Gotham FC vs Washington Spirit preview: Building up a budding "rivalry" | OneFootball

After what was, in the words of Head Coach Juan Carlos Amorós, a "bittersweet" draw with Chicago Stars FC last Friday, NJ/NY Gotham FC return home for the first time in seven weeks to take on the Washington Spirit to kick off NWSL Rivalry Week. It is the start of four in five games being at home, and the Bats will seek a positive result. They will want to build some momentum for the second half of the season, but also improve the team's home form, which has been shaky at best and currently sees them with the 11th-best home record so far this season.

This is the second meeting this season between the two clubs and the final in the NWSL regular season. When they met back in April, Gotham came out as 3-0 victors that saw rookie Sarah Schupansky score her first pro goal and collect one of her now league-leading five assists. Schupansky has recorded an assist in each of her last three games and could potentially do what Croix Bethune did in 2024 as a rookie and lead the league in assists as a rookie.

Despite it only being a few months ago, this Washington team is pretty different from the one Gotham played in April. Not only are players like Bethune and Trinity Rodman at or near match fitness after playing 10 and zero minutes respectively in the previous meeting, but the Spirit also has a new head coach. After being both an interim and assistant over the past season and a half, Adrián González is now the full-time head coach after Jonatan Giráldez left to coach OL Lyonnes in France.

As anybody who is chronically online will tell you, the league pushing this matchup as a rivalry has been met with mixed results. Yes, New York and D.C. teams have historically been rivals in other sports leagues, and the last season and a bit of matchups between the two have had the inklings of what Rose Lavelle called a "blooming rivalry" pregame. While it doesn't feel like this matchup has reached the point of being a full-blown rivalry just yet, another few years of competitive matchups and both teams being in the playoff picture could see it reach that point. Here is a preview of Saturday's "rivalry" matchup.

Gotham FC vs Washington Spirit preview

Date

The fixture will be played on Saturday, August 9.

Time

The match is scheduled to kick off at 12:00 PM ET.

How to watch

The game will be broadcast on ESPN and streamed on ESPN+.

Location

The match will be played at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey.

Weather

It looks like a fantastic day for a game with temperatures in the low 80s and humidity being at 40% and below. There will be a five to seven mph wind throughout with a 0% chance of rain.

Injury report

TBD

Players to watch

With Esther González coming back from Euro 2025 and Katie Stengel still building back up to full match fitness, do not be surprised to see Khyah Harper be given her second consecutive start. After her goal and genuinely good overall game against Chicago, the confidence level that the coaching staff, her teammates, and Gotham fans have a lot of confidence in her abilities to be able to replicate that if called upon to do so on Saturday.

For Washington, the aforementioned Rodman will obviously be one of the players to watch. As she did last week against the Portland Thorns, Rodman will probably come off the bench once again this weekend against Gotham. That does not limit her ability to affect the outcome of a game, as seen with her stoppage-time winner against the Thorns last week. If the game is close come the final 20ish minutes, don't be shocked to see the Spirit pull out the Rodman card to get a late result.

Despite this being a healthier and perhaps more settled Spirit team than back in April, this game will still see a Gotham win. 2-1 feels like a fair result with goals coming from Harper and Lavelle, and Gift Monday getting the goal for Washington as she continues her impressive first season in the NWSL.