LOS ANGELES – Angel City FC has only been around L.A.’s sports scene for three seasons but already seems to be building a reputation.
In 2023, ACFC rallied from a 2-6-3 start of the NWSL regular season, used a coaching change and the World Cup break to regroup and went 4-1-2 from August 19 on to get into the playoffs, before losing a first-round matchup to eventual finalist OL Reign (now known as the Seattle Reign).
And they’re at it again. (I’d have said “don’t look now,” but really, this is worth watching.)
Through July 6, the last league game before the Olympics, ACFC was 4-9-3. But a break for the Summer Cup tournament provided an opportunity for a reset. Angel City reached the semifinal of that midseason tournament, walloped FC Juarez 7-0 in a friendly, and has won the first two league games after the break, a 2-1 victory in San Diego last week and another 2-1 triumph over Chicago Sunday afternoon, achieved on Sydney Leroux’s goal off a cross from M.A. Vignola in the first minute of stoppage time as the game was winding down.
It was an exhibition of grit and gristle. Captain Sarah Gorden was injured twice in the first half – “two black eyes and a bunch of stitches,” as coach Becki Tweed put it – and ACFC survived a whopping 17 minutes of first-half stoppage time, regrouped in the dressing room and imposed its will as the afternoon wore on.
And yes, there was urgency to come out of this game with three points rather than one for a tie. The victory moved ACFC (6-9-3) from 10th to ninth in the standings, one place shy of the playoff zone and one spot behind Bay FC. Both sides have 21 points, but the expansion team from the Bay Area has seven victories to Angel City’s six.
Seven games remain, four of them are against other under .500 teams, and if ACFC truly has figured things out, this could be fun.
“I think the team has extraordinary belief because of what they were all able to accomplish last season,” said forward Christen Press, who had way too much time to observe last year. She missed the entire 2023 season while recovering from a torn ACL suffered in June of 2022, returned to play two games in this year’s Summer Cup and made her first NWSL appearance for ACFC Sunday, replacing Alyssa Thompson in the 70th minute.
“You hear the rhetoric,” she said. “And I think I’m very attuned to what makes a winning culture. You hear the girls saying, ‘We’ll do it again. Just like last year.’ Like, here it is. And that type of stuff manifests.
“So I think we have great energy. We gotta keep getting results, grinding it out.”
The Summer Cup, in which ACFC defeated Mexico’s Club América and NWSL sides Bay FC and San Diego before losing to New York/New Jersey in the semifinal, provided an opportunity since ACFC, unlike other NWSL teams, didn’t lose players to Olympic competition.
It “was just huge in terms of the alignment and getting us on the same page, and the joy and the grit,” Tweed said, citing the ability to play with the freedom of not having to worry about the standings.
“We set out the standard that we (wanted) to win it,” she said. “But it was a case of, how do we get everybody in with us? Not just 11, 12, 13 players. How do we get 24, 26 players on board, where they’re getting minutes and training at such high level?
“I think it was really valuable for us to have players stay with us in the break because it was an opportunity for us to grow. It wasn’t a break for us. It was, how do we go into the second half of the season and be the best version of Angel City that we can be? … We worked really hard. Credit to the players. They used the summer as a space where they got what they needed to get to work into the second half of the season.”
Having the key players stay together during the break, rather than going to Paris for the Olympics, helped. Nor did it hurt that ACFC added midfielder Katie Zelem, formerly of Manchester United and a member of England’s World Cup runners-up last summer, in the international transfer window last month.
Leroux, like Press a veteran of the U.S. Women’s National Team, said, “I hope that we can have a full season where we don’t have to fight, fight, fight. But I think that we enjoy the pressure and we know that we have to win.”
Then again, if you play your best when backed into a corner, that’s much better than the alternative.
“We’ve seen ourselves do it before, so then there’s an internalized belief that we can do it,” Press said.
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“And I would always say the strength of this team … was the culture and togetherness of the players. The girls fight for each other, like Syd said. And that gives you so much trust and confidence in your team when you’re out there. Everyone’s wanting the best for each other, and the group just sticks together in a really big way.”
Was Sunday’s victory, very much a last minute(s) achievement, a turning point?
“I said I think these wins are the wins that create your character,” Tweed said. “And these are the wins that create your togetherness as a team, because everybody was needed today.”
This edge-of-the-cliff act continues Friday, when Seattle comes into BMO Stadium. Stay tuned.
jalexander@scng.com
