The day before the San Diego Wave opened their 2024 season with a win over NJ/NY Gotham FC in the NWSL Challenge Cup, Alex Morgan and Jaedyn Shaw asked a seemingly innocent question: What would it take for their team to finish last season would improve? , when they won the NWSL Shield and reached the semi-finals of the play-offs?
Morgan said it would take a further embrace of the club's ethos as there has been essentially a winning culture since the team's first game in 2022. Shaw agreed, but had one more comment.
“That, and staying healthy,” she told CBS Sports. “We all need to stay healthy.”
Shaw, and players like her, aren't just worried that her team's ambitions will be derailed by the bad luck of injuries, largely because a spell on the sidelines no longer feels like it's a matter of chance. Women's soccer players are beginning to notice the increasing demands as the game rapidly evolves, especially with the addition of new leagues, raising concerns that their teams – and the sport as a whole – are not properly structured to successfully carry the load. .
Look no further than the schedule that awaits Gotham in 2024. In addition to the 26 regular season games on the schedule, they took part in the Challenge Cup and could play three additional games in the play-offs if they achieved victory for the second time in a row. the NWSL Championship. They could also play three to five matches in the inaugural edition of the NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup and another five to seven matches in the inaugural Concacaf W Champions Cup, which they are expected to be invited to as reigning NWSL champions. .
The possibility of a 42-game load, coupled with the plethora of games players will play for their national teams during an Olympic year, is a significant increase from the 31 games Gotham played last season. The increased burden is a stark reminder of the inequality of women's sports, to the point that athletes like Morgan have brought the disparities in medical resources and travel arrangements to the attention of high-ranking people like Douglas Emhoff, the Second Gentlemen of the United States. That's also why Gotham's biggest project this season wasn't exactly their stunning free agency sweep, in which they signed four players from the U.S. Women's National Team, but rather an attempt to raise standards at the club.
“We have put in a tremendous amount of work this off-season to ensure we have the right systems, processes and support in place to ensure these players deliver their very best performances,” general manager Yael Averbuch West said at a press conference in January. (Disclosure: Averbuch West is the wife of CBS Sports Golazo Network host Aaron West.) “Making sure we understand that, respond to that and then get the players back on the field as quickly as possible has been a huge focus of us Actually, I've been doing most of the offseason work in the offices with the staff, with the medical staff, with the executive staff, with the operational staff, making sure that we have the right structure set up, recovery and all the things that these athletes need to be successful.”
Gotham's recruitment boom
Gotham's ambitious roster building during the offseason was not matched by the hires they brought in in 2024, which spanned several categories in player care. New additions to the club's staff include a high-performance director with a staff of approximately 10 people working alongside him, a chef, a dietician, a sports psychologist, a mental skills coach, a head of player care and a head of player safety and security. operations and other catering staff.
It has dramatically changed the day-to-day experience at Gotham from last year to this year, something Averbuch West said allows players to “just show up and not worry about anything but performing at their best.”
“We share training fields with the New York Red Bulls and around the corner we have opened an office and a space that we have expanded into a medical room, locker room and gym for the players,” as well as a film analysis room, Averbuch West told CBS Sports in a recent interview. “The day starts for everyone in this new space where we have everything set up so that they can come in, have breakfast, get their treatment there, have their morning meeting there… Then from there they can have meetings. They can do recovery , sit in the recovery booth, receive additional treatment and meet the coaches.”
It's not that different from the setup at a top-level men's soccer club, but the reason Gotham had to make such a transformation is because this structure is fairly new in women's soccer, which has historically been underfunded.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the length of time that the two leagues have been around,” Julian Haigh, Gotham's new high-performance director, told CBS Sports. “Take the MLS as an example, I think they still have a long way to go, but in terms of, they've had the resources for a lot longer, and like I said, these things just take time to build and improve. .”
Haigh joined Gotham in October after a stint at MLS' Inter Miami, but has been working in and around the NWSL for nearly a decade. He has had a front-row seat to the NWSL's rapid progress in terms of resources available to players to ensure they are in top condition.
“Historically in the NWSL,” he said, “it was the classic one-man band. You had one person doing everything: the GPS, the strength and conditioning, the return to play. [plans] While now you will see more and more across the entire league, at every club and in every department, that there are now several people.”
Haigh cited the high level of investment being put into several areas of women's football, particularly player fitness, and applauded Gotham's commitment to doing the same.
“Before I joined last year, I certainly had a lot of questions, given the history of Sky Blue,” he said of the club under its old name when it was founded. a reputation for poor conditions, including no showers in their home stadiums and one-time forcing players to bring their own water to training. “I can't say enough about Yael and the staff here and their dedication to doing things well and the right way… Winning is expensive and doing it right takes time, effort and money. It doesn't .” It didn't happen overnight and they met every challenge head on and I'm so impressed.”
Averbuch West attributed the league-wide updates to the NWSL's unique ownership model. Most of the league's teams do not fall under the umbrella of an MLS club, including Gotham, which presents its own challenges but also allows NWSL clubs to build structures that meet their specific needs – and avoids that they must share with a potentially unwilling partner. The general manager called the Kansas City Current a team leading the way in the NWSL after opening an $18 million facility in 2022, the first designed specifically for a team in the league.
“The original model for NWSL, I think when it first started, is that most teams follow the paths of men's teams and share with men's facilities and that's great because the infrastructure is already there,” she said. “I think there's a new vision of how teams can succeed independently of that and that they can have their own spaces, their own facilities, their own brand, all in-house, just for a sorority.”
Challenges remain
The increased resources are not only needed to reduce inequality in football, but also because there is a worrying trend in women's football. This is evident from a report published by FIFPRO in December, the union that represents all footballers, more matches, less rest and longer travel led to an increase in ACL tears in women's footballers. It has led several vocal figures in the game to criticize the burden on players, including Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amoros. He has spent much of the past few months criticism of the timing of the Concacaf W Gold Cupwhich took place weeks before the NWSL season started, and he also expressed disdain after Midge Purce tore her ACL in their regular season opener with the Portland Thorns last month.
Women's football is currently in a balancing act amid increasing investment and attention. While adding more fixtures to the calendar would help meet increased demand and professionalize the women's game in a manner similar to the men's, these changes may be happening too quickly.
“We, as players, understand that people want to see us play. If fans get a chance to see us play, more than the… [26] games on the schedule,” Gotham's Crystal Dunn said last month. 'I think players want to be protected too… I will always be on the side of supporting the players and making sure it's done in such a protected way that people can. walk out that moment and still have enough in the tank to give to the season when it starts again.”
For Haigh and the staff around him, the job is to limit as many risks as possible. He says the increased demand for players is an opportunity to push women's football in the right direction when it comes to player care.
“We have our entire season planned, from start to finish, and as we get more information about these games, we add them and say, 'How does this change our rhythm?'” he said. “For us, this is just part of the job. I certainly don't see it as a negative. I think it's an exciting opportunity to really continue to push the standards and level of professionalism of the league.”
Travel arrangements remain a particular bottleneck. Dunn boldly acknowledged that “the reality is we don't fly private jets. We literally fly commercial,” a commonality in women's sports but not in men's sports. Gotham is working on solutions to these issues, including comprehensive player travel plans for club and country.
“We have a whole document for our internationals where we look at flight times, airports, number of changes, number of time zone changes,” he said. “All of these pieces are then factored into the players' recovery plans. We have prepared travel packages for those traveling back and forth from Europe or across multiple time zones to help them with jet lag.”
Averbuch West added that the NWSL has several opportunities for people in the league to discuss issues surrounding player fitness as they try to do the balancing act.
“The league has been very open to conversations,” she said. 'We are in regular contact with the [NWSL] sporting director [Tatjana Haenni] and we have these calls – I'm on a technical task force and we have calls with the team GMs. I know the head coaches have calls, the business staff has calls, so there are a lot of calls and forums for these types of conversations where the league is presented, we can ask questions. There is certainly a good path at the moment and there are a lot of conversations going on.”
