Gotham FC realizes its captain’s dream of victory

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll find out how Gotham FC became the only team from the New York area to win a championship this year. We’ll also get details on what Donald Trump Jr. said during his second appearance in the civil fraud trial against his family and the Trump Organization.

Last weekend, Gotham FC became the only team from the New York area to win a championship this year. The team’s new president, Mary Wittenberg, said last month that just making the playoffs was a big victory. I asked my colleague Claire Fahy, who has been with Gotham FC all year, to explain how the team achieved what it did. This is what she said:

Last year, Gotham FC finished twelfth out of twelve teams in the National Women’s Soccer League. Last month, the team narrowly missed out on the final spot in the play-offs on a chaotic ‘decision day’, when almost every team still had a shot at the play-offs and the decisive final matches started at the same time.

But Gotham was comfortable in its role as a spoiler, and its players seemed to believe that anything was possible. Their motivation was powerful: a loss at any stage of the playoffs would end the career of the team’s captain, Ali Krieger, 39, who had announced she would retire when the season was over . “It’s not Ali Krieger’s last match!” became the team’s rallying cry.

Win or lose, Saturday’s game was ultimately Krieger’s last game. And in a storybook ending, Gotham FC defeated Seattle’s OL Reign 2-1.

“Isn’t that how you always dream about it?” Krieger said this in an interview on Monday. “You always dream of imagining yourself on a stage, with the trophy and confetti falling.”

For Krieger, it was the end of a long road that passed through Germany and Sweden before she returned to the United States to help start the NWSL, a career that reflected the struggle to create a competitive American women’s soccer league. Along the way, she expanded the representation of LGBTQ people in professional sports and fought for equal pay alongside her teammates on the U.S. national team.

Gotham FC epitomizes how the NWSL has changed over the years. In 2018, the team, then called Sky Blue, became infamous for its poor training conditionsincluding a lack of showers in the locker rooms, varying practice fields with uneven grass and bunk beds in team-provided accommodations.

Since then, the team has rebranded itself, improved facilities and made hiring changes, including bringing in a new head coach, Juan Carlos Amorós, who was appointed NWSL Coach of the Year last week.

And also last week, Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, a member of the family that co-owns the New York Giants, announced that she would be joining Gotham as a minority owner. The team’s properties include New Jersey Governor Philip Murphy and his wife Tammy Murphy, who co-owned Sky Blue in 2018. In addition to Tisch Blodgett, minority owners now include WNBA legend Sue Bird, former NFL quarterback Eli Manning and NBA star Kevin Durant.

The team will now look to build on the momentum of a winning season. Gotham’s average attendance – 6,300 people per game, a 42 percent increase this season over last – is still lags behind the leaders such as the San Diego Wave and Angel City FC, which attract an average of 20,000 fans at each match.

“This is going to be such a fun city for an organization to really thrive and build a legacy,” Krieger said.

And now, while playing, she’s done something she’s never done before: win an NWSL championship some of her best football. On Saturday, she stepped onto the stage and hoisted the trophy as confetti poured down, just as she dreamed.

“My career has been a gift,” she said, “and to finally end it with a bow was just phenomenal for me.”

Weather

A mostly sunny day with temperatures reaching the low 50s. The evening remains mainly clear, with temperatures around thirty degrees.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In effect until November 23 (Thanksgiving Day).

The latest New York news

Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, reappeared to testify in the civil fraud case against his father and the family business.

He spoke in bursts of exaggerations and platitudes. He described his father as a “visionary” and “a real estate artist” who “creates things that other people would never imagine.” He praised the amenities, including the views of Central Park from Trump Tower and the vaults in the company’s 40 Wall Street building.

His testimony was intended to illustrate a key defense claim: Trump’s assets are extremely valuable, and the company’s financial statements even understate them.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has charged the former president and other defendants, including Donald Jr. and his brother Eric, accused of fraudulently inflating the value of assets to obtain favorable loans and insurance deals. Donald Jr. testified during his first appearance on November 1 that he had no direct involvement in the annual accounts that Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled were fraudulent.

During the trial, Engoron was at times impatient with the Trumps and their lawyers, especially because of responses he viewed as opaque or indirect. But when lawyers for James’ team spoke during Donald Jr.’s testimony Monday. raised objections, Engoron waved them aside. “Let him talk about how great the Trump Organization is,” Engoron said at one point.

Later that day, the judge told Donald Jr. that he should speak more slowly. “We like the enthusiasm, but we’re trying to eliminate the speed,” Engoron said.

Donald Jr., who led the family’s rebuttal to James’ allegations, was shown dozens of images of luxury properties — a deliberate contrast to the spreadsheets and emails James’ team presented as it laid out its case .

Trump detailed how the company had turned around moribund assets, including the Wollman Rink in Central Park and 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan. In both cases, Trump said the properties had fallen into disrepair and that no one had seen their potential — no one except his father.

However, the company no longer manages the ice rink. New York City decided to cut ties with the former president after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The Trumps also recently sold their lease on a public golf course in the Bronx, which didn’t stop the defense from playing a tourism video for the property on Monday.

As for 40 Wall Street, James says the Trumps artificially inflated the value of the property, a 1,000-foot neo-Gothic tower, in part by claiming to have signed tenants who had yet to commit.

METROPOLITAN diary

Quite a ride

Dear Diary:

We arrived late to meet friends for dinner at a restaurant in the West 50s.

There were no taxis in sight and the nearest metro station was a few blocks away. So we hopped into a pedicab and rode through the early evening traffic in the theater district.

Eleven hair-raising minutes later, we arrived at the restaurant almost on time.

I tried to pay the driver with a credit card, but his card reader malfunctioned and could not process the transaction. Instead I gave him cash.

A short time later, as we finished our pre-dinner cocktails, the hostess came to our table and asked if we had arrived in a pedicab. The driver, she said, was there and wanted to talk to me.

He was waiting when I got to the front door. He said his card reader was working again and my payment had somehow been processed.

He was there to give me my money back.

—Tom Lippman

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send your entries here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.