Defending NWSL champions Gotham FC announced the signing of Norwegian midfielder Guro Reiten on Thursday, a major arrival just two days ahead of the team’s first game of the 2026 NWSL season.

Reiten will join Gotham on loan through July, which is when her contract with six-time reigning English champions Chelsea was due to expire. Reiten has already signed a pre-contract with Gotham FC that will then run through the 2029 NWSL season.

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“Guro is a player of exceptional quality who has consistently performed at the highest levels of the game,” Gotham FC general manager Yael Averbuch West said in a statement.

“Her experience competing for major trophies with Chelsea and her impact with the Norwegian national team will bring valuable leadership and attacking creativity to our squad. We’re excited to welcome her to Gotham.”

The abrupt move comes with Chelsea sitting third in England’s Women’s Super League, nine points off Manchester City’s pace. Reiten, a creative attacking player, has seen her playing time decrease this season.

A tearful Reiten bid farewell to Chelsea in a video posted on the club’s social media channels.

“Everything has an end and this is my end here at Chelsea. I still remember Emma [Hayes] called me six-and-a-half-years ago and convinced me to join the club and I was terrified,” she said.

“Scared I wasn’t good enough, scared to move away from my family, but little did I know I was about to get a new family.

“It’s been an absolute honor and privilege to wear the badge and to represent you.”

Guro Reiten has today completed a move to NWSL side Gotham FC.

Everyone at Chelsea would like to sincerely thank Guro for her huge contributions to our success over the last six-and-a-half years, and we wish her well during the next chapter of her career. 💙 pic.twitter.com/SWJ7fcm1dx

— Chelsea FC Women (@ChelseaFCW) March 12, 2026

She has long been known as a talented, creative player, earning recognition on the team of the year twice in England, and externally, including placing in ESPN FC’s 50 best women’s players of 2024.

She has 21 goals in 108 appearances for Norway and has appeared in the last two World Cups.

“I’m really excited to join Gotham FC and grateful for the opportunity to be part of this club,” Reiten said in a statement. “Gotham has built something special over the past few years, and there’s clear ambition here.

“I’m looking forward to working hard, learning and doing everything I can to help the team succeed.”

At Chelsea, Reiten registered 59 goals and 44 assists in 207 appearances across all competitions. She helped Chelsea win six league titles, four FA Cups and three League Cups while appearing in various attacking roles.

She also helped Chelsea reach the 2021 UEFA Women’s Champions League final, where the Blues lost to Barcelona.

Reiten arrived at Chelsea in 2019 after a decorated domestic career.

Gotham opens their NWSL title defense on Saturday against expansion club Boston Legacy FC (12:30 p.m. ET, ABC/Disney+/ESPN App).

Trent Alexander-Arnold said there was an expectation Real Madrid would “get battered” by Manchester City on Wednesday, praising the team’s “mentality” and “perfectly executed gameplan” in their 3-0 win in the Champions League round of 16.

Federico Valverde‘s stunning first-half hat trick put Madrid on top at the Bernabéu, with Vinícius Júnior‘s failure to convert a second-half penalty the only negative for coach Álvaro Arbeloa’s side ahead of next week’s second leg in Manchester.

Madrid have been in inconsistent form since Arbeloa took charge in January, with four defeats — to Albacete in the Copa del Rey and Benfica in the league phase, and consecutive LaLiga losses to Osasuna and Getafe — raising the prospect of the 15-time European champions ending the season trophyless.

“[There was] a lot of the noise when the draw happened and leading up to this game,” Alexander-Arnold told TNT Sports. “Especially with how we’ve been playing the last few games, and the results we’ve had. A lot of people just expected us to get battered tonight.

“But we showed the mentality. It doesn’t matter what injuries you’ve got, what players are out. This competition means a lot to the club and us as players understand that… We executed the gameplan perfectly in the first half.”

Madrid went into the City first leg without stars Kylian Mbappé and Jude Bellingham, as well as Éder Militão, Rodrygo, Álvaro Carreras, David Alaba and Dani Ceballos.

“People will say that they’re favourites, and going off results and the way both teams have been playing, it could have been true,” Alexander-Arnold said. “But when you get to knockout football in the Champions League, anyone can beat anyone… We scored our goals very very ruthlessly.”

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Madrid are four points behind rivals Barcelona in the LaLiga title race, while their form in Europe — losing to Liverpool, City and Benfica in the league phase — seeing them rated by many as being outside the favourites to win the Champions League.

“I think the size of the game is the main thing,” Alexander-Arnold said. “I don’t want to say that other games are less important, but when there’s so much hype around a game and so many eyes on it, as a player you know you need to perform. Especially when you play for a club like this, there are no excuses, you have to win.”

Tennessee Tech is finalizing a five-year deal to make Tobin Anderson its next men’s basketball coach, sources told ESPN on Thursday.

A former head coach at Iona, Fairleigh Dickinson and Division II St. Thomas Aquinas, Anderson is best known for leading 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson to an upset over 1-seed Purdue in the 2023 NCAA tournament.

He spent this past season at South Florida as special assistant to head coach Bryan Hodgson, helping guide the Bulls to 23 wins and an American Athletic Conference regular-season title.

Anderson won 209 games in nine seasons at St. Thomas Aquinas, advancing to seven straight Division II NCAA tournaments. He was hired by Fairleigh Dickinson in 2022 and led the Knights to a 17-win improvement and a second-place finish in the Northeast Conference. They lost to Merrimack in the conference tournament championship game, but with the Warriors ineligible for the NCAA tournament, the league’s automatic bid went to Fairleigh Dickinson.

The Knights beat Texas Southern in the First Four, then pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NCAA tournament history, knocking off 1-seed Purdue to become just the second 16-seed to beat a 1-seed.

Anderson parlayed that Year 1 success into the Iona job, replacing Rick Pitino in 2023. Despite going 33-34 (22-18 in the MAAC) in two seasons, he was let go after last season.

At Tennessee Tech, he replaces John Pelphrey, who spent seven seasons in charge of the Golden Eagles.