PORTLAND, Ore. -- No one from FC Kansas City could explain why Heather O'Reilly was where she was on the left side of the field when the team launched a counterattack late in the second half of a scoreless National Women's Soccer League final against Seattle Reign FC.
Few people in women's soccer are as easily imagined in the midst of a signature move as the right-footed O'Reilly sprinting to the end line on the right flank, steadying her body and ripping a cross that roars from right to left across the box toward a waiting teammate.
But there she was in the biggest of moments on the left side of the field.
FC Kansas City coach Vlatko Andonovski almost sheepishly admitted after the game that he couldn't claim credit for what would have gone down as a bit of tactical brilliance. No, he didn't tell her to go over there during a stoppage of play minutes earlier that led to Seattle replacing its injured outside back on that side of the field. Nor did O'Reilly claim credit for spotting a pressure point in the defense with the substitution and moving to that side of the field to expose it.
She just, well, ended up over there in the moment. It's what Andonovski said he trusts his players to do: Move where the game dictates.
And so O'Reilly crossed the ball like she always does, right onto the head of Amy Rodriguez in the middle of the 6-yard box.
Rodriguez took it from there, yet another postseason goal from the forward the difference in a 1-0 win that made FCKC the first team in the league to defend a championship, at the expense of the first team to finish atop the standings in the regular season in back-to-back years.
"I think in the second half I wasn't finding the ball as much on the right side, and I don't know, one thing led to another and I just sort of found myself over there," O'Reilly said. "So we were sort of overloaded with numbers on that side. Lauren [Holiday] said that she was looking up to maybe switch the point of attack, and I think I screamed for her to come back the near side."
The long march to that moment when O'Reilly found herself on the left side of the field in Portland began only hours after the final a year earlier in Seattle. Down to the detail of the specific restaurant chain at which they ate, Andonovski recalled sitting with director of soccer operations Huw Williams hours after winning the title and telling his friend the Blues needed to trade for O'Reilly if they wanted to retain what they won. That was the mission: get O'Reilly.
"We felt last year that we had a hole on that side," Williams said. "That we needed to get a little more width to give more space for Lauren Holiday, give a little bit more space for Erika Tymrak and open up that relationship for Holiday and A-Rod even more. ... You've got a player there with 200 caps, so getting her obviously wasn't easy."
The price was steep, especially for a player who was 30 years old and would miss much of the season because of World Cup duties. FC Kansas City traded Kassey Kallman, who played a vast majority of minutes on the back line a season ago, and talented goal-scoring prospect Morgan Marlborough to Boston. But FC Kansas City paid it. Andonovski said he felt O'Reilly looked comfortable in her new home by the third game of the season, a 1-0 win at home against Seattle, but she and the rest of the team had to start over again once the World Cup concluded.
FC Kansas City went unbeaten in its final six games of the regular season, O'Reilly contributing a goal and three assists in that span, as well as another assist in a semifinal win at Chicago, and a presence difficult to measure in counting statistics alone.
"She's just an amazing attacking player," Jen Buczkowski said. "Getting on the flanks, she can be so dangerous with her speed and getting crosses off like she did tonight. I think her leadership and stuff, she can be very energetic and she kind of gets us going. She's always there. She's one of the hardest workers up and down the flank, even defensively."
And when Seattle successfully swarmed Holiday and Rodriguez in the middle of the field, negating those two stars in much the same way FC Kansas City negated Kim Little through the tireless work of players like Buczkowski and defender Amy LePeilbet, Kansas City had the playmaker on the flank that they identified as a need all those months ago. Even if it happened to be the left flank.
So along with Holiday -- who suffered a scare late in the second half when she fell untouched to the turf with what she described as a racing heartbeat related to her arrhythmia -- Rodriguez and captain Becky Sauerbrunn, O'Reilly became part of the first group of American players to win a World Cup and a club title in the same year. She didn't get a chance to play many minutes in the former. She played all of them when it mattered in the latter.
"I think that's sports," O'Reilly said. "You have incredible highs, and you have times where you have to show a little bit of resilience. I think that's what this year has been all about. I obviously tried to do my role to the best of my ability in the World Cup and come back and be a force for the team here in Kansas City."
Given a later start time than last season's afternoon final, Andonovski and Williams might choose to get some sleep before holding a council of war to talk about next season, but there will be changes to make. Replacing Holiday -- who is retiring -- is the most obvious and most daunting, but she might not be the only one. Buczkowski, who said before the season this would likely be her final one, said after the win that she will wait to see how she fares on some applications to physical therapy programs and then decide her soccer plans accordingly.
It might take some time for the new pieces to come together. It might require another scramble to make the playoffs. But if FC Kansas City gets in, it will have a chance.
And to be the champion of a league that will enter uncharted waters in that country when its fourth season begins, you have to be the best when the moment arrives.
The player FC Kansas City believed it had to have to defend its title was just that Thursday.
