Despite a challenging year for Bay FC fans, the San Francisco Bay Area was gifted a title game at PayPal Park, the NWSL Championship between Gotham FC and the Washington Spirit.
The atmosphere was electric, brimming to the rafters with soccer fans, many of them the Bay FC faithful. With everything on the line, it would take a moment of brilliance to decide the match, and that’s what happened.
In the 80th minute, Gotham FC’s Bruninha got the ball out wide unmarked and worked up a head of steam heading towards the corner of the penalty box. She then performed several step-overs, freezing the defense before flicking a perfectly weighted pass across the mouth of the goal to an acre of space that USWNT star Rose Lavelle ran into first.
She calmly picked out her target and slotted the ball just inside the post past outspread Spirit keeper Aubrey Kingsbury. “Bruninha did all the heavy lifting, and she just slotted across, and thank God it worked out,” explained Lavelle after the game.
As Lavelle was mobbed by her teammates on the pitch, a contingent of Gotham FC fans just behind the goal exploded in ecstasy, having traveled across the country to watch their eight-seeded team take a shocking lead on the second-seeded Washington Spirit.
Gotham almost seemed destined to win the title after two dramatic victories to make the championship game. Entering as the lowest-seeded team in the playoffs, Gotham beat the heavily favored first-seed Kansas City Current in the quarterfinals with a 2-1 extra-time victory on a last-minute strike by Katie Stengel. They followed that up with a 1-0 win over the Orlando Pride, with Jaedyn Shaw scoring on a free kick deep in second-half injury time.
“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 we were playing and the travel. And I think the way that every single individual stepped up in the moments that they were asked to was huge,” said Rose Lavelle after the game. “I think you learn the most about yourself in the toughest moments. I think that adversity we faced throughout the season really helped set us up to be prepared for this playoff push.”
As the 2025 NWSL season concluded, local soccer fans were treated to a world-class game and atmosphere at PayPal Park. The moment was also a bit of a wistful “what if” experience for the Bay FC fans, wondering what might have happened if their home team had somehow turned their season around and sneaked into the NWSL playoffs. But it also allowed Bay FC fans to dream of the possibilities if their local club could rebound in its third NWSL season and make its own playoff run in 2026.
