Following the conclusion of Gotham FC’s 2-1 loss to current NWSL Shield leaders Kansas City Current at Sports Illustrated Stadium, the home side took time to honor its latest major accomplishment.
Gotham's first home match after winning the 2024-25 Concacaf W Champions Cup Final two weeks ago allowed the team to finally celebrate with its fans. The first-ever continental women's champions crowned by the federation were to be honored with a brief ceremony and one final trophy raise.
It wasn’t a lot, and maybe part of that isn’t on the organization, because celebrating something after a tough loss isn't easy.
Fans still did get a chance throughout the pregame to pose and take photos with the trophy, so combining the celebration with the huge affair that is Gotham's annual Pride Day worked out.
The trophy presentation
As the final whistle blew at Sports Illustrated Stadium, and as some players ran sprints along the pitch, a stage was wheeled onto the field. As the entirety of the Gotham roster crowded onto it, they were soon joined by team governor Carolyn Tisch Blodgett.
Her speech ran the longest, ramping up the crowd and ending on a high note.
"You, our fans, you are the heart and soul of this club... tonight we are not just champions of New York and New Jersey, we are champions of an entire continent."
That sentence got the biggest reaction of the ceremony from the remaining fans from the announced crowd of 10,399. Some of those included members of Cloud 9, Gotham’s main supporters group. After a long match that included a beautiful Pride-related tifo created by the group, many of them were excited to finally be in the same stadium as the trophy.
Only a handful had been able to head to Mexico for the W Champions Cup final against Tigres. The group released a statement to Hudson River Blue ahead of the ceremony.
"Cloud 9 is beyond proud that Gotham brought home this historic trophy to NJ/NY. It’s thrilling to see our players celebrated on the international stage," the statement said. "For us, it’s especially meaningful that Mandy Freeman, who has been a stalwart presence for the club since 2017 and deserves her flowers, was the one to lift this trophy as captain."
Cloud 9 got to witness what they wanted. After a brief word from Gotham's GM Yael Averbuch West, Freeman raised the trophy for all those in attendance at the stadium before the ceremony concluded.
History made
Gotham’s achievement is monumental for many reasons. Cloud 9 board member Jen Muller spoke with HRB before the game and, through pauses trying to find the words, elaborated on how much it meant.
"I think because it's the first, there's really no precedent in experiencing this," Muller said. "But yeah, surreal is a good way to put it."
For Muller and many others, the win was surreal in many ways. Gotham, formerly known as Sky Blue FC, was one of the worst teams in the National Women's Soccer League for multiple seasons. This was a team that was once investigated for alleged mismanagement and providing poor living conditions and inadequate facilities for its players.
Now with new owners and a new name and identity, those years at Rutgers University's Yurcak Field can feel like a decade ago if you weren't a fan at that time.
"I remember the low point was 2018 when our only win was the last game of the season," Muller said. "It's really, I mean, aside from 2022, it's pretty much just been up from there. It's joyful."
Gotham winning the trophy is not just historic in a team sense, it’s massive for soccer in the New York and New Jersey area, and in the wider United States.
The history of Concacaf crowning a continental men’s champion dates back to the inaugural 1962 Concacaf Champions Cup. In the 60-plus years since then, only three American teams have ever won the competition: D.C. United in 1998, LA Galaxy in 2000, and Seattle Sounders in 2022.
No local men's team has ever even played in the Final of the Champions Cup, and only a select few even came close. Both New York City FC and the New York Red Bulls have reached a semifinal on one occasion each, with both losing. RBNY lost to eventual champions CD Guadalajara of Liga MX in 2018, while NYCFC lost to eventual champions Seattle in 2022.
There are only two other instances of New York teams getting that close to the continental final, and both date back decades.
The Rochester Lancers, then defending North American Soccer League champions, took part in the tournament for the first and only time in 1971. The team beat a Bermudan side, Pembroke Hamilton, in two legs and advanced to a final group stage in Mexico alongside five other teams. With the top two teams in the group advancing to a championship Final, and needing a win in their final game, the Lancers lost 1-0 to Costa Rican side Liga Deportiva Alajuelense and were eliminated.
In 1984, the defending US Open Cup champion New York Pancyprian-Freedoms of Astoria, Queens reached the North American regional final round, with the winner of that playing the Caribbean zone winner in the final, but the Pancyprian-Freedoms got disqualified alongside CD Guadalajara for being unable to agree on dates for games.
"It's something to hang your hat on. You know, when somebody inevitably on social media will say that no New York team has done this (win a championship), and we just did it," Muller said. “You had the [WNBA's New York] Liberty last year (and) we just won another championship."
More celebrations needed
By all accounts, Saturday’s ceremony felt smaller than it logically should have been.
On a day when Gotham celebrated Pride, traditionally one of the biggest events of the year for the club and one that always draws a decent-sized crowd, the whole W Champions Cup event felt like an afterthought.
Not even the poor weather feels like a good excuse. A majority of the crowd held strong through the downpour and, by the time of the ceremony, the sun was beginning to break through the clouds. A poster giveaway and a rushed trophy ceremony with a trophy lift felt like paying lip service to something historic for the team, the area, and the continental United States.
There’s time for Gotham to still do more. It took the Seattle Sounders two months to hang a banner for their Champions Cup win back in 2022. Gotham had a few weeks. However, for a team that famously "didn’t expect to win" the NWSL Championship back in 2023, it doesn’t make it easy to believe that.
Hopefully, for members of the trophy-winning team and their fans, more will be coming to celebrate such a huge honor.
