ORLANDO, Fla. — Gotham FC playmaker Jaedyn Shaw scored seven minutes into second-half stoppage time on her team’s only shot on target of the game to lift them to a 1-0 win over the defending NWSL champion Orlando Pride in Sunday’s semifinal at Inter&Co Stadium.
Gotham, the lowest-seeded team in this year’s playoff field, will face the Washington Spirit on Saturday in the NWSL Championship at PayPal Park in San Jose, California.
“I just knew that I had prepared myself for that moment, I have been working tirelessly on my free kicks,” Shaw said. “I live for these moments.”
Shaw starred in Gotham’s upset win over the No. 1 seeded Kansas City Current in the quarterfinals, scoring a goal and assisting the game-winner. She arrived at Gotham in September in a $1.25 million transfer from the North Carolina Courage, an NWSL intra-league record. On Sunday, she curled in the game’s lone goal from a free kick.
Her goal also ended the Orlando Pride’s hopes of repeating as champions after last year’s NWSL Shield and NWSL Championship double. Pride forward Marta said after the match that she didn’t think the referee should have awarded the free kick.
“It was not a foul. We should lose the game anyway, but not this way,” she said.
Marta, who turns 40 years old before the start of the next NWSL season, would not say what her future holds. She faced the same questions after winning her first NWSL title last year and she eventually signed a new two-year contract in January.
After Sunday’s loss, the six-time world player of the year said she is going to go visit family in Brazil. She still has the hunger to compete, she said.
“I’m not here to waste my time,” Marta said. “I never was. I am still hungry. I am not playing because of what I did in the past. I still feel like I can do something for this team, for my teammates, for my staff. I care so much. I care.
“I don’t know how long I’m gonna keep like that, but I still care so much, and I hope that we come back next year with the same mentality, a strong mentality, same belief, same attitude, because this team deserves much more.”
Marta played the role of provider on the Pride’s best chance of the game just past the half-hour mark. She dribbled through three Gotham defenders near the top of their penalty area and dished the ball wide to Julie Doyle, whose low cross was redirected slightly by the toe of Emily Sonnett — just enough for the ball to evade Pride winger Jacquie Ovalle from having an empty-net tap-in.
After Shaw’s goal, the Pride earned a free kick in the 100th minute. Marta again stood over it, with Orlando goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse joining the attack in search of an equalizer. Marta delivered a left-footed free kick to the head of Oihane Hernández, but Gotham goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger made a diving save to keep the ball out of the top corner.
If Gotham is to win a second championship in three years — they also won it in 2023 as the lowest seed (No. 6) — Shaw’s arrival will be a big reason for it.
Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amoros said he sees similarities between this Gotham team and the one that surprisingly won a title in 2023.
“Honestly, it’s very similar in that way,” he said. “Obviously, a lot of different people, but I think — and this is what we’ve been talking about internally for a very long time — we have everything to win, and that’s down to them.
“Because the key is you can have the individual talent — in this league everyone does — but the difference maker is when the individual talent really cares about winning not only for themselves, but for the person next to them.”
