New York to honor NWSL champions Gotham FC with City Hall celebration

New York City will celebrate National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) champions Gotham FC on Monday with a morning procession to City Hall, the club announced Sunday.

The New Jersey/New York club entered the postseason as the last seed and defeated the No. 2-ranked Washington Spirit 1-0 at PayPal Park in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday in front of a sellout crowd of 18,000. It is their second NWSL championship in three seasons.

Due to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade taking place on Nov. 27, the City of New York was unable to coordinate a separate event of a similar magnitude in the same week, a club spokesperson told The Athletic. Gotham’s NYC celebration will include a fleet of buses that will drive toward City Hall, and the procession will conclude with the team being awarded the key to the city. City buildings will also be lit up in Gotham blue. Tickets to the event, which begins at 10 a.m., are available online.

By Tuesday, 10 Gotham players will report for international duty in the last FIFA window of the year, the spokesperson added, which runs from Nov. 24 to Dec. 2.

“Gotham Football Club continues to make our city proud, and we will celebrate them like the champions they proved they are last night. This team embodies everything we love about women’s soccer — grit, skill, and pure determination,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement.

“In a city that never settles for less, Gotham FC reminds us of what it means to fight for greatness, to defy expectations, and to win with heart. Their victory is more than a championship; it’s a statement that women’s sports belong on the biggest stage in the world.”

Tight turnaround aside, Gotham’s championship celebration on Monday is a vast improvement from the way the club recognized its 2023 title, the first in club history. That year, despite a spectacular club rebrand and rebound from the previous season, Gotham did not organize any public-facing events that granted supporters an opportunity to recognize and celebrate players from that title-winning roster and vice versa.

The club instead filled its calendar with a bell-ringing event at the New York Stock Exchange, player television appearances and Times Square billboards in a move that signaled a lack of preparedness.

Gotham players described this season as a rollercoaster. Significant roster turnover from the 2024 season meant several new faces on the team. The competition schedule included not only NWSL matches but also Concacaf W Champions Cup games, which took the team to cities like Monterrey, Mexico; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Vancouver, Canada. Gotham won the inaugural confederation title in May and will compete in the 2025-26 edition’s semifinals next year.

Gotham also dealt with injuries to key players like center back Tierna Davidson (who is still out with an ACL injury) and midfielder Rose Lavelle, who missed the first three months of the season with an ankle injury but scored Gotham’s game-winning goal in the championship. And despite entering the postseason as the No. 8 seed, the team managed to topple NWSL Shield winners the Kansas City Current in the quarterfinals and the 2024 NWSL champions the Orlando Pride in the semis — both away from home — before staging a final upset against the No. 2 Washington Spirit, which also reached the final last year.

“I think at the beginning of the season, or in the middle of the season, we didn’t show our potential,” Gotham goalkeeper and German international Ann-Katrin Berger said in the mixed zone after the game. “That’s why I think the final was for all of them back in New York, because our fans were incredible the whole season long, and I think they deserved to win it today as much as we do.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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