SAN JOSE, CALIF. — In a match an entire year in the making, it was a moment of brilliance that separated Gotham FC from Washington Spirit in the 2025 NWSL Championship final, thanks to veteran midfielder Rose Lavelle.
The two teams have played each other more times (45) than any other team in NWSL history, surpassing the famed Pacific Northwest rivalry between the Portland Thorns and the Seattle Reign. In recent years, the matches have been more tightly contested, and with added meetings outside of the league during the 2025 Concacaf W Champions Cup, it was only natural that the 2025 NWSL Championship felt as cagey as it did at times.
It took a moment of brilliance by Lavelle late in the game for Gotham to finally capitalize on the possession they happened to retain while the Spirit were trying to manage getting out of an injury scenario. Spirit midfielder Hal Hershfelt was getting treatment on the sidelines for several minutes, and eventually came back into the match, but Gotham fullback Brunihna took advantage of the wide spaces, and Lavelle handled the rest.
“I think it was like, maybe the one moment I had in the game to step up. And I keep saying I think Bruninha did the heavy lifting on that, but yeah, it was a great ball across the box, and luckily I was able to get there to finish. But yeah, it was fun,” Lavelle said about her game-winning goal.
This is Gotham FC’s second NWSL Championship title in the last three years, though they haven’t made it easy on themselves. The club finished the 2025 regular season in eighth place, falling to the last available playoff spot. But Gotham FC had been in this scenario before in 2023 and were familiar with running a playoff gauntlet all the way to a podium finish. This is a first-time experience, though, for plenty of players in 2025, including Lavelle, who signed with the team in 2024 in a monster offseason for the club.
“I definitely wouldn’t have thought, like three years ago, that I’d be on Gotham playing in a final. I wouldn’t have anticipated that. But I think, nonetheless, it’s been a really exciting, fun journey. Being a part of the New York-New Jersey sports market has been so fun and special. So having the opportunity to potentially bring another title back to the city would be really, really cool in terms of [my] career,” Lavelle said in the days leading up to the NWSL Championship.
Lavelle is one of the league’s most familiar faces. A player whose singular talent has long been celebrated, a former No. 1 pick in the NWSL Draft, an event roster-building mechanism that no longer exists. She’s played for four different clubs before turning 30, and at one point even had to be selected in a dispersal draft, because the former club that drafted her, the Boston Breakers, folded.
Now, despite winning FIFA Women’s World Cups and Olympic gold medals, the long-time NWSL player was back in the NWSL Championship final, this time playing for the team that she lost against in 2023.
“I keep saying, I think we all know that we like underperformed, especially at the end of the season. I think that was not the end that we wanted to have. So, I think going into this season, like we just were so confident in the group that we had. We know we have a lot of talent, and so I think we really leaned on that this playoff series, and I think that’s what we saw, and that’s what ended up helping us win,” Lavelle said after the match.
The creative, quick-thinking, dribbling menace has often glided through plenty of midfield traffic. She often just needs a few touches to find the open lane or take the quick shot. She’s produced on the biggest stages in her career, and yet, an NWSL Championship has eluded her. That’s no longer the case, and the title win has an added sense of accomplishment due to its difficulty.
“I feel like this is like, this is like, what you play for. This season is like, so long and hard, but then you get to these moments, and it’s like this is the fun part. It’s win, lose, or go home. So, I think we’re all just like, fighting for each other and amped up playing every single day. It’s a heightened sense of excitement. I mean, technically, I like to think every game should be the same, and you go into every game feeling the same, but I definitely think the NWSL Playoffs is like a whole different beast.”
The NWSL postseason is a different beast. NWSL players often refer to it as a new season or series to get through. This postseason has put Lavelle in the spotlight again, especially whenever Gotham finds themselves in tricky game situations. Throughout the regular season and the playoffs, there have been times when their attack has stagnated, and the path to the goal seemed blocked. But it is in these moments that Lavelle’s quality becomes most vital, and where she’s found the most growth.
“Oh my gosh, I think it’s just so special. I keep saying like this was such a roller coaster of a season for us. We had injuries, we had a really daunting schedule with the amount of games that we were playing. The travel. I think just like the way that every single individual stepped up in the moments that they were asked to was so huge,” she said.
“And so, I think I would say, you learn the most about yourself in the toughest moments. I think the adversity that we faced throughout the season really helped set us up to be prepared for this playoff push. I think that, that’s really what set us up to, like, win in the end. We went through a lot of the season, we had seen it all, so, I don’t think anything felt like new or unfamiliar going into this. And I think that that was a really big advantage for us going into the playoffs.”
