By Amy Tennery<\/p>\n
NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) \u2013 Gotham FC welcomed back striker Sam Kerr and secured a 1-0 win over Washington Spirit in front of a record crowd for a women\u2019s sporting event in New York City on Wednesday, as the women\u2019s \u200bgame kept the ball rolling in America\u2019s summer of soccer.<\/p>\n
The league said more than \u200c42,000 tickets were sold for the match at the home of Major League Baseball\u2019s New York Mets, with fans turning up to Citi Field despite a thick layer of smoke that hung in the air from Ontario wildfires.<\/p>\n
That mark surpassed the more than 28,000 fans who watched U.S. tennis player Coco Gauff\u2019s victory in the 2023 U.S. Open \u200cwomen\u2019s \u200bsingles final.<\/p>\n
The huge turnout was an encouraging sign for Gotham and \u2060comes days after they announced they \u2060would relocate from their suburban New Jersey stadium to Etihad Park in Queens \u2013 across the street from Citi Field \u2013 beginning in 2028, a move that is expected to make the team accessible to more fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that with investment, if you build it, they will come. \u200bAnd this is a proof point for that,\u201d NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy favourite thing about tonight is that it isn\u2019t transactional. It\u2019s not a one and done. This is the \u2060beginning of a new relationship for this team in \u2060Queens.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we know that there\u2019s an entire fan base here that is going \u200bto be really hungry to enjoy the best soccer in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The enthusiasm for soccer in the \u200bU.S. has contributed to the record numbers attending the expanded men\u2019s World Cup, \u200cas excitement builds ahead of Sunday\u2019s final between Argentina and Spain in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey.<\/p>\n
FULL CIRCLE<\/p>\n
Australian Kerr\u2019s highly anticipated return to the North American league from Chelsea is expected to bolster an already formidable attack for two-time champions Gotham.<\/p>\n
The only goal of the game came from Rose Lavelle, a \u2060women\u2019s World Cup winner with the U.S. in 2019, after she slipped the ball through defender Tara Rudd\u2019s legs before launching it over the outstretched arms of Washington goalkeeper Sandy MacIver in the 37th \u2060minute.<\/p>\n
The crowd turned up the volume \u200ca notch when Kerr came off the bench in the 64th \u2060minute, as the Australian striker took the pitch after her return from \u200ba decorated \u200cspell in England\u2019s WSL.<\/p>\n
Longtime fans had a sense of deja vu \u200bseeing Kerr back \u2060in Gotham blue as she played for the team from 2015 to 2017, back when they called the 5,000-capacity Yurcak Field home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many ways this is like a full circle moment with Sam Kerr coming here and being able to experience this on her first night,\u201d said Berman.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying for the new Gotham, (in) what is so different from the reality that was the NWSL.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; \u200bEditing by Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Amy Tennery NEW YORK, July 15 (Reuters) \u2013 Gotham FC welcomed back striker Sam Kerr and secured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-805092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}