The league came back from the Olympic break, and so did the Washington Spirit.
Most of the crowd expected a lineup full of rest and rotation. Instead, five of the six Spirit players who had just come home from the 2024 Olympic Games were in the starting XI: Trinity Rodman, Casey Krueger, Croix Bethune, Hal Hershfelt and Leicy Santos. It was also Santos' first regular season appearance in the NWSL. Paige Metayer got the nod at right back, which was a new position for the midfielder.
Nine minutes in, Metayer won the ball back deep in her own end, took a pass from Santos, and ran. All of it. The whole field. She cut inside the Kansas City box and put a left-footed shot past AD Franch. It was her first shot on goal all season and the first non-headed goal of her career, and it gave Santos the first NWSL assist of hers.
Five minutes later it was 2-0. Bethune found Ouleye Sarr, who finished from close range for her eighth of the season, a team high at the time.Two goals in fourteen minutes, against the team sitting on top of the table.
It was 82 degrees and sunny for a 12:07 p.m. ET kickoff, which is about as pleasant as late August gets in Washington. Kansas City could not slow the game down. The Spirit went into halftime with the two-goal cushion and no real scare on the other end.
Then Rodman got involved. In the 51st minute Metayer picked her out, and Rodman curled a left-footed shot into the top left corner. Second goal contribution of the afternoon for Metayer, playing out of position, in her first game back from Paris.
Kansas City finally got one back in the 64th. Debinha played a through ball to Temwa Chawinga, who muscled past a Spirit defender and finished the one-on-one. It was Chawinga's 13th regular season goal of the year. She had been the most dangerous forward in the league all season, and for a few minutes there was a version of this game where Kansas City climbs back into it.
That version lasted nine minutes. Gabrielle Carle set up Santos off a set piece in the 73rd, and the Spirit were back up three. Santos finished her regular season debut with a goal and an assist, which is a reasonable way to introduce yourself.
The rest was housekeeping. Kansas City picked up three yellows (DiBernardo in the 49th, Cook in the 72nd, and captain Lo'eau LaBonta in the 85th), while Metayer took Washington's only caution deep into stoppage time.Hershfelt and Krueger came off together in the 65th for Stainbrook and Carle, and Rosemonde Kouassi replaced Bethune in the 71st.
The win pushed the Spirit into second place in the NWSL.
You could argue this was the most impressive result of Washington's season to that point. Half the starting lineup had been on another continent playing for medals a few weeks earlier. The team they beat was first in the league. And the player who broke the game open was a midfielder playing fullback who had not scored all year.
Sometimes the story writes itself, and you just have to be standing in the right spot with the shutter open.
