LI's Crystal Dunn wants you to go see her play for NWSL's Gotham FC

Memo to Long Island soccer fans:

Crystal Dunn wants you to come to New Jersey to see her and NJ/NY Gotham FC  play . She needs you to come to New Jersey to see her and NJ/NY Gotham FC play. And she’s more than willing to be a one-woman public relations team in order for her aspiration to become reality.

“I know we’re more New Jersey-based but [you] best believe I’m [going to] be out on Long Island, [and] I need to have signs saying, ‘Hey, game is tomorrow!’ that’s what I’ll do,” Dunn said following the conclusion of a news conference at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center early Friday afternoon in which the team introduced her, Tierna Davidson, Rose Lavelle, and Emily Sonnett.

The quartet signed free agent contracts with the reigning NWSL champions earlier in the month, creating the belief that NJ/NY Gotham FC has become a super team.

A cynic may caustically suggest that all Dunn, Davidson, Lavelle and Sonnett have to do after merging forces and joining a championship squad is win. No pressure. None whatsoever.

Except that’s exactly how the 31-year-old South Side High School product views her professional and personal homecoming.

“To play for Gotham FC is an exceptional opportunity,” said Dunn, who also has played for the Washington Spirit, North Carolina Courage, and Portland Thorns in the NWSL, as well as the United States Women’s National Team.

“I think you’re sitting here ready and excited for 2024 but also excited to help build on the success that this club has already had,” she said.

Dunn essentially echoed general manager and head of soccer operations, Yael Averbuch, who did not exactly shy away from the internal and external expectations for her team.

“We want this type of pressure,” Averbuch said. “We really want to embody the New York, New Jersey mindset, which is we want to be the best. We want other people chasing us. We want that target on our back. So I think we have been aiming for this.

We are very comfortable with it and we enjoy the pressure [of] going out to train every day to be the best. That’s what every single athlete in this league wants to do. And that’s what our coaching staff wants to do. That’s what we want to do in the front office. So certainly it poses a new type of challenge but we’re ready for the challenge and we enjoy that type of pressure…I think it’s more enjoyable than trying to climb from the bottom to the top.”