ORLANDO, Fla. — As the final whistle pierced the dusk Sunday and Gotham FC sprinted across the pitch in celebration, a heavy silence descended on Inter&Co Stadium. The Orlando Pride players collapsed — exhausted, gutted, emptied. And Orlando’s dream of back-to-back NWSL championships evaporated into the November sky.

Yes, this controversial, last-second, 1-0 loss to Gotham FC in the NWSL Playoff semifinal hurts.

Yes, it stings.

And yes, this one will linger.

But let me say something that needs to be said loudly, clearly, and unapologetically:

Orlando should be proud of its Pride.

They were never supposed to be here. Not this year. Not after franchise player Barbra Banda went down with a season-ending injury. Not after an offense that sputtered through the summer and a league that spent 12 months insisting Orlando’s 2024 title run was some sort of cosmic fluke.

But here they were Sunday — one win from a return trip to the NWSL Championship — pushing the 2023 champions to their breaking point before finally running out of magic.

Gotham’s controversial goal came when Jaedyn Shaw scored in the seventh minute of stoppage time from the edge of the box, where she curled in a free-kick that somehow skidded right — just out of Pride goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse’s reach. The question is, should the ticky-tack foul have even been called at that point in the game? The Pride certainly didn’t think so.

“There’s no easy way to lose, but when it’s out of your control, it’s incredibly frustrating,” Pride coach Seb Hines admitted.

“From the field, I didn’t see that there was a foul,” the Pride’s legendary captain Marta said. “I’m sorry, I feel the referee was looking for something. There was no foul.”

Watching Marta’s voice crack and her heart break during an emotional post-game press conference shows you why she is considered by most to be the best to have ever played the game.

“I still care about this game so much,” she said tearfully. “I still want to to win. I’m still hungry. I don’t play because of what I did in the past. I’m playing because I feel I can still do something important.”

At 39, Marta gave everything. Again. She has been giving everything for nearly a decade in this city, long before the Pride were relevant, long before ownership spent money, long before Orlando understood what it had.

Marta has been Orlando’s heartbeat, Orlando’s conscience, Orlando’s consistency in a sports landscape defined by departures and disappointments.

Shaq left.

Dwight left.

Stars leave this city the moment a brighter spotlight flickers elsewhere.

But Marta?

She stayed.

She stayed through losing seasons, through coaching chaos, through league scandals, through apathy and instability. She stayed when the only thing keeping the Pride standing was her name stitched across the back of her jersey.

She is the greatest athlete in Orlando history – and Sunday’s loss does nothing to change that. If anything, it cements it.

Let Gotham’s players celebrate. They earned it. Shaw capitalized on the free kick. And seconds later, their goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger dove backwards to tip Pride defender Oihane Hernandez’s header just over the bar as time expired. It was a spectacular save.

But the Pride? They showed what grit looks like when the world expects you to crumble.

Hines coached like a man who knows his team’s soul better than anyone in the building – which he does. He has been the steward of this franchise’s rebirth, transforming a once chaotic culture into one of the league’s model environments.

GM Haley Carter’s fingerprints remain everywhere – in the professionalism, in the standards, in the ethic of a franchise that now treats players not as assets but as human beings.

Last year’s championship didn’t come out of nowhere. And this year’s run wasn’t an accident.

This is what a stable, respected, genuine organization looks like.

And it was good to see a crowd of more than 15,000 at the Purple Palace on Sunday. They were thunderous, devoted, defiant. They lifted the team in the final minutes when the legs were fading. And they stayed to applaud afterward, as the players trudged around the pitch, saluting the city that too often overlooks them.

Those fans understand.

They know what they witnessed these past two years.

They know the Pride aren’t going anywhere.

The scoreboard said Gotham 1, Pride 0.

The scoreboard said the repeat dream is over.

The scoreboard said the season ends here.

But the scoreboard doesn’t tell the truth that matters.

The truth is that this team wasn’t supposed to sniff a semifinal. The truth is that without Banda, the Pride pushed as far as they possibly could.

And in the process, they reminded Orlando who they are.

They are the franchise that broke the city’s major league championship drought.

They are the franchise with the GOAT who never left.

They are the franchise with a coach who rebuilt a culture from ashes.

And they will be back.

Sunday night ended in heartbreak, yes.

But it also ended in belief.

Belief that this is no longer just an Orlando team.

This is an Orlando pillar.

This is an Orlando constant.

This is Orlando’s Pride.

And the city should be damn proud of them.

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