Gotham FC general manager Yael Averbuch West penned her annual letter to fans this week, expressing excitement for the club’s upcoming title defense.
But Averbuch West’s words also highlighted the organization’s relentless desire to be the undisputed best.
Gotham has been one of the most brilliant postseason teams in recent memory, having won two of the last three NWSL championships. But the dominance that shows up each November hasn’t consistently been the case during the regular season.
By Gotham’s brazen standards, that’s unacceptable.
So Averbuch West publicly outlined Gotham’s expectations for 2026 as a form of accountability.
“One of our goals is to be a perennial top-four NWSL team and a true Shield contender,” she wrote. “We want consistency. We want to be playing our best soccer in the playoffs, and we want our regular-season performance to reflect the championship standards we hold.”
In a conversation with The Post ahead of Saturday’s season opener against Boston, Averbuch West echoed a similar sentiment.
“We feel very ambitious about where we still want to go,” Averbuch West said. “We both felt dissatisfied with the season and also obviously very, very satisfied and happy with how it ended.”
It’s sort of poetic that Gotham is set to open its title defense Saturday at Gillette Stadium, the home of one of the greatest modern sports dynasties. Gotham aspires to have Patriots-level success, where opposing fans get annoyed at how constantly good the club is.
Gotham always seems to peak at the right time under Juan Carlos Amorós’ guidance. But the club brass expects more.
“We’ve seen bits and pieces of both, but we’ve not yet put together a full season of dominance in the way that we aspire to,” Averbuch West said. “And that does take time, that takes continued progress, but we’re very ambitious about reaching a new level of consistent high performance.”
That means being bold, like signing Norwegian star Guro Reiten from Chelsea FC this week.
Sometimes, it also means making the difficult decisions, like trading likeable forward Gabi Portilho to the San Diego Wave last week.
“We’re always evaluating… What does the future look like here? What does the future look like for the player?” Averbuch West said. “And so at the end of the day, we’re very sad to say goodbye but I think it was the right thing for everyone.”
Gotham retained its championship core, anchored by 2025 leading scorer Esther González, forward Midge Purce, midfielders Rose Lavelle, Jaedyn Shaw and Jaelin Howell, defenders Emily Sonnet and Bruninha and goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger.
Gotham also signed former Florida State star Jordynn Dudley, who was arguably the highest-rated forward in college last season, and Stanford forward Andrea Kitahata.
Gotham had the shortest offseason of any NWSL team. After playing in the final game of the season, the winners of the first CONCACAF title reconvened in January to represent the NWSL at FIFA’s first global women’s club competition.
Gotham wanted the Women’s Champions Cup to be an extension of its 2025 championship run. The tournament was a chance for Gotham to start 2026 by sending a message on the global stage and becoming world champions.
They fell short, being stunned in the semifinals by Brazilian club Corinthians.
“We learned an enormous amount,” Averbuch West said. “We were disappointed with our finish.We wanted to win it, we wanted to definitely be in the final, so there’s no shying away from that.… We knew it was going to be tough and we weren’t able to execute in that game in the way that we had hoped.”
Gotham is looking to put those lessons into practice this season.
The biggest thing Averbuch West is looking for this season?
“It’s about consistency during the season,” she said. “That doesn’t mean we need to be our very best from Game 1. Something I like that we’ve done in really every season Juan’s been here is our team has gotten stronger throughout and then peaked at the right time. And I think that’s very important. At the same time, I think we would like to see a more consistent build and a more consistent set of performances to where we know with a little more certainty the kind of the level to which we’re going to play in each half of every game.”
