In most of Europe, the season has just kicked off, with the English WSL having their first game week just last weekend. However, over in the USA, the final matches of the regular NWSL 2023 season are just around the corner. On the one hand, Portland Thorns may take the three points and rise up to the top of the leaderboard, surpassing San Diego Wave. On the other hand, Gotham FC may claim the win and take the second-place position from Portland Thorns.

This tactical analysis and match preview revisits tactics deployed in a previous match between the two while sharing analysis and discussing what to expect from the upcoming game.

The season

Putting the rock-bottom finish in 2022 behind them, Gotham have put together some remarkable performances this season. The new squad that was aggressively rebuilt over winter has quickly found its way to work together. They generated strong momentum by winning four of the first five games this season. At the moment, Gotham are tight on the reigning champions’ heels, with just a two-point difference separating them.

With all their games, Gotham increased their average xG from 0.98 last season to 1.36. Likewise, the possession rate was increased from 48.75% to 53.5%.

Even though the club was dealing with difficult situations, Portland Thorns earned the title in the 2022 season. Under the leadership of their new coach, Mike Norris, the Thorns have advanced into second place, one point behind Wave.

Gotham’s versatility

Juan Carlos Amorós signed on as Gotham FC’s permanent head coach in November 2022. He has been leading the reconstruction of the squad and playstyle since then. So far, he has shown his complete confidence in the capability of this new squad by instilling plenty of versatility into the gameplay.

Below are the starting XI diagrams from Gotham’s recent games. I coloured a few players who have taken on multiple roles. The attacking midfielder Delanie Sheehan was seen in the winger and centre-back positions. Margaret Purce has quality in both offence and defence and has played forward winger and full-back.

Defender Nealy Martin has taken the attacking midfielder job as the team needed. Nighswonger, the young player decorated for her attacking ability, was getting her defence training in the left-back position.

Figure 1: Gotham FC’s recent game lineup

This versatility was not limited to the starting XI but ran through the entire length of games. Teams with excellent attacking full-backs like Nighswonger typically send the centre-back or defence midfielder to cover for the full-back while she pushes up. However, as shown below, in Gotham’s recent game against the San Diego Wave, the attacking midfielders, both left and right, dropped to cover for Nightswonger.

Figure 2-1: Left attacking Midfielder Zerboni noticed that the opponent players were heavily crowded on Gotham’s right side, so she dropped back and indicated Nighswonger to push up.
Figure 2-2: Zerboni replaced Nighswonger and became left-back while Nighswonger and Purce doubled the attacking strength on the left side.
Figure 3: In another sequence, Zerboni repeated this play, which led to Nighswonger’s impressive shot attempt on the left wing.
Figure 4: The lineup changed after Yazmeen Ryan and Allie Long were subbed in. Long stepped into Martin’s playmaker role while Martin pushed up as an attacking midfielder. Meanwhile, Sheehan switched to the left-wing position and started to have futsal-like rotations with right mid-fielder Farrelly and Nighswonger.

It takes a lot of courage to be experimental like this. Amorós’ strategies not only showed his confidence in manoeuvring versatility and off-the-ball movement at this level but also his faith in players to execute it. It’s hard to deny that players like Sheehan and Zerboni, who can cover multiple zones smoothly, are the critical keys of Amorós’ philosophy.

Thorns’ stability

There is a different approach for Thorns; in January of 2023, Mike Norris was appointed head coach of the side, expecting to bring stability and continuity to this club after the chaos they had gone through in the past year.

The starting XI in recent games has been relatively stable behind the frontline. Klingenberg, Menges, Hubly/Sauerbrunn, and Kuikka formed a reliable backline, while Coffey and Rodriguez controlled the centre area. This consistency created a collective thought shared by the midfielders and the defenders. Guided by Coffey in the centre, this group defended compactly and attacked efficiently. This was how they came back and won the game against North Carolina Courage after Thorns’ centre-back Hubly was sent off on a red card 14 minutes into the game.

However, Norris is not shy about showing his creativity by adjusting the frontline combination game by game. Even though Sophia Smith is undoubtedly an overpowering player in the league, he didn’t just nail her on the striker position and rely on it. Instead, he has shown the audience all kinds of ways to strike the opponents.

He has laid out a trident formed by D’Aquila, Weaver, and Vasconcelos in reaction to the absence of injured Sophia Smith. He has tried double spearhead using Weaver and Betfort, with Sinclair and Moultrie on the two wings.

In the recent game against OL Reign, his 4-2-3-1 with Sinclair as the striker, Dunn behind her playing nine and a half, Weaver and Sugita on the wings harvested a delighted 2-0 win.

The last duel

The last duel between the two happened on July 9th, with both sides missing a few key players due to preparation for the World Cup. Gotham laid up 4-1-2-3 with Nighswonger, Krieger, Jean, and Freeman in the back. Allie Long and Sheehan were switching with each other constantly for the playmaker role.

Katie Stengel, who was just loaned to Gotham from Liverpool, played as a striker for her debut game. Martin starting in the attacking midfielder position implied an intention to control the game rhythm by high press.

Missing both Smith and Sinclair, Thorns also played 4-1-2-3 with Vasconcelos, D’Aquila, and Weaver on top, Coffey being the playmaker. Just like Gotham, the Thorns also pushed a defender, Klingenberg, upward to play midfielder.

As expected, Gotham players, including goalkeeper Smith, pushed up high from the start. This quickly led to a few scoring opportunities in both boxes. After Smith denied the Thorns’ scoring attempts a few times, the former Thorns player Allie Long scored for Gotham at 21 minutes and put Gotham in the lead.

Figure 5: This goal resulted from a side-to-side switch following a corner kick. Long was able to execute the shot inside of the box without pressure. Since last season, Thorns’ weakness in defending set-pieces has been on people’s lips, and this goal just added more evidence about that.

Thorns were eager to return after that; however, as Coffey dropped deep, they were having trouble controlling the midfield third. Gotham frequently created dangerous scoring opportunities in the box for about twenty minutes with few Thorns defenders around to stop it. Goalkeeper Dickery’s stamina was being tested, and she was slightly injured during a highly close-to-score event.

Eventually, Thorns got back to their feet and stabilized the rhythm. A few opportunities were created by simply sending the ball to Weaver but were also wasted while the frontline’s chemistry wasn’t at the demanded level.

In the second half, Gotham kept their high pressure and aggression, which wore out Thorns’ defence line. As explained in the pics below, at 55 minutes, their versatile positioning play led to a second goal against the Thorns.

Figure 6-1: After an attempt to receive the ball from the back, the striker Stengel stayed between right-back Freeman and right-wing Ryan in the right-wing area. Meanwhile, Sheehan also had dropped deep on this side.
Figure 6-2: As Thorns’ players were attracted to this side to counter Gotham’s number advantage, Stengal used her excellent techniques to get the ball out. The ball was then switched to Nightsmonger, who had enough time and space to send a clinical long pin to Purce in the frontline. Purce’s head ball then escaped Dickery’s hands and was put into the net by Stengal.

This attacking sequence showed that Stengal is more of a versatile, wide-ranging attacker rather than a spearhead waiting on top. Thus, she perfectly fit into Amorós’ gameplay in her debut match. This fact explains why Gotham signed her permanently after the loan.

Gotham took the two-goal lead. Shortly after that, Bedford, who was just subbed in, beat Gotham’s exhausted defenders with her skills and fresh legs and delivered an easy goal. The game eventually came to an end at 2-1 as a win for Gotham.

Conclusion

Due to an injury that happened during the Thorns’ game against Washinton Spirit on August 27th, Sophia Smith has missed three games. Her presence undoubtedly can shed light on Thorns’ winning chance this Saturday. However, even without her, Thorns still have plenty of powerful weapons to exploit the defence novelty of Gotham’s attacking full-back.

On Gotham’s side, the story of rising from the bottom to the runner-up is tempting enough to power up their determination to the fullest. Although Gotham had the upper hand during their previous duel, we cannot ignore that the game was played without significant players on both sides. Now that both sides have their international players back, this will be a game with excitement that true fans cannot miss.