NWSL’s NJ/NY Gotham FC win inaugural edition of Concacaf W Champions Cup after 1-0 win over Tigres

The NWSL’s NJ/NY Gotham FC won the inaugural edition of the Concacaf W Champions Cup on Saturday and beat Tigres 1-0 thanks to a late goal from Esther Gonzalez. Gotham’s only goal came in the 82nd minute, the chance that first presented itself in a penalty. Gonzalez stepped up to take the mockery, and although Tigres goalkeeper Itzel Gonzalez made the stop, the Gotham player got the ball and scored on the rebound.

View the strike below.

The champions were dominant from start to finish and took 23 shots to Tigres’ seven, but finding the Go-Ahead goal was easier said than done for Gotham against their defensive opponent. Gotham had a golden chance in the first half of the stopping time when Mid Purse earned a penalty, but Itzel Gonzalez stopped that shot and a party Gotham players could not regain the ball despite a clambering to make another shot.

For Gotham, the Champions Cup marks the latest award in a successful piece of years for a club that was once a soil resident in the NWSL. Since hiring Juan Carlos Amoros prior to the 2023 season, they have won the NWSL championship and the Concacaf W Champions Cup and last year they were also finalists in the NWSL Challenge Cup and NWSL X Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup.

“I feel fantastic. I feel that we really left it all there and everyone really fought until the end and we deserved the victory and we really deserved it,” said defender Mandy Freeman, who has been to the club in 2017 since her Rookie season. “I have no words.

The Champions Cup is one of the various new competitions that indicate the further development of the women’s game at club level, the structure of which is now starting to look like the game for men. This structure includes the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup, with which the club champions of all six FIFA confederations participate in a competition that will debut in 2026, and FIFA Women’s Club World Cup, the first edition of which will take place in 2028.

By winning the Champions Cup, Gotham has qualified for both FIFA competitions and it is the first NWSL team to do this.

“I think it is a historic moment for women’s football in the US and in New York, on the east coast,” Amoros said in his press conference after the game. “We sometimes have very great expectations. It is hard to see when you are in the middle of the competition, and people in America are of course very focused on the competition, and you have this midweek [Concacaf] Games and for us it was so important to hear. So important. We believe that this is a game changer for us as a club … It is huge, the fact that Gotham will be on the world in the world in the coming three years, somehow, is definitely something that we are incredibly proud of.

“Of course we also organize the World Cup Final of the men in New York [next year]We organize FIFA [men’s] Club World Cup Final in New York [this year]. I think we are step by step, making New York one of the largest cities in the world around the football game. “