Credit: Devon Cafaro | Gotham FC
Sam Kerr, the National Women’s Soccer League’s all-time regular-season goalscoring record holder and two-time MVP, is returning to the league after spending six years at Chelsea. More than that, she’s returning to Gotham FC, where she played for three seasons in her early twenties when the club was called Sky Blue FC.
The Australian veteran spoke to reporters on Thursday about her move stateside. “With all the change at Chelsea and me wanting something new, I think it was really the only league that I saw myself in,” she said. “I had a lot of ties to the league: obviously Kristie [Mewis, Kerr’s wife] is from America, and I just really enjoyed my time here, so I wanted to come back, and win some team championships hopefully.”
The effort to bring Kerr to Gotham came from Yael Averbuch West, the team’s President of Soccer Operations. In the winter, once the end of Kerr’s contract with Chelsea was in sight, Averbuch West contacted her agent. “At the time it was a crazy vision,” Averbuch West said. At first, Kerr wasn’t open to the idea, but upon further conversations with the club, Kerr came around to it.
“I’m really glad she came to the same conclusion I had well before we even talked to her,” Averbuch West said.
“Of course I talked to any club that was interested in me because I wanted to make sure I was making the right decision, so there was definitely other clubs involved,” Kerr said. “I kind of only spoke to NWSL clubs; I only saw myself really coming back to the NWSL if I was gonna make a big move out of Chelsea.”
Landing at Gotham wasn’t a given. “Every club that I spoke to really impressed me and I think that made it really hard to make a decision. Based on the fact that all the NWSL teams have really good infrastructure, really good players, there’s so many great coaches in the league now that, it was really difficult,” she added.
“I really really had to think hard about if I wanted to leave Chelsea,” she said. “My agent and Yael will tell you that it took a lot of talking off a ledge; I took it down to the wire. I think I only made my decision in early May.”
Kerr sees similarities between Chelsea and Gotham, two clubs which she says are especially hungry to win titles. “One of the main parts of me joining Gotham is that I wanted to win stuff, I wanted to be a part of a winning culture, I wanted to be coached by a coach who loves to win and does everything to win,” she said. “Gotham is probably the most similar club to Chelsea in their desires and what they want from a season, so I think it was kind of an easy choice. It helps that they have some of the best players in the league and also probably live close [to] and live in the best city in the world.”
Some of the best players in the league, indeed. Kerr named a slew of Gotham players she’s eager to play with: Rose Lavelle, Jaedyn Shaw, Emily Sonnett and Midge Purce. She also said she can’t wait to link up with former teammates Guro Reiten and Tierna Davidson again. The team’s roster is a selling point, and it’s also a potential obstacle to playing time. Kerr knows that on this go-around, she’s going to have to earn it.
“When I was here previously as a young kid, I was striving to be the best, and I come back with a lot of experience and a lot of trophies under my belt,” she said. “But I think this league has changed so much since I’ve been gone that it would be naive of me to think that I was gonna come back in and have the same sort of impact straight away. I’m gonna have to work my way in.”
That competition within the team appeals to Kerr, who wants to improve her game.
“In our meetings with her and the coaches, we were breaking down clips of areas that she could still improve in her game, and she wanted that,” Averbuch West said.
“I think at the end of the season at Chelsea when I started playing consistent minutes, I showed what I could do and I have full confidence in myself that I can still play to the best of my ability, if not better,” Kerr said. “I’ve scored scored some of the best goals I’ve ever scored this year — some at the Asian Cup, some at my last game at Chelsea — and I think that just shows that if I’m put in the park with the right people around me and the right coach to coach me, I can still be at the best of my ability.”
Gotham’s crowded roster spells challenges for both the coaching staff and front office.
Tactically, coach Juan Carlos Amorós is eager to utilize his players’ versatility. Averbuch West said that fans can expect to see a variety of lineups, with players expected to fulfill multiple roles over the course of the season. Still, she added, “I think you guys are going to see all of the top talent on the field together. That’s the objective.”
Amorós is in charge of what happens on the pitch; Averbuch West’s challenge lies in recruiting players and managing the books for a winning roster in a league whose salary rules put those things at odds.
“At Gotham we view the salary cap as like a competitive weapon,” Averbuch West said. “We are relentless in finding ways, given the rules, whether it’s the cap itself, the High Impact Player Rule, all of the league rules — how can we optimize and pack the most talent into a really well balanced roster?”
Sometimes, that means having to offload players to make some space, which Gotham recently did in shipping off defender Lilly Reale to Boston Legacy.
“We have the intention of keeping as many stars as the club as possible, and obviously the salary cap is a huge challenge when it comes to navigating that,” Averbuch West said. “Sam could have played at probably any club in the world she wanted to, and we don’t take that lightly. So for us, it’s about making an offer that shows respect to the player and also getting creative about what we do.”
Kerr sees the fruits of Averbuch West’s ambitious roster-building in the way Gotham plays. “When you play in a team that creates a lot of goal scoring opportunities, as a no. 9, that’s the number one thing that you want, and their stats over the last few years of amount of crosses into the box, amount of chances created — I think that really, stood out to me. I’m only as good as the people around me, and they have some amazing players on their team,” she said.
Even surrounded by great players, coming back to the NWSL from the Women’s Super League will be an adjustment for Kerr. “The NWSL is more open, it’s more counterattacking, it’s more physically demanding. Playing for Chelsea, we normally face low block teams unless we’re playing in Europe, in the Champions League against the top teams. So it’s like a different game,” she said. “I think most games that we played for for Chelsea, we would go in expected to win. I think in the NWSL it’s a much more even playing field which is quite different and something I loved about the league when I was here.”
Kerr said that it makes a difference that the NWSL plays in the summer, unlike the WSL. Also, the NWSL requires more running and athleticism, she said. “One’s more physical and one’s more tactical, and I think that’s why it’s good we have so many leagues in the world now. You get a bit of everything no matter where you play,” she said.
Gotham’s star-packed squad is a logical landing spot for Kerr, who is a showman through and through. “I love the American star power and all of that that goes with it, whereas in England it’s more like the clubs run the roost,” she said. “It’s just totally two different football cultures. I’m excited to be back in the NWSL. I enjoyed my time in the WSL but I think it’s time for a change for me.”
Averbuch West is all for it. “I hope we’re going to see lots of backflips out there,” she said, referring to Kerr’s signature goal celebration.
Averbuch West has locked Kerr in for many years of backflips; her contract stretches through 2030. “Last time I played in the NWSL I was moving around every two years and I didn’t want to do that this time,” Kerr said of the long contract. “I wanted to commit to somewhere and put roots down somewhere and allow myself to get comfortable in the league, get comfortable with the team that I’m in. With Chelsea staying there so long I did see the rewards on the pitch. So that’s my hope with this: I have sort of a stable place where I call home.”
Kerr also discussed her home country’s domestic women’s league. Late in June, the new ownership of the Central Coast Mariners announced that the club’s A-League side wasn’t included in the sale, leaving the team’s players wondering what’s next. In light of that news, the Australia captain says she hopes that the A-League invests more into their players so that the Australian national team pool is stronger. “Something has to change because off the back of the 2023 World Cup this shouldn’t be happening,” Kerr said.
When Kerr last played in the NWSL, she and her teammates were also desperate for better investment. It’s a far shout from where the league is now, and she can’t wait to enjoy the investment that’s come through in the intervening years. It’ll be a couple weeks, however. Kerr’s contract with Gotham started on Wednesday, and once she is medically cleared by the league she can start training with the team, Averbuch West said. But she’ll have to wait until the league’s international transfer window opens on July 14 to make an appearance in a match, setting up Gotham’s highly-anticipated July 15 game against the Washington Spirit at Citi Field as the first time Kerr might see the pitch.
“Last time I left Gotham — Sky Blue at the time — we were playing down in front of a couple thousand people and this is the type of stuff that we were fighting for: fighting to play in front of sold out stadiums, with the best facilities, with the best players, with wages that we deserved, so I feel like this is like a full circle moment for me,” Kerr said. “There’s so many people that have done so many amazing things over the last six years while I’ve been gone that have allowed me to come back and live out my American dream.”
