Esther González, Gotham win NWSL championship; Megan Rapinoe’s career ends with injury

World Cup winner Esther González scored the go-ahead objective on a header in first-half stoppage time and Gotham FC survived a wild end to beat OL Reign 2-1 on Saturday evening in a National Women’s Soccer League championship match that was in its first jiffy when Megan Rapinoe hobbled off the pitch in a heartbreaking finish to her career.

Following a VAR overview in stoppage time, Gotham goalie Mandy Haught was issued a purple card for denial of an apparent goal-scoring alternative and despatched off, giving the Reign an opportunity to tie it. With defender Nealy Martin taking on in objective, the Reign’s Rose Lavelle took a free kick simply exterior the field, nevertheless it bounced off a Gotham participant alongside the wall. Gotham was in a position to run out the clock and marked its first NWSL title with a wild celebration close to midfield.

The non-contact injury to Rapinoe took a few of the wind out of the group at San Diego State’s Snapdragon Stadium. The match had been billed as a showdown between Rapinoe and Gotham’s Ali Krieger, each of whom had been searching for their first NWSL title earlier than retiring.

Rapinoe broke towards Maitane Lopez of Gotham, who was dribbling exterior the penalty space, and immediately went down within the third minute. After staying on the bottom for a couple of minutes, Rapinoe wanted assist from two trainers for the lengthy stroll alongside one finish line after which down the sideline to the Reign’s bench.

Krieger ran over and hugged her former teammate from the U.S. Women’s National Team.

There was no speedy phrase concerning the severity of Rapinoe’s injury.

Rapinoe introduced earlier than this summer time’s Women’s World Cup that she was stepping away from the sport after a career that included two World Cup titles, an Olympic gold medal and an Olympic bronze.

The discipline at Snapdragon appeared in higher form than it was on Sunday evening, when the Reign beat the San Diego Wave to advance, some 24 hours after a house San Diego State soccer sport. Still, there have been a number of areas the place the grass remained chewed up.

With the rating tied at 1 in stoppage time, González, who helped Spain win the Women’s World Cup, slipped between two defenders and headed an ideal nook kick by Midge Purce into the nook of the web out of the attain of Reign goalie Claudia Dickey.

Purce additionally fed Lynn Williams in entrance of the web for the opening objective within the twenty fourth minute.

The Reign tied it within the twenty ninth minute when Lavelle dribbled in and beat Haught.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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