Denver Summit FC Just Broke a Record. Here's What Four Games Actually Tell Us.

Melissa Kössler is making NWSL history. Abby Smith is the best goalkeeper in the league right now. And last Saturday, 63,004 people showed up to prove Denver was ready for this.

Four games into existence, Denver Summit FC sits sixth in the NWSL standings with one win, two draws, and one loss.

For an expansion team that didn't exist two years ago, that record is genuinely good. And the numbers behind it tell a story worth paying attention to.

Melissa Kössler Is Making History

Three goals. Three games. And a record that belongs entirely to her.

Melissa Kössler is the first player in NWSL history to score the first three goals for an expansion franchise. Nobody else has done it. She owns it. In Game 1 against Bay FC, she scored Denver's very first goal — the first in franchise history — assisted by Janine Sonis before her ejection. In Game 2 against Orlando, she found the net again. In Game 3 against Gotham — the defending NWSL champions — she scored in the 58th minute on a darting run to put Denver up, and they never looked back.

In Game 4 against Washington, she came within a goal of joining Alex Morgan as only the second player ever to score in each of her first four matches with a club. She didn't get there Saturday. But the fact that the conversation was even happening — about a player on a brand new franchise potentially matching one of the most iconic names in women's soccer history — says everything about what Kössler has been doing.

She's a difference-maker. Every opponent has to plan for her. Denver is lucky to have her.

Abby Smith Is the Best Goalkeeper in This League Right Now

Twenty saves. 86.4 percent save percentage. League leader in both categories.

Abby Smith is doing this with a brand new backline, on an expansion team, in a city that had never seen professional women's soccer before last month. She got her first clean sheet against Gotham FC in Game 3. She kept another one at the home opener against Washington in Game 4.

The defensive trajectory of this team tells the real story. Denver gave up two goals in the first thirty minutes of Game 1. And then one goal across the next 240 minutes of soccer. That kind of turnaround doesn't happen without an elite goalkeeper solving problems in real time and communicating with a defense that is still learning each other's names. Smith is doing exactly that — every single game.

"God Did Bigger Things Than I Could Imagine"

On this week's episode of The 5280 Pitch, I sat down with Jordan Angeli — former NWSL player and current ESPN Soccer Analyst, someone who has been in this league since the crowds were measured in the hundreds — to talk about what she saw on Saturday.

She was on the field at Empower Field at Mile High when the PA announcer said "Denver, welcome to the pitch for the very first time, you are Denver Summit FC." When the fireworks went off. When 63,004 people roared all at once.

She put her hands over her face.

"I honestly couldn't imagine it being this big," she told me. "God did bigger things than I could ever think or imagine."

63,004 is the largest crowd in NWSL history. It shattered the previous U.S. professional women's sports league attendance record — 40,091 — by more than twenty thousand people. At a home opener. For a team in its fourth game of existence.

What hit Angeli hardest wasn't just the number. It was who was in the building. Former players. Women who had been in this league from the beginning, at clubs where the investment wasn't there, where you barely had one athletic trainer, let alone a facility dedicated entirely to your team.

"They got to stand there and say — I laid a brick," she said. "That was the foundation of this. I laid one of those bricks, next to yours, next to this person's. We built something sturdy enough for them to reach for the ceiling and break it."

Then Janine Sonis said it perfectly in the post-game interview: "if you build it, they will come."

They did.

"It Rattled My Chest"

Angeli has been to a lot of Broncos games. She said Saturday's flyover was the lowest she has ever experienced. It rattled her chest.

I didn't tell my girls it was coming. I didn't want to promise something that might not happen. And then it did — low and loud and completely overwhelming. My daughters had never been to Mile High before. Saturday was their first time in that stadium. Their first time was this. Parachuters, fireworks, a flyover you felt in your ribs, and 63,000 people around them.

Angeli and I were apparently in the same spot in Lot C the whole time — our girls kicking soccer balls around on the asphalt — and somehow missed each other entirely.

"They essentially threw a Super Bowl for their first game ever," she said of the Denver Summit staff. "They've never put on a game in Colorado before and they're like — we'll just do the most."

On the Precipice of Something

The attendance record has fallen three years in a row. Chicago at Wrigley Field. Bay FC at Oracle Park. Denver at Mile High — by more than twenty thousand people.

Angeli sees every ownership group in the league taking notice. Atlanta. Orlando. Seattle. All of them thinking about how to be next.

"I hope the record gets broken again," she said. "I hope it gets broken soon. It's created competition between ownership groups — who's going to go next?"

Colorado was ready for this. My dad flew in from Arizona. He coached soccer here for years, brought his wife and daughter, and had to be in the building for the first home game. Angeli talked to people just like him all night — people who grew up here, moved away, and bought plane tickets back because they weren't going to miss this moment.

"It feels like we're on the precipice of something really cool," she said.

She's been in this league long enough to know the difference between a moment and a movement. Saturday felt like a movement.

Up Next: Seattle Reign — and a Live Show Before Kickoff

Saturday, April 4th. Denver heads to Seattle for a 6:45 PM kickoff on ION and The Spot Denver 3.

This is not a soft road trip. Seattle is 3-1-0 through four games. They beat Orlando on the road to open the season, beat Kansas City 3-0, and beat Racing Louisville 2-1. Claudia Dickey just broke the all-time Seattle Reign record for career clean sheets. Jess Fishlock and Sofia Huerta are healthy and captaining a team that made the playoffs last season and is picking up right where they left off.

Denver needs Abby Smith to keep doing what she's been doing. They need the defense to hold. And they need to learn how to protect a lead — because if they get one in Seattle, they have to find a way to keep it.

A draw on the road against a team this good would be a very good result. A win would be a statement.

Before kickoff — come find me. I am doing a live pre-game show at DNVR Bar this Saturday before the match. Come out, meet me in person, and watch the game with other Summit fans.