Before the playoffs even began Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury, a six-year veteran of the club, summed up this iteration of the team. While a deep playoff run with rookies in pivotal roles isn’t new to Kingsbury or any team veteran who experienced the 2021 NWSL Championship winning season, one thing stood out to her as notably different. After the Spirit’s final regular season game—a win away at North Carolina, who had been previously unbeaten at home—Kingsbury said, “It’s been really fun to be motivated by love for one another, and not motivated by all the chaos going on all around us [in 2021].”

The 2021 Washington Spirit were deeply talented, too, but forced to perform in the midst of off-field turmoil throughout the year. Players were embroiled in an ownership battle which got publicly nasty, compelling them to post a unified statement that remains remarkable in its clarity and pointedness. After having suffered through the verbally abusive tenure of former head coach Richie Burke, players demanded more from then-club leadership—Steve Baldwin, CEO; Larry Best, President of Sporting Operations; Richie Burke, head coach; and Tom Torres, assistant coach—who seemed to cover for one another’s poor behavior, harassment, or abuse.

Players, who finally had a listening ear from an influential figure in club ownership through then-minority owner Y. Michele Kang, demanded accountability, and ultimately a full ownership change. The players knew their worth, and in Kang had someone committed to providing the care, resources, investment and belief in them that they’ve always deserved. Burke was suspended in August of 2021 and eventually fired—by the NWSL, not Spirit ownership—at the end of an NWSL investigation in September.

During the team’s playoff run that year, fueled by frustration and spite, they used the pitch as their catharsis. It was the one place they had complete control, and could use winning as a way to fight back and keep the spotlight on their struggles, and demands. Chaos is damaging and unsustainable, as is spite. The players’ 2021 championship wasn’t meant to be a sustainable thing, it was meant to prove a point. The following two seasons the Spirit struggled, finishing second from the bottom the following year and missing the playoffs in both. This season is different.

Fast forward three years, and the team is right back in another championship game. This time, under now-majority owner Y. Michele Kang, they have the more they’ve always deserved. The infrastructure around the team is fueled by unprecedented investment from Kang, who earlier this season welcomed billionaire former NBA player Magic Johnson into the ownership group.

Dawn Scott, former high-performance coach for the USWNT, has been with the club for three years and is in charge of a multi-faceted performance, medical and innovation hub which takes care of players’ medical, fitness and wellness needs. Two-time Women’s Champions League-winning coach Jonatan Giráldez was recruited from Barcelona to take over full-time with the Spirit this summer. Giráldez has adjusted to the NWSL brilliantly, not demanding that they become the Barcelona of the NWSL, but giving the players structure and direction that allows them to lean into what they do best.

Staff at the Spirit have worked hard to create community connections and grow attendance at Spirit games, turning matchdays into events punctuated by a high-performing team who spend lengthy amounts of time meeting fans after every home game. Rowdy Audi, a play on the stadium name Audi Field, has become a unique and beautiful experience in the league. So much so that across two playoff games, through back-to-back sellouts and raucous live atmospheres which translated across broadcast TV on CBS then ABC, it became the talk—and likely envy—of most teams in the league.

In both playoff games the Spirit came from behind in dramatic fashion to win and advance. Giráldez thanked the fans in multiple pressers, and several players gave credit to the fully tuned-in crowds for giving them the encouragement, backing and belief of nearly twenty-thousand as they problem-solved their way toward victories.

This, all of this, is an extension of the love Kingsbury was speaking of as well. That love intensifies when it comes to connections between the group of players who make up the 2024 iteration of the Washington Spirit.

While team names and general branding remain the same year to year, teams can change a lot. In personnel, in culture, in fit, in environment, in function, or even purpose. Solid teams maintain a level of consistency through talent and culture as they seek to enhance themselves year over year. But each season is different, and brings its own challenges.

Several key contributors to this Spirit run were not with the team in 2023. Casey Krueger and Brittany Ratcliffe were free agent signings, while the 2024 draft brought in six brand new players. Summer moves added to the team as well, with Esme Morgan, Rosemonde Kouassi, and Leicy Santos joining in the middle of the year. It’s been a testament to the environment cultivated by and within the team that these players have come in from three different leagues, settled quickly, and performed exceptionally in a league that often requires time to adjust.

However, this iteration of the Washington Spirit has also faced an overwhelming amount of adversity through long-term injuries to key performers Ouleye Sarr, Croix Bethune and Andi Sullivan. Through the culture, environment and love they’ve had for one another, and despite who can and cannot play, they’ve relied on several players

Replacing a player who was in the race for the golden boot (Ouleye Sarr), and another who tied a near decade-old NWSL single season assist record and was later named Rookie and Midfielder of the Year (Croix Bethune), is impossible. They’ve also had to find ways to pick up vital points without superstar forward Trinity Rodman, whose flare-up of back spasms led to her missing multiple games late in the season.

Without them, and eventually also veteran midfield leader Andi Sullivan who tore her ACL in a frustrating October 6th match against Orlando Pride, the Spirit have had to evolve with each player lost. They’ve done so by tapping into the team’s ‘dawg‘ factor through physicality and becoming mentality monsters. They’ve leaned on brilliant defensive performances from forward-turned-center back Tara McKeown, veteran defensive stalwart fullback Casey Krueger, the ‘stay ready’ intensity and full tatted up arm sleeve of rookie Hal Hershfelt, and brilliance from goalkeeper God Mode Aubrey Kingsbury.

This shift in style is not easy to pull off anytime during the season—especially at the penultimate end—but provides yet more evidence for Kingsbury’s analysis. A team moving with love for one another is more prepared to celebrate, support and value for what any player suddenly called upon can bring. No one expected Makenna Morris (13th overall draft pick), Courtney Brown (49th overall draft pick) or Heather Stainbrook (undrafted) to become Rookie and Midfielder of the Year Croix Bethune.

Yet each rookie (a word Spirit coaches have pushed against since preseason) stepped onto the pitch to play their game with full belief and confidence from their teammates and coaches—and it’s worked. Four of Morris’ five starts have come since near-mid October, with her scoring three goals and assisting twice during that stretch. All six of Stainbrook’s starts came after September, while five of Brown’s eleven starts have come in the last six games. The Spirit have won all but one of these games, posting two clean sheets, conceding just four goals while scoring twelve.

These performances helped the team fight off Gotham FC and Kansas City Current to ensure they claimed the #2 spot on the table when the final whistle of the regular season was blown, and never-say-die their way to the NWSL Championship game. Whether the Spirit win or lose the final game of this season, this feels sustainable. In part because there’s more growth to be found in love as opposed to chaos. This team’s sudden ahead-of-schedule arrival suggests that their destination is potentially far beyond the visibility of pre-playoff expectations.

No one knows what the 2025, 2026, 2027 or beyond Washington Spirit will look like or how they will perform, but on present evidence it’s hard to imagine the stock arrow pointing anywhere other than the moon. In this moment, however, it’s important to enjoy this feeling, and to be grateful for the season we have witnessed from this group of players. It feels special, even magical, because at many points it has been. It’s also been the consequence of many things longtime fans of the NWSL have known the athletes have always deserved: The building of tangible (investment and resources) and intangible (culture and mentality) framework through belief, care and support for and in the players.

While these are, finally, necessities to win games in this era of the NWSL, the powerful force serving as the cherry-on-top for the 2024 Washington Spirit was identified by Aubrey Kingsbury several weeks ago: love for one another.