3 things we learned from the up-and-down draw between Gotham FC and Portland

NJ/NY Gotham FC was back out west on Friday night after a few home games, and the fans had to stay up late to catch the Bats take on Portland Thorns FC. This was expected to be a tough matchup, and it was. However, the Bats were running on a three-game winning streak and played two incredible games last week in the Queens Classic win and the comeback win over Seattle Reign FC.

While the three-game winning streak is over, the unbeaten streak remains alive. Gotham FC and the Portland Thorns shared the points in the 2-2 draw. It was an exciting and dramatic matchup full of highs and lows.

Midge Purce finally scored her first goal of the NWSL regular season just 90 seconds in. The Thorns scored two afterwards, but thankfully, Sam Kerr scored the final goal of the night to level the score. Meanwhile, the Bats did suffer a huge loss with a knee injury to Emily Sonnett.

There is a lot to unpack after the crazy and up-and-down game. Here are three things we learned from the draw between Gotham FC and Portland.

Concerns for Emily Sonnett

The match started well for Gotham FC after Purce’s goal. However, that joy was short-lived. Less than ten minutes into the game, Sonnett went down injured due to a non-contact injury. While injuries like this can happen anywhere, it did not help that the teams were playing on artificial turf.

Right away, though, Sonnett pointed to her left knee, and the Bats’ medical staff were working on it while she was down on the ground. It was then decided that a stretcher was needed, and the star defender sadly had to be stretched off.

There is no easy way to say this, but Gotham likely lost the player for the rest of the year. It looked like an ACL injury, and sadly, the club has been cursed by constantly losing players to ACL tears. Kayla Duran was a victim of this curse earlier this year, and Taryn Torres is working to come back from her ACL tear suffered last year.

The team confirmed that Sonnett is being evaluated for a knee injury, but it might be a few days before anything is confirmed. Still, this is awful, especially with the World Cup next summer. 2027 will likely be the last window that she can play in the tournament. Hopefully, the expectation of what the injury is will be wrong. But this is Gotham. And players constantly tear their ACL with the club.

Sam Kerr’s first goal back with Gotham FC

It has been a long time since Kerr scored a goal in the NWSL, let alone for Gotham FC. As a reminder, she was with the team back in the Sky Blue FC days. But after just a few games, she has scored her first goal in her return.

The Bats were down 2-1, and the forward leveled the score in the 62nd minute. The team had a corner kick, in which Rose Lavelle sent the ball into the box. Tierna Davidson attempted a header, but she was too far out. Thankfully, Kerr was in the right place at the right time in front of the goal, and attempted a header from Davidson's ball that was blocked. The ball rebounded right back to her, and it was then that she went in for the kill to score.

That goal ended up salvaging a point for the NJ/NY side. And now, this will ideally spark Kerr to score more goals throughout the rest of the season.

Gotham FC could not find the winning goal

When all is said and done, Gotham easily could have won the match. Jayden Perry was sent off via a red card in the 73rd minute due to pulling down Kerr, who had nobody in front of her. The argument is that the forward had a clear-scoring opportunity, so any foul like that is an automatic red card.

However, despite being up a woman for 20-plus minutes between regulation and stoppage time, the Bats failed to find the game-winner. They were attacking, but the offensive effort at the end was nowhere near what occurred in the Seattle fixture. Truthfully, they should have found a way to secure three points.

But that is soccer. Sometimes, the game does not go the way that it should go. At the very least, Gotham FC left with a road point after playing in one of the most difficult venues and environments.

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