Reporting from Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego.
If anyone doubted the National Women’s Soccer League’s ability to entertain, look no further than the final moments of Saturday’s NWSL Championship at Snapdragon Stadium.
The press box cleared out as the last of six minutes of allotted stoppage time ticked away, an occupational hazard of the up-to-the-second world of media, and the need to move quickly to switch into postgame mode and get to field level.
But as dozens of reporters packed up and stood to watch the final seconds of what looked like (and eventually was) a 2-1 NJ/NY Gotham FC victory and the team’s first NWSL trophy, a 50-50 ball deflected generously for OL Reign, and forward Elyse Bennett was suddenly in alone on goal. Gotham goalkeeper Mandy Haught came off her line and punched the ball near the top of the box. Reign midfielder Rose Lavelle flashed the follow-up shot high and wide of the empty net.
“I thought I was on the line, but, heat of the moment, you don’t want the ball to go over you, so you just kinda have to do what you’ve gotta do,” Haught said.
Forty-five seconds later, as Haught launched a goal kick into the air hoping she could restart the game, referee Katja Koroleva blew her whistle to head to the monitor for a video review. Koroleva needed only a quick look to see that Haught punched the ball outside the box. Red card to Haught. Free kick to the Reign.
Butts back in seats, laptops back out.
Gotham had already used three substitution windows, meaning Haught could not be replaced. Midfielder Nealy Martin grabbed the gloves and was eventually handed a salmon-colored goalkeeper jersey with no name or number. She had been in this position before, on the same field, three months earlier.
Nealy Martin was forced to play goalkeeper after Gotham FC ran out of substitutions. pic.twitter.com/U4qQFOReuL
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) November 12, 2023
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) November 12, 2023
“I think that was the full circle,” Gotham coach Juan Carlos Amorós said. “It was like you write a script of a movie and it doesn’t happen. It was unbelievable.”
A day prior, Amorós spoke about the first such moment that Martin went in goal for the team. It was at Snapdragon Stadium, where he sat to field questions ahead of the NWSL Championship. On that day, Aug. 19, Gotham lost to the San Diego Wave, 2-1, finishing the match with Martin in net after goalkeeper Abby Smith was injured in stoppage time. Katie Stengel scored after that sequence, even with Gotham short a player, and — as Amorós described it — Wave players were begging for the match to end.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, my team is really a champion,” Amorós said on Friday, calling that Aug. 19 match the hardest of his coaching career. A day later, his players were confirmed as champions. They did so at the scene of inspiration.
“It was the game where we knew we could win the whole thing,” Martin said during Saturday’s postgame, “so we huddled in the same spot we did at the end of that game and reminded ourselves of why we’re here and why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
It was also the game that effectively made Haught the starting goalkeeper since Smith would miss the rest of the season due to injury.
The moments after Haught’s red card were obviously defining, and each minor detail mattered.
After issuing the red card, Koroleva jogs over to the Gotham bench to issue a yellow card. This matters, because it pulled her away from the scene of the crime, where Haught remained and could be seen on camera repeating the word, “five,” for how many players she wanted in the wall.
“I was trying to say how many people [I wanted] in the wall and just tendencies for Nealy to look for,” Haught said. “It’s her second time in goal, so I hope she was a little comfortable.”
Haught should have left the field immediately after being ejected, but Haught stayed on the field for two full minutes after the red card, directing her team as Reign players hatched a plan to challenge Gotham’s impromptu goalkeeper, Martin. Haught was eventually shepherded away in part by Reign midfielder Emily Sonnett, who soon had a brief altercation with Gotham forward Lynn Williams near the ball.
By that point, Gotham midfielder Sinead Farrelly had tracked down a blank goalkeeper kit for Martin to wear, and teammate Allie Long was standing next to Martin and delivering further insight on the free kick about to be taken by Lavelle.
“I think they just know I’ll throw my body at whatever,” Martin said. “I’m a little crazy, will do whatever it takes.”
Before her first emergency appearance in net this season, Martin had only ever trained as a practice goalkeeper a few years ago, in the spring of her senior year at Alabama, after she had exhausted her college eligibility and was attempting to earn a professional contract.
“My first day [of that spring], I show up and they are like, ‘No, we need you to train as a goalkeeper,” Nealy recalled on Saturday, NWSL Championship winner’s medal around her neck. “My first day, I was doing 1-v-1s, so I’ve done some goalkeeper training, but it’s mostly just like relying on my athletic abilities.”
Haught’s biggest save came around the hour mark when she (legally) denied Reign forward Veronica Latsko on a 1-v-1 breakaway after Lavelle spun out of a double-team and played a perfect through ball.
By night’s end, it was easy to forget that moment. Haught had been sent off, but it was actually a game-winning play. That is not to condone cheating, but her options were to let the ball go past her and potentially concede an equalizer, or make the play and risk being shown a red card, but force the Reign to earn the goal from a free kick. If that had happened and the game went to extra time, each team would have been afforded an extra substitution, and backup goalkeeper Michelle Betos could have entered the match.
Any potential consequences for Haught could be dealt with another day. This was the championship; there was no other playoff game to worry about. Haught will serve her suspension in the 2024 season-opener.
Lavelle’s left-footed shot from 19 yards out was blocked by the wall that Haught helped set. Fifty seconds later — and nearly six minutes after Haught’s punch outside of the box — the final whistle blew.
“I was so proud of her, because she made a good decision in a key moment,” Amorós said of Haught. He continued:
“She told me, ‘Juan, I’m sorry.’ I said, ‘Mandy, I think you won the game.’”
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