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NWSL Gotham and the Spirit have played through packed schedules to reach the NWSL final. Emilee Chinn / Getty Images SAN JOSE, Calif. — The two finalists in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Championship, No. 2 Washington Spirit and No. 8 Gotham FC, are separated by three hours on the train. Half that in the air. Both traveled cross country this week to battle for the league title at Pay Pal Park in San Jose tonight, a distance they’ve become well acquainted with this year. Advertisement In addition to the NWSL season, Gotham and the Spirit competed in an international tournament that ran concurrently. The Concacaf W Champions Cup included teams from Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Mexico, and Canada. Group stage matches were held in the middle of the week, and most NWSL matches ran Friday to Sunday; occasions when the two overlapped resulted in itineraries that would make a travel influencer froth at the mouth. In August, the Spirit traveled from Santa Tecla, El Salvador, to San Jose — roughly 4, 200 miles — for matches separated by three days. The following month, Gotham traversed the West Coast for games in San Diego, Vancouver, and San Jose across 12 days. Two paths to the NWSL Championship! Live from Media Day in San Jose, @100purcent and @croixbethune join Full Time to talk all things NWSL Championship ? Watch the full episode at the link in our bio ? #nwsl #championship #gothamfc #washingtonspirit ♬ original sound – The Athletic Full Time – The Athletic Full Time With relentless itineraries, players picked up injuries, most notably that of Spirit and U. S. women’s national team forward Trinity Rodman, who sprained her MCL in a Concacaf match against Monterrey on October 15. But the fact that both teams still managed to reach the NWSL championship suggests there may be benefits to packing the schedule: strengthening the bench, building endurance on the road, and fostering relationships — all necessary components of championship-winning teams. (It’s also worth noting that the other NWSL team to compete in the Concacaf W Champions Cup, the Orlando Pride, reached the NWSL semifinals this season, losing to Gotham. ) “It’s felt like eight years in one season, ” Spirit goalkeeper and captain Aubrey Kingsbury said in a press conference on Friday. “It was a lot of difficult travel, but our club did a great job of trying to make it as seamless as possible. We tried to rotate the team, so I think the benefit of that is we’ve got a really deep roster. Everyone’s pretty fresh in terms of playing in important matches. ” The impulse to question the value of a tournament like the Champions Cup to NWSL teams is an understandable one. In addition to the travel requirements, they have not yet garnered much attendance and are still competitively disparate apart from the NWSL and Liga MX Femenil teams. What exactly are the players getting out of them, and how (if at all) are they applied to the league? Advertisement “It’s been a bit of a roller coaster of a season. I think we’ve had a lot of high highs, a lot of low lows, a lot of crazy travel, but I think with all of that, it’s allowed us a lot of roster rotation, so a lot of people stepping up and playing different roles, ” said Gotham and USWNT midfielder Rose Lavelle. “Going through that kind of adversity throughout the season has allowed us to be ready for these moments. ” Gotham FC won the inaugural 2024 Concacaf W Champions Cup, the final of which was held in May this year. Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós added how the team’s extra time together on the road — which began with a preseason training in Marbella, Spain — has fostered closer bonds between the players. “I think that those are experiences that you can look at them like, ‘Oh, they get you tired, you travel more, you play more, ’ but then it’s also a consequence of your success and it prepares you more, ” he said on Friday. “So I think we always try to look at the glass half full, and I think those experiences and that time together have put us in this press conference today. ” The additional minutes have certainly suited players such as Spirit forward Rosemonde Kouassi, who joined the team last season from Fleury in the French league. The Ivorian international scored the Spirit’s first goal of the Concacaf tournament, which eventually became a hat-trick and resulted in her making the competition’s Best XI of the group stage. In the Spirit’s postseason alone, she’s made two goal contributions of the three her team has scored, on top of the four goals and six assists she’s recorded in the 19 regular-season matches she played. “She’s improving a lot, being more patient sometimes on the ball, slowing down a little bit. Decision-making is also improving, assisting. (She) is really, really dangerous, especially when she receives with time and space, she’s able to beat any opponent in this league, ” Spirit manager Adrian Gonzalez said. “I’m so happy for her because obviously it’s not easy coming from another country, another league, so she needed some time to adapt. ” Advertisement Although the embellished schedules have appeared to benefit the NWSL finalists individually, they didn’t manage to make statements against each other within the Concacaf tournament. Gotham and the Spirit were in the same group and played each other on October 1 to a tepid, scoreless draw. Both have advanced to the quarterfinals, which will be held in May 2026. It’s hard to imagine the championship ending that way if any one of Kouassi, Rodman, Gift Monday, Esther Gonzalez, Jaedyn Shaw and Midge Purce is on the pitch — not to mention the miles of mental fortitude and confidence gained from succeeding in so many different ways and in so many different countries — throughout the year. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Tamerra Griffin is a women’s soccer writer for The Athletic covering the women’s game around the world. She also hosts the weekly “Full Time” women’s soccer podcast. As a freelance journalist, she covered the 2023 World Cup in Australia and the CONCACAF W Gold Cup for The Athletic, as well as women’s soccer stories for ESPN Andscape, USA Today’s Pro Soccer Wire, and other publications. Prior to that, she was an international correspondent based in Kenya, where she reported on presidential elections and political movements, LGBTQ and women’s rights, climate change, and much more across East and Southern Africa. Follow Tamerra on Twitter @tamerra_nikol