Washington Spirit might be the No. 2 seed, but after failing to make the NWSL playoffs for the two seasons after being crowned champions in 2021, recent years of underachievement have left scars. Now, with expansion side Bay FC ahead of them Sunday (stream live on ESPN+), the Spirit are determined to make up for lost time.
This season, the side has broken records aplenty. Completing their best regular season since they were founded in 2012, the Spirit won 18 games, scored 51 goals and amassed 56 points -- all team records. Such impressive numbers should have them pitched as favourites to win the NWSL championship, but the players are taking nothing for granted.
"I think we have continued to improve every single game," Washington Spirit and USWNT star Trinity Rodman told ESPN. "I think we not only have strong players and a strong staff, but our foundation, our environment, has been built really good. So even when we had players injured, we were still performing, and I think that's a good sign."
That foundation has come from culture of continuous learning engendered by head coach Jonatan Giraldez, who joined from Barcelona ahead of the season.
Giraldez arrived with an impressive résumé -- having led Barcelona's women's team to multiple titles, including two Liga F titles, one Queen's Cup, two Supercopas and one Champions League -- and a 50-game winning streak in the Spanish league. The 32-year-old coach has brought a winning culture to the Spirit locker room. But with a mindset anchored in continuous improvement, even victory isn't enough for him.
"I never like to say when you win you did a good job," Giraldez told ESPN. "When you win, you will have to analyse what you did bad and put the focus on that. It's my method, I consider that is the best for the team. We are here to win, but we have to improve the individual performance and team performance all the time."
While the team is improving on the pitch, the number of fans in the stands is also improving off it. In only their second year at Audi Field, the Spirit blew past their 150,000 regular-season attendance record in September, after just 11 games -- mirroring a 45% increase in attendance across the whole of the NWSL.
Against Bay FC in March, the Spirit had their highest attendance for a home opener in history (11,734); in June, they had their highest single-match attendance (19,897) against San Diego; and between June and August, they had their highest three-match attendance (52,744).
"It's so nice playing in front of the D.C. fans," midfielder Hal Hershfelt said. "I feel like even friends on other teams that play at our field say 'Ah, you guys have a great atmosphere.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, I know. It's our home field.'"
One reason for the rise in fan numbers is down to 22-year-old star forward Rodman, who signed a four-year deal worth $1.1 million in 2022 that made her the NWSL's highest-paid player. Since then she has not disappointed -- this season, she is the team's joint-top scorer with Ouleymata Sarr (8 goals) and her six assists are second behind Croix Bethune (10).
Rodman is an entertainer. "I think the emotional part of my game makes me entertaining, and I think it makes me Trinity," she told The Athletic recently. "I don't ever want that to change. I don't want to be a robot ever ... I always want to be the player [that has people asking] 'What is she going to do today?'"
Yet, despite having beaten them twice in the regular season, Rodman and the Spirit will have to be at their best to get through Bay FC. In May, things looked ominous after Bay lost seven of their first nine games and suffered a five-game losing streak to sit second-bottom, while carrying the worst defensive record in the league (20 goals).
But the San Francisco-based side then turned things around with NWSL's second-best record since the beginning of June -- five wins and two draws from eight games -- to seal a playoff spot. And the team will be powered by their African duo of Asisat Oshoala and Racheal Kundananji, the latter of whom became the world's most-expensive women's player when she transferred to Bay FC from Madrid CFF for $787,600 in February.
"We know the talent of Oshoala; I know her pretty good from Spain," the Spirit's assistant coach Adrian Gonzalez, who acted in an interim capacity before the arrival of Giraldez, told ESPN. "She's so powerful. Once she starts running, it is so difficult to stop her."
Gonzalez was in charge when Spirit beat Bay FC 2-1 at Audi Field in March, and says his team handled the challenge of stopping Oshoala well, even if they were fortunate that Kundananji missed the game through injury.
"Our two centre-backs did a really good job," he added. "We needed great communication between them, to always try to cover each other and try to be physical with her [Oshoala] because we know that when she starts running, one-vs.-one, she is very strong. As a team we defended very well Oshoala and I was happy for that."
Ultimately, if they are to progress in the playoffs, the Spirit will need to focus on the theme that has been an ever-present throughout the entire season: continuous improvement.
"I've been a part of seasons where at the midpoint you are bottom half of the table, and at the end you are top half and vice versa," veteran Andi Sullivan, who scored one of the goals in the 2021 championship-winning final, told ESPN. "So we have to remind ourselves every day, what is important, focusing on the details, and focus on the tight-knit group and being a strong team. And I think that hasn't wavered over this summer.
"We were excited to do that in the regular season and now, going forward, to get back into that habitual guns blazing every single day [of the playoffs]."