating another postseason run.

Gotham almost ran into what can happen in the one-game format of chaos. Instead, they did enough to survive.