Media day before the NWSL Championship is always a long, slightly chaotic time. Players sit in pairs, fielding questions left and right, trying to sum up the entirety of a season in a short window — knowing they could never quite capture the long journey to reach that moment. Head coach Laura Harvey, however, did so this year by saying “Rumor Has It” by Adele is the song that described her team’s season ahead of OL Reign’s championship meeting with Gotham FC on Saturday.
Neither Reign nor Gotham finished as one of the top two seeds in the regular season, requiring both to win quarter- and semifinal games. Both teams are also motivated, in part, by their retiring stars: Megan Rapinoe for the Reign, and Ali Krieger for Gotham. This final also has the promise of an excellent coaching battle between one of the league’s originals in Harvey and the 2023 coach of the year, Juan Carlos Amorós.
The NWSL has already surpassed the league’s record for ticket sales at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, announcing on Thursday that they’ve crossed 22,000 tickets sold. And with Rapinoe and Krieger providing a helpful narrative for neutrals, that number could rise even further.
Here’s everything you need to know ahead of Saturday’s match, with insights and quotes from media…
