Will Marta write new chapter in NWSL final after season of broken records?

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The 2024 NWSL Championship between Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit on Saturday will be a historic contest and caps off a memorable year. Hosted at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, it already celebrates a massive milestone in yet another year of growth. The Kansas City Current’s home is the first stadium built specifically for an NWSL club and was deservedly awarded the Championship game.

As the NWSL commissioner, Jessica Berman, said: “It was a natural choice to stage the league’s marquee event in a venue that exemplifies the profound impact of infrastructure, investment and community support on the continued development and success of our sport.” The 11,500 capacity stadium sold out every game and is on course to do the same in the final.

Kansas City’s consistent attendance reflects healthy trends league wide. Partly thanks to two new clubs (Utah Royals and Bay FC) and a longer campaign, NWSL’s regular season attendance surpassed two million for the first time. In 2023, NWSL became the first women’s league to average 10,000 per game. This year, the average is more than 11,000, with 89 regular season games attracting more than 10,000 fans (up from 55 in 2023).

On the field, plenty of records were broken and it was distinct for a number of reasons. Kansas City scored a sensational 57 goals (many of them at their new home, buoyed up by an electric crowd) setting a record for the regular season. Twenty of those belonged to the NWSL Golden Boot winner, the Malawi forward Temwa Chawinga, who broke Sam Kerr’s record from 2019.

A number of rookies dazzled, including Washington Spirit’s Croix Bethune, who set a record for winning back-to-back Rookie of the Month awards and tied the USWNT veteran Tobin Heath’s single season assists record with 10. The Gotham and USWNT forward Lynn Williams became NWSL’s all-time leading scorer when she netted for the 79th time in May and Orlando quickly became the story of the year as the once struggling Floridian club went a record 24 games unbeaten in the regular season en route to the NWSL Shield – their first trophy.

While NWSL has long been known for its competitiveness, this year a few clubs separated themselves from the pack. The top four – Orlando, Washington, Gotham and Kansas City – were firmly ahead by the end of the season. First-placed Orlando and Kansas City in fourth were separated by five points. But there was a 16-point gap between Kansas City and fifth-place North Carolina Courage and a 28-point gap between Orlando and the final playoff spot clinched by Chicago Red Stars. In 2023, the teams at the top (San Diego Wave) and very bottom (Chicago) were separated by 13 points. This year, there was a 40-point gap.

That theme carried forward in the playoffs. Despite closely contested battles, the top four teams won their quarter-finals. In the semis the top two teams from the regular season prevailed.

Marta carves through Kansas City Current defenders to score.

Orlando and Washington had superb seasons, but neither of them was in the playoffs last year. They weren’t in the playoffs the year before either. In true NWSL style, both teams evolved and remade themselves as they clawed from the bottom to the top.

Though this year’s table did not exhibit the parity of previous seasons, one thing remains abundantly clear: anything is possible. In 2022, Gotham, Washington and Orlando were the bottom three. This season, they ruled at the top.

Orlando are a particular rag to riches story that will go down as one of the greatest NWSL turnarounds. As the club struggled for years, the 38-year-old Brazil legend Marta stuck by them. With a reinvigorated team around her, she had one of the best seasons in recent memory, recording nine regular season goals.

After scoring what became an awe-inspiring game-deciding goal in Sunday’s semi-final, she described the difference in the team: “It’s mostly about the mentality … we had a really good team in the past too, like big names. But there was some [in the] team who would miss all the time.

“Then this group of people who work every single day so hard. They give everything. They don’t think only about themselves. They think only about the team, to do the things together. We bring this spirit every single game, no matter what.”

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Standing beside the Zambia forward Barbra Banda, the team’s topscorer and an NWSL newcomer, Marta said: “She’s a winner. She never gives up. She gives everything, even [in] training.”

The team quickly accrued the aura of inevitability about them as they cruised to claim the Shield. Saturday marks their first final, as well as a first for Marta.

It would be easy to imagine a storybook ending for Orlando, but Washington will be a tough test. They have charted a redemption arc of their own as they return to their first NWSL final since winning it in 2021. The former Barcelona coach, Jonatan Giráldez, will be trying to pull an Emma Hayes, as the Spaniard took hold of the club midseason, hoping to restore it to the trophy-winning heights of his first year. He leads a team brimming with talent, including the veterans Casey Kreuger and US forward Trinity Rodman as well as an abundance of rookie sensations.

When the game kicks off on Saturday we will have two enticing teams with gripping stories going head-to-head in the NWSL’s final game of the year.