Washington Spirit rose to the occasion in their consequential match against C.F Monterrey in the Concacaf W Champions Cup Wednesday evening. Faced with elimination if they lost their final group stage match, the Spirit dominated play and produced another multi-goal shut-out, earning the top spot instead.

What’s next for the Spirit in this tournament, and what can we take away from the match?

Winning Group B

Wednesday’s win caps off a strong performance in the group stage of this tournament. The Spirit finished with a 3W-1D-0L record and a goal differential of 15. They kept a clean sheet in all four matches and led the tournament in goals and passing accuracy. On Wednesday in particular, the Spirit handled a potentially tough opponent with ease, holding Rayadas to one shot on target while taking eight of their own.

Now, they’ll have a long time to wait for their reward: a match against C.F. Pachuca, the second place finisher in Group A. In an odd bit of tournament scheduling, the knockout round doesn’t take place for about six months, with semifinals slated for the weekend of May 23, 2026. By then the Spirit and their opponents will be in new seasons and could feature very different personnel, making it all but impossible to carry any momentum from the group stage into the rest of the tournament.

Goals, goals, goals, goals

The Spirit scored FOUR goals against their Liga MX opponents, and the variety of types of goals scored and goal scorers shows the team’s threat as an attacking force. Let’s take a look at each of them.

Croix Bethune got the scoring started early. In the 6th minute, Trinity Rodman made a long, arcing pass into the box. Rayadas goalkeeper Paola Manrique got low to push it out of the path of Gift Monday, but Bethune was first to collect it. With a left-footed shot, she slid the ball forward, past Manrique’s hands and into the goal.

The Spirit had a while to wait for their next one, though an apparent goal by Gift Monday twenty minutes later was called back by the referee, who ruled that Manrique had control of the ball before Monday’s takeaway and shot.

They finally scored a second in the 54th minute. Brittany Ratcliffe extended her lead for most assists in the tournament when she dribbled inside and passed the ball forward and right to Rose Kouassi. As she did throughout the game, Kouassi easily beat her defender to the ball, dribbled forward, and slammed it into the center of the net.

Their third goal came from a set piece. On one of the Spirit’s now-common short corners, Leicy Santos made a pass straight ahead into the box for Kouassi. Kouassi received it and dribbled around a defender before making a quick pass toward the front of the goal, where Monday was crashing in to smack the ball over the line.

As for the fourth, well, no one likes to post videos of own goals apparently, but Spirit players deserve a lot of credit for making this one happen. In the 67th minute, Bethune stole the ball from a Rayadas player and got it forward to Kouassi. Kouassi hit a strong cross to Ratcliffe at the far post. Ratcliffe’s initial shot was blocked, but she continued to apply pressure at the goal line and battling Valeria del Campo until the ball bounced off of the defender for an own goal.

Rodman injured

Despite the Spirit’s strong performance, the big story of this game on Wednesday night was Trinity Rodman’s injury. Around the 40th minute of play, Rodman collided with a Monterrey player and fell to her hands and knees, quickly calling for the training staff. She was eventually helped off the field and was later seen using crutches with her knee iced up and leg braced.

The timing of Rodman’s injury is heartbreaking. After a flare-up of her longstanding back problems, she had to miss last year’s playoff run and spent much of this year off the field, working hard to rehabilitate her back to be able to play pain-free. Since her return in August, she’d scored five goals and made two assists in NWSL play, plus a goal in their Champions Cup match against Vancouver Rise Academy. Her effort and talent earned her a return to the U.S. Women’s National Team, but on the very day it was announced, this injury quashed her hopes of playing for country this month.

Adrián González announced on Friday that Rodman had suffered an MCL sprain and was not likely to be out as long as previously feared — she will be out for at least three weeks but re-evaluated after that and may be able to return for NWSL playoffs — but it’s a tough situation for a player who’s already been through so much.

Taking the competition seriously

Adrián González has said that his team approached this game, “as if it were a playoff game,” even a “final,” and that approach showed in one of their strongest starting lineups of the year, including players like Rodman, Kouassi, Tara McKeown, and Rebeca Bernal — playing against the team she used to captain in an emotional match-up. In fact, the Spirit showed a high level of respect for the tournament throughout, often using it to give match time to players more used to substituting but always bringing the energy and strategy needed to achieve their goal of a first place finish.

The same can’t be said for the tournament organization off the field. The game, like other Champions Cup matches, was minimally advertised, resulting in a crowd of just 2,087 fans, far short of the Spirit’s season average of 15,110. Only one gate was available for entry, leading to long lines for even that small number of fans, with many unable to take their seats until well after the starting whistle had blown. After Rodman’s injury, some fans took to the internet, lamenting that it had happened in what they viewed as an unimportant game that the star shouldn’t even have been playing in.

If Concacaf W Champions Cup is to become a tournament that is respected and taken seriously by fans and the larger soccer world, it’s clear that the federation, and to some extent host teams, need to devote better organization and more resources to these events.