|
Moments after scoring one of the most iconic goals in NWSL history in her team's most important game to date, Orlando Pride forward Marta clutched her fist and unleashed a passionate scream before beating her chest and then, with her two thumbs, pointing to the famous No. 10 on the back of her purple jersey. Even at 38, the six-time world player of the year was still the otherworldly star making defenders helplessly fall to the ground as she figuratively gestured: "Are you not entertained!?" Marta was celebrating what turned out to be the winning goal of the top-seeded Pride's 3-2 semifinal victory over the No. 4 seed Kansas City Current on Sunday at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando to punctuate the most captivating semifinal playoff round the NWSL has seen. Now, the two best teams in the league will square off in the final on Saturday in Kansas City, Missouri, where the Pride will face the No. 2-seeded Washington Spirit. Everything about this NWSL postseason has been entertaining -- and deviated from the league's unpredictable norm. The higher seed has won every game of the playoffs, an obvious statistic in a vacuum but a shocking fact for a league whose unofficial brand is chaos. When Orlando and Washington meet on Saturday, it will mark the first time since 2019 that the top two seeds reached the final. It's also the first time the Shield winner has made the final in five years. Coming off historic parity in 2023 -- a season in which first and last place were separated by only 13 points, and the No. 6 seed won the title -- this year has been about the stars and the individual and team level. The top four teams were in a class of their own, with the fourth-place Kansas City Current finishing 16 points above the fifth-place North Carolina Courage. Orlando finished 40 points above the last-place Houston Dash. All four top seeds advanced in the opening round of the playoffs, which led to an incredible semifinal round in which the margins were thin. Washington knocked out NJ/NY Gotham FC on Saturday in a penalty shootout thanks to the triple-save efforts of Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury. Orlando held on to survive a late Kansas City onslaught in 19 minutes of stoppage time. Each of the weekend's victors leaned into their strengths to prevail: The Spirit rallied for an equalizer in second-half stoppage time on a combination between two rookies -- Makenna Morris and Hal Hershfelt -- to claw back into a game late, as they have so many times this year. Orlando's role players put in huge shifts -- including unheralded Haley McCutcheon, who scored in her second straight playoff game -- as Marta and star striker Barbra Banda scored memorable goals. Speaking ahead of Sunday's semifinal about what might separate two of the best teams the league has ever seen, Kansas City coach Vlatko Andonovski said the game probably would come down to a moment of brilliance. He was right -- although it was moments, plural. The same can now be said about Saturday's championship, one that with no hyperbole might be the most anticipated in league history. Orlando set a league points record (60) and both teams finished the regular season with 18 victories, also a league record. Both squads feature global stars, headlined by U.S. international forward Trinity Rodman for the Spirit, and each team has a ludicrous amount of roster depth. The midfield battle will be a scrap, with Hershfelt patrolling from a deep area for the Spirit and McCutcheon and Angelina counteracting her for Orlando. Banda -- and, as she reminded the world again Sunday, Marta -- can single-handedly change a game, but so too can Rodman, who delivered the winning assist in extra time as a rookie in the 2021 final, when the Spirit won their only trophy to date. Wide areas could decide the winner Saturday, as they partly did throughout the semifinals. Both goals before the penalty shootout in the Gotham-Spirit semifinal came on the heels of individual brilliance on the flank. The Pride gave up an early goal to Kansas City on Sunday in a transition moment that ended with Current forward Michelle Cooper getting to the endline on the right flank and crossing the ball to Debinha for the finish. Orlando quickly answered when McCutcheon redirected a cross from winger Ally Watt, who sized up Current rookie defender Ellie Wheeler one-on-one in the right channel. Expect Saturday's final to be a chess match between two of the best coaches in the league who each came to this moment on two wildly different roads. Spirit head coach Jonatan Giráldez left the glory of Barcelona, which he led to the two most recent European crowns, to take on the challenge of the NWSL starting halfway through this season. He has pulled all the right strings even while dealing with mounting injuries, including season-ending issues for three starters. Pride head coach Seb Hines played for Orlando's MLS club before becoming an assistant through three different Pride coaching regimes. He took over as interim in 2022 as the Pride were at another low point and turned a hopeless club into a team that was difficult to beat and, for the first time in years, a place players wanted to be. Hines is stoic; Giráldez wears his heart on his sleeve -- or at least did in a rowdy, chippy semifinal. The Pride and Spirit were separated by only four points in the regular season. Orlando clinched the NWSL Shield in October with a 2-0 home victory over a Spirit team depleted by injuries (which were compounded by midfielder and captain Andi Sullivan tearing her ACL in that game). Marta made the difference on that day, too, scoring the winning goal from the penalty spot. Afterward, she was reduced to tears as she celebrated her first U.S. domestic club trophy since winning the 2011 title in a now defunct league. "I stayed here because I want to make history with this team," Marta said after that Shield-clinching victory on Oct. 6. "And then we did tonight, and then we go for more." As Hines said after Sunday's semifinal victory, the Pride and the Spirit were the two best teams this year and they deserve to be in the final. They each proved that again in the semifinals as they came from behind and leveraged every bit of depth and star power on their respective rosters. On Saturday, they meet again in a heavyweight fight likely to be decided by a few moments of brilliance. If even a modicum of energy from the playoffs thus far is brought to that game, it guarantees to entertain.
|
