Gotham FC coach Juan Carlos Amorós sat in the comfortable Marbella, Spain, sun Friday as he fielded a variety of questions via Zoom with reporters.
Beyond the laptop that sat on the table in front of him was a picturesque view of palm trees, sandy beaches and the Mediterranean Sea.
It is indeed paradise.
But this trip is far from a vacation for Amorós and Gotham.
After suffering a heartbreaking loss in the NWSL semifinals, Gotham experienced some roster shake-up this winter and needs every bit of preseason training the team can get to regroup for the upcoming season.
Crystal Dunn, Lynn Williams, Yazmeen Ryan and Delanie Sheehan were among members of last season’s team who have signed to play elsewhere this season.
On the flip side, Gotham added Brazilian star Gabi Portilho, U.S. Youth National Team defender Lilly Reale and former Seattle Reign midfielder Jaelin Howell along with several college standouts for the 2025 season.
Gotham also re-signed star Midge Purce, who missed most of last season with a knee injury, to a one-year deal this week.
Purce joined the team for some of its practice Thursday.
She’s considered “100 percent healthy,” according to Amorós, but still has some limitations on what she can and cannot do.
It’s unclear whether she will be available for the team’s season opener March 15 at the Seattle Reign.
Gotham also doesn’t have an established time for Rose Lavelle to return after she had offseason ankle surgery.
Having two stars on the mend and introducing plenty of new faces to Gotham’s style is part of what makes the team’s trip to Spain so important.
“Nothing bonds a team like an international trip,” defender Mandy Freeman said. “We’re all here kind of in the same space. We spend a lot of time together outside of training. Just building friendship and relationships.”
Gotham’s accommodations are just a short walk away from both the beach and practice field. That was by design.
Because as much as this preseason camp is about getting ready for the season with conditioning and on-field training, it’s also about helping build team chemistry.
Ten days into the trip, things have gone well.
“The vibes have been really positive,” Amorós said. “I think everyone has [been] really clear that last year we lost by inches and we want to make sure that this year the inches go away.”
Amorós and his staff will get a better idea of where the team is Saturday, when Gotham plays their first of two closed-door scrimmages in Spain.
Gotham will take on SK Brann from Norway Saturday before playing FC Nordsjælland of Denmark Feb. 14.
Gotham, which announced their full preseason slate Friday afternoon, is also scheduled to play a friendly match Feb. 26 against Fort Lauderdale United FC before their preseason finale March 2 against Tampa Bay Sun FC.
It’s hard to know how good Gotham will be this season.
Of course, there’s hope the team, which won a title in 2023, can pick up where it left off at the end of last season.
Gotham’s solid core remains intact. Their top three scorers, Esther González, Lavelle and Ella Stevens, are back, along with most of their back line, who allowed only 20 goals last season.
Freeman, Gotham’s longest-tenured player, said this offseason has been a “rebuild” of sorts.
Not to say that’s a bad thing.
“The potential is kind of limitless at this point,” said Freeman, who’s been with Gotham since 2017. “We have a new squad, it’s a lot to build off of. But we also have kind of like a core group and a lot of experience still.
“We had a pretty good record defensively last year, so that’s a standard that we really want to continue to uphold. And offensively, we have a lot of creativity up top, and so having exciting games, scoring goals is still always going to be at the top of our to-do list and just really honing in our style,” Freeman added. “We have a lot of new faces, so just training our specific style, we like to high press so it’s going to be a little bit of a learning curve when it comes to that, but I think we still have the potential to finish high this year.”
