Gotham FC took four steps closer to becoming a super team this week with the addition of USWNT players and free agents Crystal Dunn, Tierna Davidson, Emily Sonnett and Rose Lavelle. The quartet joins an already successful roster that captured the NWSL title last season. Even after a few departures, the team retained Lynn Williams, Midge Purce, Kelley O’Hara and World Cup winner Esther.
Two teams have gone back-to-back in NWSL: FC Kansas City in 2014/15 and the North Carolina Courage in 2018/19. But even the Courage, who also did the double with NWSL championship and shield wins both years, hasn’t seen an offseason quite like the one Gotham is having. It’s due in part to the introduction and expansion of free agency over the past two seasons, an increase to the league’s salary cap in 2024 and Gotham FC’s ambition executed by general manager Yael Averbuch West.
“It’s not two weeks of work,” Averbuch West told The Athletic on Thursday. “It’s part of a bigger picture.”
It may have taken longer than people realized, but Averbuch West has pulled off an unprecedented series of wins in free agency. Now comes the pressure and whispers of a super team — a label shared by another women’s team in the metro area, the New York Liberty, who made a WNBA Finals run in…
