\u201cSoccer is the people’s game, New York City is the people’s city, and for decades to come, the people will now be able to watch Gotham FC show off the world’s game in the World’s Borough,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cInstead of begging their parents to have to take them to New Jersey, girls growing up in Jackson Heights, Sunnyside and Flushing will now be able to get on the 7 train after school and watch some of the greatest soccer players in the world go to work.\u201d <\/p>\n
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said the move presents \u201ca tremendous moment\u2026for young girls across Queens, and generations of young girls to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will have heroes to idolize right there in their own backyard,\u201d he added. \u201cThey will have even more reason to fall in love with this beautiful sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gotham FC will be another jewel in the crown of Willets Point, where the city is constructing an entirely new neighborhood with Etihad Park in the center. <\/p>\n
On the other side of Citi Field, Mets owner Steve Cohen has begun constructing Metropolitan Park, a casino and entertainment complex. The neighborhood is currently anchored by the Mets\u2019 home ballpark, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and Flushing Meadows Corona Park. <\/p>\n
By the end of the decade, the neighborhood will look nothing like it did at the beginning, when auto shop after auto shop lined pothole-filled streets that had gone ignored by the city for decades. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think adding sports teams around this area, this complex, building it out into something bigger is something this area is craving,\u201d said Teddy Byrne, also from Whitestone. \u201cPeople need third spaces for a number of different things, and sports is just one great opportunity. I’m looking forward to seeing how this area is developed more with the plans for the casino and the park, and to see how it all fits together.\u201d <\/p>\n
Match attendees the Eagle spoke to, and people involved in the match itself, marked the Queens Classic as a historic moment not just for the borough, but for women\u2019s sports. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think there are definitely more eyes on soccer, more eyes on women’s soccer. I think it’s great,\u201d said Gilday.<\/p>\n
The Forest Hills trio of Tara Manning, Taylor Favada and Dariana Almeyda got into Gotham by way of the New York Sirens, a women\u2019s pro hockey team who also currently play their games across the Hudson. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s an investment in women’s sports,\u201d said Almeyda. \u201cForty-thousand people willing to pay for women’s sports in New York City, that\u2019s so big.\u201d<\/p>\n
The match was especially poignant for the women on the pitch. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny time you hear you’re going to get to play in front of 42,000 fans, I think it’s always really exciting,\u201d said Gotham FC and U.S Women\u2019s National Team midfielder Rose Lavelle during her post-game press conference. \u201cIt\u2019s also a big moment in history for this club and for the city. I think it added just another special element to going out there. I think we feel so much pride getting to represent this club, and I think for us to be able to have this moment was really huge, and hopefully we just can keep building off of this.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jessica Berman, the commissioner of the NWSL, told reporters at halftime that the Queens Classic is just the start. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the beginning of a new relationship for this team in Queens, and we know that there’s an entire fan base here that is going to be really hungry to enjoy the best soccer in the world,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSoccer is the people’s game, New York City is the people’s city, and for decades to come, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-298653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}