Нью-Джерси/Нью-Йорк Готэм beat Чикаго Ред Старс 3-1 in the NWSL Group Stage at Sport Illustrated Stadium on Friday. The result keeps the hosts first in the table, though by then the gap had been narrowing for a while. To be fair, they have been testing themselves of late.
Jaedyn Reese Shaw opened the scoring in the ninth minute and by then it was clear what pattern Gotham wanted to set. Sam Kerr pulled one back from the spot in the fiftieth, but Shaw found a way back into it immediately after the restart in the sixty-sixth. Тessa Elise Dellarose ended a barren spell for the visitors in the eighty-seventh, though there is no value left at that number when you are chasing a game like this.
The yellow cards accumulated as the match wore on, and by then the visitors had lost their structure. Anna Gasper, Margaret Purce and Brianna Pinto were all cautioned before the break, while Bruna Santos Nhaia and Micayla Johnson joined them later. There were substitutions at every turn — E. Egizii and Mallory Pugh came on together at half-time, then Guro Reiten, Jordynn Dudley, Rose Lavelle, Julia Grosso, Taylor Wood and Sam Kerr were all replaced in quick succession.
The statistics tell the story without embellishment. Gotham held 72 per cent possession and registered thirteen shots on target compared with one for the visitors. They created four big chances and completed 532 passes, while Red Stars managed 159 with three key passes between them. The goalkeeper made four saves for the away side and none for the hosts, which says something about the quality of chances on offer.
Gotham remain top with 54 points from 26 games, six wins away from a clean record in the group. Red Stars sit sixteenth on 17 points and have now lost nineteen of their twenty-six matches. The scoreline reflects a team that knew what they were doing and a side that had nothing to play for except pride, which is hard to find when you are down three goals.
