Sam Kerr looks forward to a new phase of her career after signing with Gotham FC
· Yahoo Sports
Sam Kerr feels that, given the right surroundings, she can be even better.
Already considered among the best players in the world, the Australian forward is joining Gotham FC, marking a return to the National Women's Soccer League after more than six seasons at Chelsea.
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The move brings Kerr's career full circle, in a sense. The 32-year-old played for Sky Blue, which later became Gotham, from 2015-17.
"I have full confidence in myself that I can still play to the best of my ability, if not better. I’ve scored some of the best goals I’ve ever scored this year, some at the Asian Cup, some in my last game at Chelsea, and I think that just shows that if I’m put in the park with the right people around me and the right coach to coach me, I can still get the best of my ability,” she said Thursday.
Gotham said it signed Kerr to a deal that will keep her with the team through 2030. She is expected to be cleared to play in time for the Queen's Classic between Gotham and the Washington Spirit at New York's Citi Field on July 15. More than 30,000 tickets have already been sold for the match.
“I feel like last time I left Gotham, we were Sky Blue at the time, we were playing down in front of a couple of thousand people, and this is the type of stuff that we were fighting for, fighting to play in front of sold-out stadiums with the best facilities, with the best players, with wages that we deserve,” Kerr said. “So I feel like this was like a full circle moment for me, and there’s so many people that have done so many amazing things over the last six years, while I’ve been gone, that have allowed me to come back and kind of live out my American dream.”
Kerr also played for the NWSL's Chicago Red Stars before moving to Chelsea in November 2019. She remains the NWSL’s top regular-season scorer with 77 career goals and led the league in scoring for three straight seasons from 2017-19. She won league MVP awards in 2017 and 2019.
Kerr also is the all-time leading scorer for Australia with 75 international goals. She led the Matildas to the semifinals of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, hosted by Australia and New Zealand.
Yael Averbuch West, president of soccer operations for Gotham FC, would not discuss the financial specifics of Kerr's contract. Kerr's addition to Gotham's roster reunites her with former Chelsea teammates Guro Reiten, Jess Carter and Ann-Katrin Berger.
"Every phase of a player’s career looks different in terms of the skills they need and how they need to evolve, so as she is in this particular phase and moment in her career, we are going to help her to evolve and help her with her physical longevity and a lot of aspects of things that, ultimately, it’s very important to us that our players feel like we are helping them to progress their individual careers," Averbuch West said.
Over the course of her time with Chelsea, Kerr scored 116 goals in all competitions, tying Chelsea’s all-time leading scorer Fran Kirby. Chelsea won five WSL titles, three FA Cups and three League Cups during Kerr’s tenure with the club.
Kerr said she's grown in her time away from the NWSL, just as the league has grown.
“I just want to be like any other player, competing for spots, competing for time on the pitch,” she said. “I know when I was here previously, I was just like a young kid, I was striving to be the best, and I come back with a lot of experience and a lot of trophies under my belt. But I think this league has changed so much since I’ve been gone that it would be naive of me to think that I was going to come back in and have the same sort of, I guess, impact straight away.”
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