Midge Purce owned the night as Gotham FC earned its NWSL championship |

After that game, after the heartbreaking early departure of Megan Rapinoe, after back-and-forth goals, after the chaotic drama of Goatham FC goalkeeper Mandy Haught’s red card and field player Nealy Martin’s emergency stint in goal to finish out the dregs of stoppage, Midge Purce faced yet another challenge. Speaking to journalists with a champagne-drenched uniform and an NWSL championship medal around her neck, ski goggles were perched on her forehead. They hadn’t worked.

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“It’s cheap s— so (champagne) got in my eye,” Purce said. She couldn’t stop beaming.

Purce was the fulcrum around which that game pivoted – a thrilling, dramatic 2-1 win over OL Reign that delivered Gotham FC the 2023 NWSL title. Both Gotham goals came off Purce assists, to Lynn Williams and Esther. She led all players in successful dribbles with five, all originating along the right flank she dominated throughout the 90-plus minutes. Her performance was enough to net Purce an additional piece of hardware: Championship MVP.

“Midge is incredible on the ball,” Martin said after the game. “She does so much for us at times. I turn around, she’s playing center back and then we win the ball and she’s attacking. So there’s really nothing she can’t do.”

Purce’s first assist dazzling, a series of bold one-v-ones that culminated in service to Lynn Williams in the box.

On another level today. 🤯

Take a bow, @100Purcent.

— NJ/NY Gotham FC (@GothamFC) November 12, 2023

The second was a corner kick that found a rising Esther, whose header was almost too deft to be called “textbook.”

“I’ve been practicing set pieces for a little bit,” she said. “Trying to get on that set piece roster. And they’ve been working with me a lot. I put it in the wrong place a couple times in Portland and I was really upset about it. So putting that in the right place was good, and then Esther was just incredible.”

Going 🆙, @Estheeer9! ⚽️@GothamFC restores its lead just before the break!#NWSLChampionship

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) November 12, 2023

Heading into Saturday night, the temptation was to focus on Gotham FC’s potential worst-to-first journey. The team finished the 2022 season with a paltry 13 points from 22 games and ended the year on an astounding 13-game winless streak which included 12 consecutive losses. Purce herself had three assists the entire season.

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“We jokingly say from worst to first,” Purce said on media day, two days before the championship game. “But I don’t think we ever really looked at ourselves as the worst. We just know and have known that we can do it. And I think for there to be this redemptive tone, we would have to really be trying to bounce back from something, but this is a new group.”

Indeed, big changes followed a disastrous 2022, including the hiring of new head coach Juan Carlos Amorós and head of tactical analysis Jesús Botello Hermosa. The team got back players who had been out for various reasons in 2022. They drafted Jenna Nighswonger, a forward in college at Florida State, and converted her into a left back where she won Rookie of the Year.

Results followed, but challenges remained. Purce missed significant time in 2023 recovering from a torn quad, which limited her to just eight starts on the year. Gotham qualified for the playoffs, but only barely, on the last day of the season, on goal difference. In the playoffs, Gotham had to go on the road to play two NWSL powers, North Carolina Courage and Portland Thorns, and won both matchups.

With her championship MVP trophy in hand on Saturday night, Purce insisted again that this season wasn’t really about redemption.

“I think the word I would use is ‘earned’,” she said. “When I look around the room at my teammates, every single person had a journey that was like this,” making a roller coaster motion with her hand.

“Everyone went through something that made them have self-doubt, that knocked them down, knocked them off, and it was honestly beautiful to see the way that our locker room picked everyone back up and people just grabbed each other by their bootstraps and said well, we got to do it,” said Purce.

She shared the press conference stage with Ali Krieger, one of the two retiring ex-USWNT stars whose stories dominated the lead-in to this game. Krieger was already red-eyed and hoarse from celebrating, and at one point she grew emotional talking about the end of her career and her incredible season, which saw her named a finalist for defender of the year. Purce comfortingly placed a hand on her shoulder – Nothing too ostentatious or overbearing, just a solid hand to let Krieger know that Purce was next to her.

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Perhaps it was Gotham’s season writ small, a whole year of comforting hands on shoulders, a quiet “I’m with you.” And then the results, somehow, some way, manage to follow.

Purce laid it all out on display at the championship, on a night she more than earned – she owned.

(Top photo: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)

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