goal by lavelle

It was at the Queens Classic ’26. With the tristate area, as well as the rest of the country, encapsulated both by forest fire smog and the smoke and mirrors of the men’s edition of the FIFA World Cup, a scion of the much better American side delivered a wave of hope against one of the ugliest skies to which the author’s eyes have ever born witness.

With an audacious worldwide entry already against the Netherlands to go up 2-0 in the 2019 women’s World Cup Final, Lavelle wasn’t looking for more of the same: she never is. Every goal she scores occurs in an exactly different way from how any other goal she scores does, except for herself. Rose Lavelle captivates and creates, provides and inspires, but she is a poacher at heart.

Any goal given is the best goal given, which indicates that the goal she scored against the Washington Spirit, rivals by virtue both of geography and of last year’s NWSL championship game, is among the best goals of her career, because they all are. Like her English Bulldog Wilma, a women’s national team staple, Lavelle relishes the moment.

Gotham FC is, of course, slated to finally be moving into a new stadium in 2028, which will (exhaling, not for public funding of the arts but for ownership non-funding of anything else) be entirely ownership-financed. Are you mad about taxes? It might be time to look into where they’re going – no, actually, municipally – and then get mad at the people who have money in their wallets. Women’s sports tend to get to the bottom of the balance sheet with expedience.

With an NWSL-record 42,000-plus in attendance, and with the as-it-were Worldwide Leader In Sports hanging on for dear life what with not having the world’s most-watched sporting event available anywhere on its many airwaves (how can anyone market La Liga, the premier league of the team that has won two World Cups in twenty years? Who’s to say–), Gotham FC waged a war of attrition against the Washington Spirit, and against the wildfire smog raining down from northward, and elsewhere. Who enabled this? Why are increasingly oppressive, increasingly destructive occurrences only turning the descriptors into actions?

Suddenly, the Spirit were asking themselves the same existential questions we all were, albeit for immediately different reasons: the pride of Cincinnati, and of the best American soccer team, received a swift, warm dish. Jaelin Howell has ripped the ball from Clemson’s own Hal Hershfelt, then tore around Tara Rudd. With Aussie hero Sam Kerr, late of Chelsea, waiting in the wings in order to be in the actual wings, Lavelle took charge.

She dances to her own tempo, Garrincha-esque, finding openings and closing them of her own volition, delighting and exciting with each fintar y cruzar through and around any opposition’s defense. The team, location, opponent: none of it matter. Rose Lavelle lives to delight, of course, but she also lives to win.

Lavelle waded through the smoke of Queens and Washington, rolled it once to her right, causing both defenders to check over their shoulders for the ghost that would never return for them. Ah, or so they thought: for good measure, Lavelle put it back through Rudd’s feet. It was a magnificent meg, perfect.

Staring at her feet midway down the goalie’s box, Lavelle sent a perfect chip over keeper Sandy McIver’s diving right – left? In the grand technological age, we know it could be over either, or both, shoulders, and into the opposite, lower corner, which collapsed along with everyone in attendance. Bouncing innocently off of the lower right post, curling against the net and settling, finally, into the direct center of the back of the net, the ball looked as pleased as the rest of us. It is only a vessel.

Lavelle, of course, had scored the only goal, the winner, in the previous November’s championship game. She’d already won the World Cup with her effort in 2019. The rest of this is the other side of the mountain. It fit that she did it again, here, and it was the best goal of her career. At least, until the next one.