Gotham FC is in touching distance of winning the first NWSL Shield in club history, six points clear at the top of the league table with only four regular season matches left to play.
Opta rates Gotham's chances of holding on and winning the Shield as 92.2% likely, and one of the main reasons Gotham is in this powerful position atop the standings late in the season is the 2026 play of Jaedyn Shaw.
The 21-year-old forward leads the club in both goals (nine) and assists (five, tied with Guro Reiten for team lead) in what has been a breakout first full season with Gotham after arriving last summer in a $1.25 million intra-league transfer from North Carolina Courage.
In her most recent appearance at club level, Shaw made history by scoring a brace to guide Gotham to a 3-1 win over Chicago Stars, in the process becoming the youngest player in league history to hit 25 regular-season goals scored. Shaw has set career-highs this season in matches started, minutes played, goals, assists, you name it.
It came as a surprise, then, to not see Shaw's name included on the 26-player United States women's national team roster just selected by Emma Hayes for a pair of October friendlies on home soil against Spain. Gotham FC does have two representatives on the USWNT roster, defender Tierna Davidson, plus midfielder Rose Lavelle, who also just made official a long-term contract extension with Gotham through the 2029 season.
Lavelle and Davidson are in, but Shaw is not, even though Shaw was part of the last USWNT squad assembled earlier this year, one that played Brazil twice in Brazil in June. She was also on the roster that played Japan in two friendlies further back in April, appearing in both those matches and recording an assist in the USWNT's 3-0 win.
Despite that, and despite the fact that Shaw is in top form with Gotham, and despite that she won Olympic gold with the United States in 2024 and has 37 appearances, and 10 goals scored, for the USWNT since earning her first cap in 2023 while she was just 18 years old, Shaw misses out on facing star-studded Spain, the winners of the last Women's World Cup in 2023 and runners-up in the most recent W-Euros in 2025.
Three uncapped outfield players received their first-ever senior USWNT call-ups over Shaw: Midfielder Evelyn Shores plus forwards Pietra Tordin and Trinity Byars. Shaw is still supposed to be involved with the United States national team during this international break, with Emma Hayes telling reporters who asked about Shaw's exclusion that the attacker will be with the United States U-23 team because, "...there is a competition for places," and because Hayes doesn't want players, like Shaw, sitting on the bench with the senior USWNT when she could get minutes elsewhere.
Combine Shaw's past experience with a best-of-her-career season with Gotham and you would think she'd have a place solidly secured with the USWNT, but instead, she misses the cut. That might come down, at least in part, to the personnel with which she's competing for a spot on the roster.
The United States is loaded with attacking options on this current Shaw-less roster, with eight forwards called in for the Spain games, a group that includes wide attackers like Trinity Rodman, Alyssa Thompson, Michelle Cooper, and Ashley Sanchez. All the players called up over her are enjoying strong seasons, even those with zero caps with the national team, so they are not simple choices to make for Emma Hayes.
Shaw might be breaking out in NWSL this season and leading Gotham to the top of the NWSL table, but it has not yet been enough to move her up the national-team depth chart, at least in Emma Hayes' eyes. Or, Hayes knows what she's got in Shaw and is using this non-competitive window against the world's top national team to test out some different looks, including a few new players.
Regardless of the exact reasoning, Shaw has been a steady presence for Gotham this season, central to a lot of the successes the defending NWSL Champions have enjoyed in what's been a consistently great 2026 season. On the attacking side, her 14 goal contributions have Shaw tied for ninth-most in NWSL; nine non-PK goals have Shaw in a tie for seventh place on that particular NWSL leaderboard; and her 87 crosses are ninth-most among NWSL players.
It's not been attack-only for Shaw in 2026, as she also leads all NWSL forwards in tackles made per match (2.35) and her 39 tackles won puts Shaw in a tie for 10th place among all NWSL players, forward or not, so far this season.
Emma Hayes made sure to add that excluded players like Shaw, and Angel City FC forward Ally Sentnor, are still "central" to the USWNT's plans, but it still feels like an oversight to omit Shaw from this squad. She's in form at club level, with four goals and one assist across her last five matches played for Gotham as the club closes in on the Shield, and she's still super-young at 21 but with national team experience already in hand.
There's a path in place for Shaw to ball out with the United States U-23s despite this snub, thus playing her way back into the senior national team for the November international window, when the serious games get played: Qualifiers for next summer's FIFA Women's World Cup in Brazil.
The United States plays Spain on Saturday, October 10 at Audi Field in Washington, DC, then again on Tuesday, October 13 at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania. Those are appetizers for the Concacaf qualifiers, the Concacaf W Championship 2026, with the USWNT set to play El Salvador in a win-and-you're-in quarterfinal on Friday, November 27 in Texas.
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