Gotham FC may be stacked, but don’t call it a super team – yet

Photo Copyright Robert Deutsch for USA TODAY Sports

There’s a new super team brewing in the New York metropolitan area – but don’t tell them that. 

“We are not saying that about ourselves and I think that’s really important,” NJ/NY Gotham FC General Manager Yael Averbuch West exclusively told The Equalizer. “Obviously we have really high expectations of ourselves, but now that we’re underway in preseason, we’re so focused on the daily process.”

After winning the team’s first-ever National Women’s Soccer League Championship last season, Gotham had a whirlwind offseason that saw the club bring in four U.S. women’s national team regulars and arguably the biggest names in free agency: Crystal Dunn, Tierna Davidson, Emily Sonnett, and Rose Lavelle. 

The four join a roster already stacked with stars like 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup winner Esther Gonzalez, the 2023 NWSL Rookie of the Year Jenna Nighswonger, and the 2023 NWSL Championship MVP Midge Purce. 

As the ultra-competitive NWSL continues to grow, and teams around the league add talent both domestic and international to their rosters, Gotham is fully focused on themselves. The players tuning out the noise, and continuing the work that got the team a championship last year.

“We finished in six place last season, we were about a touch away from maybe not making the playoffs,” Averbuch West said. “But last year was step one, this is step two, and there are going to be many more steps ahead of us.”

While Gotham may not call themselves a super team, the talent-packed roster says otherwise. The club joins its neighbors across the Hudson, the WNBA’s New York Liberty, in the growing New York trend of assembling an all-star team. New Yorkers love winners, and Gotham’s moves this offseason certainly point to a team with winning in mind, but the question on everyone’s mind: will it work?