Gotham FC opens its NWSL postseason on Sunday at home against the eighth-seeded Seattle Reign, with the top-seeded club already holding two of the three trophies needed for the first treble in league history. Gotham has already won the Challenge Cup and the NWSL Shield this season; a championship would complete the sweep.
Much of the team’s confidence centers on forward Midge Purce, who teammates describe as thriving specifically when the stakes rise. Midfielder Taryn Torres said Purce has a habit during warmups of remarking on the shift in atmosphere once the postseason arrives: “Playoffs. The air smells different,” Torres recalled Purce saying.
Defender Mandy Freeman described Purce’s mentality bluntly: “[She] wants to win by any means necessary.”
Though the playoffs formally begin this weekend, people around the team say the intensity has been building since October, when the NWSL Shield race went down to the final matches. Purce scored one of Gotham’s two goals in an Oct. 25 win over the Orlando Pride. In the regular-season finale, she helped set up Guro Reiten’s goal in the ninth minute and was credited with the assist on Jaedyn Shaw’s late insurance goal in a 2-0 win over the Utah Royals.
Freeman said Purce’s competitive edge tends to lift the rest of the roster. “She just turns into a different beast,” Freeman said. “She’s really good at getting the team amped up and on her energy level as well because we all try to match that competitiveness, that urgency that she brings. And again, just like a competitiveness that is just on a different level. Every game, every play could be her last and our last as a team.”
Purce joined Gotham in a 2020 trade and helped end the club’s seven-year playoff drought in her first full season there. She has been part of two of the team’s last three championship runs, including the 2023 NWSL title win over Seattle — the same opponent Gotham faces to open this year’s playoffs — when Purce controlled the right flank and assisted on both Gotham goals.
Torres said that performance left a lasting impression. “She comes up in really big moments, she’s everywhere,” Torres said. “She’s more than 90-minute fit and just her ability to be clutch in these big moments has been really cool to see and I have no doubt that she’s ready to do that again this year.”
Freeman pointed to Purce’s one-on-one play as a particular weapon on the wing. “Very confident, always wanting to go at players, demanding the ball, and believes that every player that she goes against is going to be on the wrong side of her because she’s going to be running past them, ‘megging them, getting in crosses, so her [one-on-one] ability in the flanks [or wing channel] becomes a huge asset for us in games.”
With the Challenge Cup and Shield already secured, Gotham’s players say they like their position heading into Sunday’s opener at home. “I can tell that, especially after this past performance that she had,” Torres said, “she was everywhere and creating a lot of our offense that definitely we’re gonna see a special side of Midge throughout this playoff run.”
