The NWSL quarterfinals delivered so much chaos that we are now wondering if shield winning coaches are even that good.

Welcome to this week's edition of The Late Sub. I am your host, Claire Watkins.

It is Wednesday, November 12th, and we're going to be talking about what we got right and what we got wrong about the NWSL quarterfinals that absolutely delivered the magic and what that means

for the four teams who are going to be competing for a shot in that championship in San Jose

next week. There's so much to dig into. Let's just start. Let's feel. Let's get into it. I'm excited.

So the NWSL quarter final round took place last weekend and we prayed for chaos and we got more than a little bit of it.

It was a really nice slate of games, a good showing of what makes the NWSL so great, which is that you can never get too comfortable coming out of the regular season. And if we're going to be talking about what comes next, we got to talk about what happened and some of the energy coming out of those games. So what I think I'm going to do today this week, I'm going to put me on the hot seat a little bit because playoffs are stressful. If the fans are going through it, if coaches and players are going through it, I gotta go through it too. And let's talk about what I got right and what I got wrong when previewing the NWSL quarterfinals and how that informs what we're going to be seeing this weekend. And honestly, next, because the big show is not that far away. This season is going to wrap up real quick.

And we want to give it all of the attention that it deserves.

So let's start with the big, you know, big content, big analysis win for anybody who sort of saw the signs,

which is that Gotham did come in and shock Kansas City to knock them out of the playoffs in the first

round. And in retrospect, with every day that passes since this happened, you go, was that

shock? Was it that shocking? It seemed like the environment was like just right for it to happen.

You know, if so many people said that it could happen, is it that wild? I think yes, still.

It was pretty shocking to

watch it play out. You get to the end of regulation and you go, oh my gosh, Gotham's going to do this.

Kansas City equalizes. You get to the end of extra time. You go, oh, it's going to penalties.

And then Gotham does it again. It was a pretty incredible result from Gotham walking into Kansas

city and knocking out the winningest team

in league history. But as I said, there's a reason why I wasn't the only person to kind

of peg this as a possibility. As we saw on Sunday, the current were without 2024 MVP,

probably 2025 MVP, Temwinsha, as we expected, because she's working with

that adductor strain. The surprise was that forward Michelle Cooper was also out. That was a bad

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