Welcome to this week’s edition of Goalside Gossip!

Well, the No. 2 seed lasted one game. Utah won the first playoff game in club history in San Diego, Kansas City needed extra time and a penalty to get past Angel City, Gotham beat Seattle without putting a shot on target, and Washington had four past Portland by the hour mark.

The final four is set, though one of them didn't have a stadium until Monday. We've got all four quarterfinals below, plus Gotham's field mess, the semifinal schedule and our picks, the NWSL Awards finalists, and a proper goodbye to Jess Fishlock.

Let's get into it.

Game Summaries (NWSL):

News:

Utah waited a long time for a playoff game, and they won it. The seventh-seeded Royals beat No. 2 San Diego 1-0 at Snapdragon Stadium on Friday night, the club's first ever win over the Wave after losing all six previous meetings.

The goal came on the half hour. Jameese Joseph found Cloè Lacasse on the left, Lacasse picked out Kiana Palacios in the middle, and Palacios took a touch and tucked a left-footed shot into the side netting. That was Utah's first playoff goal ever, and it ended a 301-minute scoring drought. They hadn't scored in their last three games of the regular season.

From there it was the Mandy McGlynn show. San Diego had 62% of the ball and five shots on target, and she stopped every one of them: a point-blank header in the sixth minute, a dive to keep one off the line just after the hour, and a fingertip save over the bar in the 78th. Paige Cronin also cleared one off the line in the 17th after a goalmouth scramble. San Diego came in unbeaten in seven and as the hottest team in the league, and their season is over after 90 minutes.

Up next: at Washington in the semifinals on Saturday.

We said somebody's hot streak was ending in this one, and it was Angel City's. Their 10-game unbeaten run finished on an extra-time penalty at CPKC Stadium.

These two scored 54 goals apiece in the regular season and couldn't find one in 90 minutes. Angel City played the last hour with ten after Ary Borges picked up her second yellow in the 58th minute, and Angelina Anderson made five saves in regulation to keep it level. Four minutes into extra time, an Izzy Rodriguez corner nearly went straight in, and as Riley Tiernan headed it off the line, the referee spotted Anderson shoving Kayla Sharples to the ground. Michelle Cooper stepped up and smashed it home.

Captain Lo'eau LaBonta usually takes the penalties, but Chris Armas said afterwards this one was always going to be Cooper's. It was a long time coming for her, since she missed last year's home quarterfinal loss with a foot injury. Not everyone loved the call. Angel City's Leif Gunnar Smerud called it a tremendously cheap penalty, and CBS called it peculiar. Kansas City are now 16 games unbeaten at CPKC Stadium. Angel City's season, which looked dead in June, ends in the quarters.

Up next: at Gotham in the semifinals on Sunday.

Gotham are into the semis, but nobody's framing this one. The No. 1 seed won a playoff game without a single shot on target.

The only goal came in the fourth minute. Jaedyn Shaw drove a corner to the near post, and Jordyn Bugg, the same Bugg who scored the Decision Day winner that got Seattle into the playoffs, sliced her clearance off her shin and past Claudia Dickey. After that it was mostly Seattle. Nérilia Mondésir thought she'd equalized in the 59th off a Jess Fishlock pass, but the flag went up. Ann-Katrin Berger tipped a Mia Fishel turn-and-shot over the bar and dove to stop Maddie Mercado in the 71st. Take away the own goal and Gotham created 0.17 expected goals to Seattle's 0.54.

In fairness to both teams, the field was a mess. Sports Illustrated Stadium had hosted an MLS game 18 hours earlier, and the pitch was sandy with brown patches all over it. Juan Carlos Amorós apologized for it afterwards, saying the league should be providing a better surface for a game like this. Laura Harvey went further, saying there was no way a playoff game should be played on it and she couldn't believe it had been allowed. That turned into a much bigger story on Monday, which we get into below. It was also Fishlock's final game.

Up next: Kansas City in the semifinals on Sunday. Just not in Harrison.

This was supposed to be the tight one. Instead, the Spirit were 3-0 up before the 40th minute.

Trinity Rodman started it in the sixth, stripping Carolyn Calzada deep in Portland's end and sliding it across for Mélissa Bethi to tap in. In the 34th, Mackenzie Arnold took a heavy touch toward her own goal, Clara Luvanga charged in, and Arnold's panicked clearance bounced off Luvanga and into the net. Less than two minutes later Luvanga tore down the left and set up Rodman, who hit top speed and finished it for 3-0.

Pietra Tordin pulled one back in the 51st off a Jessie Fleming cross, but Rodman got her second seven minutes later off another Luvanga pass, and Jayden Perry was sent off late on. The records piled up: three first-half goals tied the league mark for a playoff game, Rodman's brace tied the record for one player, and she and Luvanga became the first two players with three goal contributions in a playoff game. Bethi is 20 and Luvanga is 21, and neither had played in the league before this summer.

Up next: Utah at Audi Field on Saturday.

Gotham spent the whole season earning home field all the way to the final. They won't be using it. On Monday the club moved Sunday's semifinal against Kansas City out of Sports Illustrated Stadium and over to Icahn Stadium on Randall's Island, which seats about 5,000. That's less than half the crowd that showed up for the quarterfinal, and Gotham have played there just once this season.

The field has been a problem for a while. The Red Bulls are the main tenant in Harrison and have the final say on any work done to the pitch, and it's been hammered lately: a USA Rugby doubleheader on October 30, Gotham's own season, and an MLS game the night before the quarterfinal. The league had already fined Gotham $10,000 over the field on Decision Day, which the players union says nobody told them about. After Sunday, players on both teams called the surface atrocious. Gotham, the NWSL and the Red Bulls spent Sunday night and Monday trying to resod it and couldn't agree on a fix. The Red Bulls are still hosting Club América there on Saturday.

Yael Averbuch West called it an extremely difficult decision, made with Amorós, the captains and ownership, and said the playing surface had to come first. Tickets go out in phases, starting with season-ticket holders, which means plenty of regulars won't get in. The good news for Gotham is that this has an end date: the club announced this summer that it's making Etihad Park in Queens its permanent home from 2028.

Want to read more? Our KC media rep Emilie Bartlett dug into why fifteen of the NWSL's sixteen teams share a stadium, and what that cost three playoff hosts this month. See Emilie's full analysis here.

Two of last year's finalists, a team that lost its home field and a team that had never played a playoff game a week ago.

(3) Washington vs (7) Utah. Win this and the Spirit play the final in their own stadium, which wasn't even one of the league's original scenarios. They just scored four in a playoff game, Rodman is flying, and they had sold out four straight home playoff games at Audi Field before this one. Utah are playing with house money. They've got a goalkeeper in the form of her life and a coach in Jimmy Coenraets who is up for Coach of the Year. They also won in San Diego without Mina Tanaka, their leading scorer and a Midfielder of the Year finalist. They'll need McGlynn to do it all again.

(1) Gotham vs (4) Kansas City. On paper Gotham host, but a 5,000-seat stadium they've used once this year takes a lot of the edge off that. Kansas City were the only team unbeaten at home in the regular season, which doesn't help them on Randall's Island, but they're healthy, deep, and just ground out a playoff win the hard way. Gotham have the best defense in the league and almost no attack to show for it right now.

Our picks: Washington comfortably, and Kansas City in a close one. Yes, we picked Gotham to win it all last week. A lot has changed in seven days.

The league announced its end-of-year finalists on Monday, and the MVP race is a good one. Temwa Chawinga is going for a third straight. She's up against Trinity Rodman, Golden Boot winner Ashley Sanchez, Sophia Wilson and Denver's Janine Sonis, who is also a finalist for Defender of the Year. Not bad for a player on a first-year expansion team that didn't make the playoffs.

Gotham lead the way with six finalists, as you'd expect from the Shield winners. Utah have two players plus their coach, which would have sounded ridiculous in March. The odd one on the list is Jonas Eidevall, up for Coach of the Year days after San Diego went out in the first round for the second year running. Fans get 10% of the final vote, and voting closes Wednesday, November 11 at 8 p.m. ET. Winners are announced at the NWSL Awards on Wednesday, November 18, at 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

Seattle's loss on Sunday was the last game of Jess Fishlock's career. She announced in April that 2026 would be her final season, and the Reign kept it going as long as they could, right up to a quarterfinal in New Jersey where she nearly set up the equalizer. She came off in the 74th minute.

The numbers are ridiculous. She's the last original from the Reign's 2013 roster and finishes with the longest tenure in NWSL history, all of it with one club. In September she passed Megan Rapinoe to become the Reign's all-time leading scorer, and she ends her regular-season career with 232 appearances, 52 goals and 31 assists. For Wales she won 165 caps and scored 48 goals, both national records, and at Euro 2025 she became the oldest player ever to score at a Women's European Championship.

And that's only part of it. A career that started at Cardiff City in 2002 took her through eight countries, with a Champions League title at Lyon and a winners medal from Frankfurt's 2015 run along the way.

Before you go: Gotham are hosting a semifinal in a 5,000-seat stadium they've played in once all year. Is that still a home game, or does Kansas City have the edge now? Hit reply and tell us. We read every one.