Skye’s Thoughts on the Angel City FC vs Utah Royal’s Game and the Overwhelming Ride of A Season
With the dimming of the lights on ACFC’s season at BMO after the final three deets of the referee’s whistle on Sunday, people have been asking me in DMs, text messages, and in the street’s how I’ve been feeling about the ride that has been Angel City’s season. Initially, I was going to wait until the end of the season completely to really get into it. However, as I have pursued social media, I began to see a variety of thought pieces pop up from people half-assedly critiquing this team. While I am all for debates and sharing opinions, swaths of these hot takes are coming from people who didn’t watch all the games around this team in person or on tv. This season has been quite the journey, and not necessarily a fun one. You can see it on players’ faces and in the coaches’ body language. I hear it from the supporters and also media members. I definitely have not been surprised because this was always a complicated situation due to the market and events of years past. I alluded to this last year headed into this year. With that said, I figured I’d drop my thoughts about the season, but before we do let’s take a look back at last week’s game in BMO stadium.
Angel City’s game against the Utah Royals FC was very symbolic of the season for the home team: It was a game that exhibited large amounts of early intense pressure filled chaos followed by exciting attacking brilliance, after the home team started figuring it out a little too late. A lot of Angel City’s struggle started with the desire to slowly build out the back to attack, and deploying a formation deadset on existing without a midfield shape. This led to a chaotic ride for Angel City in the first half. With that said, players were bodying and moving Utah players every which way. Players like Messiah Bright , Alyssa Thompson and Claire Emslie were trying to cook however they could to go as they tried to score. However, the lack of midfield shape made attacking, for Angel City, difficult and opened the door for the defensive struggle bus. Most of this difficulty stemmed from Meggie Dougherty Howard being asked to play as a roving and wandering attacking midfielder (or a 10) who would run up to attack as forward or run all over the pitch to try to spring the attack. The reality is that Meggie is best served being an 8 or 10 who maintains midfield spacing. Meggie’s positional assignment directions and her resulting positioning left Katie Zelem and Madison Hammond, whom were playing dual defensive midfielders or 6s, to cover mad ground in midfield and support defensive space. This ultimately led the midfield to lose its shape as either the midfield missed the extra body and did not have enough support to maintain possession. This flattening of the midfield as a result stifled the most of any ACFCs attacking power as a team. Forwards like Messiah and Alyssa had to drop back and recover the balls from midfield and attempt to attack, or help their fullbacks/wingbacks defend as Utah’s young talent got loose in all that open space in midfield. This led to Angel City having to also fight for their defensive lives with a bottled attack, which created a lot of pressure. This pressure started to build up and lead to a Utah attacking onslaught particularly as ACFC continued to slowly build their attack from the back. This slow build and high pressure led to multiple mistakes and saves. Eventually one of those mistakes triggered a foul that led to that banger of a free kick by Claudia Zornoza which resulted in Utah going up in the first half.
Eventually substitutions were made throughout the second half, including those of veterans Rocky Rodriguez, Christen Press, and Sydney Leroux. These substitutions brought some midfield stability and attacking organization that led to some ferocious attacking intensity during the second half. The attack went from individual brilliant moments to organized builds across the team. We were eventually treated to one of the best goals of the season as Sydney scored a volleying Shea Butter Boom off a passes headed ball from Gisele Thompson, for the youngin’s first dime or assist. There were a few other chances led by the front line of Christen Press, Sydney Leroux and Alyssa Thompson, which had the Utah youthful squad fighting for their lives to keep the game a draw. However, between ACFC teammates’ not being on the same page and missing wide open attackers ( including triggering some of CP23 glorious pitch rage as she was open many times.. She is BACK BACK haha), time sadly ran out. In a game where ACFC could have won, it left me and many of us who have long watched this team wondering what could have been for the entirety of Angel City’s season.
Many people have asked me ,” What did I think went wrong? Why did this team do better?”
Well … while I thought (and honestly STILL think), this roster should have been madly competitive for the Shield, Playoffs and Summer Sippy Cup, this season was never going to reach those heights if the roster was deployed correctly to reach a championship level as a team collectively. You can have the best race cars in a fleet for the Zoom Zoom race on Sundays. You can pick your cars to get the victories based on that week’s race track specifications and your data analysis. However, if you do not take care of your cars to make sure they are running well, do not use the best strategy to get your drivers of said race cars the Ws, do not put your best set of cars out to do what make sense for the track on that particular week, or if you never race them on game day … then your fancy race car fleet are just a collection expensive paper weights and that data is just a dream. You see, data analytics and paper pictures of nice cars alone won’t win you the Zoom Zoom race that is real life in front of you. You have to show up with the actual cars, legit strategy for your team and execute on game day to get that trophy.
Bringing this race car analogy back to this soccer reality for Angel City:, you can have the deepest Forward pool, most versatile Midfielders and fastest Defenders on the planet. You can have the data, film and stats validate and tell you that. However, if the coaching does not set players up to be in their best positions to succeed both individually and collectively; the coaching adjustments and strategies are not deployed to keep this success going game to game; and more importantly, if players are not used correctly whether in starting line ups or substitutions, your championship roster is just winning a paper trophy in thought. Those thoughts based on the data of what could be, will not win championships. It’s the appropriate execution of all the plans and player pairings in a fashion that sets the individual up for success and collective team greatness that leads to winning games and stacking points that can get you to that trophy opportunity.
Therefore as Angel City closed the 2022 season,the coaching position was always going to be a big deal during this year of 2023. The footballing for this young expansion team had not been too great due to injuries and original roster construction. Even as a new General Manager was brought in to course correct and the resulting changes were better fits, the coaching job was always a complicated situation. This job required PhD level head coaching expertise largely because ACFC has been running a madly positionless total football system with a lot of moving parts. Forwards, midfielders, defenders play multiple positions, and switch lines all the time. Such dynamism and positional movement requires mastery and understanding of the position you excel at, AND mastery as well as understanding whatever positions you may be slotted into. For the most part, each person on this roster is versatile enough to handle this reality. However, using such a positionless system usually only flourishes with a roster full of veteran players who have years of experience and depth in soccer knowledge.
The coaching job, in this case, was going to be a rather complicated and large feat as the roster has a lot of very young soccer players who are either still in highschool or just graduated, or were freshly out of college, and early career veterans. Therefore for the coach to be successful running this system for this team, the coach was always going to need to have a clear defensive and attacking identity and to set structure for the younger and older players to build through together. Additionally, the coach would have had to have proven development plans to pair with the weekly match day prep that was designed to evolve and grow the skills of the young players and early career veterans. The coach would also need to have a clear development and game prep plan to help grow the game of established vets on the squad and leverage them to help mentor the younger players over the course of the season. This balance between veterans and youth would be needed for such a positionless system to be executed well. The coach would also have to understand what sets each player up for success and greatness to achieve the essence of the DEFINED attacking and defensive identities. The coach would also have to know how to group various players together to amass multiple line-ups that unleash a speedy and powerful attack supported by a fast defense.
Given the moving pieces and pressure to correct the football, this job was always going to be a pretty big sized Head Coaching job. As coach you are in one of the biggest markets, with a huge fanbase, on a team with the high valuation, and where you are managing one of the deepest and most versatile attacking rosters in the league and probably the fastest collective defense on paper. While it may appear the road to prepping to be the Head Coach, would be easy clear and smooth, this is one of those situations particularly without experience, it could be overwhelming very quickly with all the moving parts.
Interestingly enough, I see a variation of this happen weekly currently with my Atlanta Falcons. I watch a young offensive coordinator in Zac Robinson, struggle to use all the running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends in ways that are not overly complicated. In the course of this early NFL season, I have witnessed Zac do a little too much on a play call or seem overwhelmed in deploying a simple play for first down or touchdown, when the game was asking to keep it simple. Zac Robinson is a brilliant football mind given the keys to a fleet of speedy race cars, and he is having a bumpy ride learning how to drive the squad or rather deploy his offensive personnel . It reminds me of how I have watched Becki seemingly be overwhelmed in deploying line up or to understand how to pair this very talented roster together at various points of the season. Where Zac has space in a team in a reset year under a new head coach, Becki does not have that time given the market and expectation.
Over the season there has been a struggle in pairing the right midfield starters game to game and with providing the right instructions for the attacking midfield position. The struggle of lineups has led to a plethora of issues all season. The attacking football of ACFC was stifled over periods of the season because the attacking midfielder took up the central forwards spacing as the player, whether it be Meggie, Clarisse Lebihan or Kennedy Fuller, because of the instructions they were given. The 10 was always told to and allowed to drift, and similar to the last game the midfield usually collapsed or stretched and flattened the attack. This caused a lot of problems as the flattened midfield shape added more pressure to a defense navigating slow builds in the back of the ACFC formation. All through ACFC’s existence there has been a lot of space between the goalkeeper, and two center backs; Even more space between the defensive midfielder/six that left them insolation and in front of the CBs.; The fullbacks were extremely wide in space or went very high up in attack. This collapsed midfield invited a lot of pressure from the other team occupying spaces, and disrupted any attacks and builds.
Additionally, the goalkeepers were either positioned too deep in goal or asked to build when they did not have good distribution with their feet. ‘The aforementioned issues for Angel City have been chaotic, and have caused this total football system to look a hot mess more times than not. It has been hard to watch these issues play out all season as the same problems would arise week to week where no adjustments would be made; nor were line up changes retained, when they worked. Slowly but surely, players became overwhelmed or were pulled to take on multiple roles when the system did not necessarily set them up for greatness. It all snowballed over time.
However, this situation could have been turned around if tweaks to the line ups pre-game and in-game were made. Some of these adjustments included telling the attacking midfielder to hold their spacing and support the center forward; reinforcing that all midfielders should be aware of midfield spacing to maintain midfield shape; or making sure communication is good for players to understand when to jump in and out of spaces to support transitions and ball movement. This active communication would have made sure the midfield spacing was maintained and structure of the midfield could better support the transition between defense to attack and in maintaining possession to drive the attack forward. The fullbacks would have more freedom to defend and attack without sprinting up and down the pitch to keep up. The wingers would be able to go forward and actually work to score in the attack without having to take on midfield and defensive roles .
Additionally in another tweak , changing the building out the back approach to work in a way to set the defense and goal keeper up for success, and in a way that makes sense for the NWSL. Whether it be adjusting the build up speed so that there is fast and progressive movement from the goalkeeper and center backs through the middle, or with long balls or up the wings, so this speedy team would be able to attack viciously and score frequently, changing the pace up to match the speed in front. If they used this approach maintaining speed would help support and protect when ACFC would leave their two center backs so deep in the box with so much space. Attacking and building with speed would help relieve so pressure and be their best defense against other teams who would be focused trying to stop the squad of dynamic attackers all over the pitch.
At times Becki would use some of these tweaks and you would see this team hum. They would look fluid and scary. However substitution or two would be made that would dismantle the attack, and lessons of success were not learned week to week. Repeated line ups were used where the wrong players were left on the bench, players were not set up for success and/or strategies were deployed that made no sense for the opponent upcoming or to match what changes made by the opponents game plan on the field. Often the speed of the game was slowed down to a slow build out the back while using a goalkeeper who is not their best at using their feet, which created most of the pressing and mistakes. These things combined with the midfield spacing issues caused this team to struggle often and early. Things quickly fell off the rails.
Again this is not surprising, when you are asking a rookie Head Coach, who is learning how to head coach herself, to deploy a complicated veteran favored system with a team with alot youth and versatile talent., Add the pressures of a large and highly valued team, this was always going to be a rough ride and season.
Many people will marvel at the 18 points dropped recently from winning positions at the later part of the season for Angel City, but there were so many more in games of losses and draws where they fell behind. While mistakes caused by player execution in-game was about 5% of the team’s problem, and another 5% of the problem was caused by refereeing bias on a largely nonwhite team; Most of these aforementioned struggles at 90% are due to the coaching hurdles I mentioned previously, but this also includes goalkeeping coaching accounting for a good 40 % of this.
While another change in goalkeepers might have changed ACFC misfortune later in the season, better coaching instructions go a long way no matter who was in net. If the goalkeeping coach had Angelina Anderson push up to play higher in the box, Angelina would have been in a better place to save goals when she had a couple of rough games early in season, especially when most of the fullbacks were either ill or hurt. Even with Didi Haricic in goal, and if there had been a plan to speed up the build to help Didi distribute faster or provide more support in the back as she distributes, most of the defensive mistakes would have been avoided. If full backs and midfielders are asked to come fill in the gaps and spaces to shorten, and speed up passing lanes, then a good chunk of the mistakes and repeat goals do not happen. You will notice Gotham FC do this with their system to help protect their back line and move the ball up the pitch. Rocky Rodriguez did this a lot last year with the system the Portland Thorns were running to protect the aging and not so fast backline of last year. ACFC would have seen teams like Seattle Reign or Gotham FC not score the same three types of goals at the top of the Box If they adapted .
Beyond the goalkeeping coaching, if Becki better compliments her younger players with veteran players in lineups and made adaptations to help support such a young team, swaths of the individual chaos we saw with the midfield spacing issues, and defensive disarray would have been more collective success. It is hard to run such a positionless system with young players. We saw this play out repeatedly with the USWNT under Vtalko Andonoski . Young players need structure and direction even if they are superstars in the making. They still have to learn the game and get the repetitions in . Better pairing players on the field at the time with vets would have helped stabilize so much and help connect the different lines especially in midfield. Rocky Rodriquez paired more with a Kennedy Fuller or Sydney Leroux with a Messiah Bright would have done a lot in terms of development. You currently are seeing that play out with Christen Press and Alyssa Thompson. All season, I begged for Sydney to play with Messiah at the same time, but with Sydney as a 10 or false 9. They brilliantly play off each other and can cover central space and ground and trigger attacks. Rocky could have helped Kennedy see the game across all the positions faster and also helped a young player, like Madison Hammond, in her transition as a 6. Even getting more reps with a healthy Elizabeth Eddy with some of the younger full backs would have gone a long way. Pairing Katie Johnson with Messiah and Casey Phair would have helped also. You see, utilizing these veteran players to help position the youth on the pitch, and providing a point of reference on what to do would have gone a long way in establishing attacking and defensive identity. The lack of clear cut identity made this job really an impossible one. It made it hard to figure out who to play week to week. It caused some players to be overplayed. It caused some players to be underused. It caused players to not be used to their strengths and also caused players to look like they lost a step or are out of their depth. It caused many press conferences to be filled with confident players struggling to find answers and the Head Coach just as perplexed as her players.
As I mentioned earlier, it was always going to be very overwhelming given the complex system and roster experience range. Add the layer of playing in a large market where the rent is due, so to speak, after three years of successful branding but troubling football on field, the pressure and reality has been massive and a lot. I always felt the head coaching job in the market was going to be high stakes and overwhelming given this reality. For Becki Tweed it may have been a job too big too soon, as she is working though learning how to be a Head Coach. The front office needed to understand the state of the football to understand this reality. She probably has one more game with this team, and given the other turmoil in the Front Office and new owners, we are likely in for another coaching reset. Becki will definitely learn from this and find her feet in a better situation going forward, but club reset from a leadership perspective is inevitable at this point.
In spite of it all, this roster is still stacked and will be stacked. We watched Sydney Leroux score a lot of crazy goals, Claire Emslie pull goals out of the sky, Alyssa Thompson assist and goal her way back to the national team. Rookies like Madison Curry and Gisele Thompson slide into defense with ease. Another rookie, Kennedy Fuller, got close to mastering being a 10 as an 8 and just barely out of high school in the most competitive league in the world. We saw Messiah Bright finally get game time and remind us all she is young superstar nine who almost won Rookie of the Year too. Sarah Gorden shutdown most of the league including the whole golden boot table despite hurting her ankle, and Christen Press came back to almost being her full queen goat self. Madison Hammond grew as a six. This doesn’t even account for who Angel City may sign and who else may come during the off season, and having Jun Endo completely healthy as well.
For all my reflection and musings, this team, with a clear identity, with a coach with more experience, with such a complex roster and system and high pressure environment, could easily be in playoff and shield contention in the future. Even with the current coach and staff, if things went differently in better refereed games and 3 points weren’t yanked for Front Office bookkeeping, ACFC easily could be in the playoffs this year. Hell they could have been playing in the Summer Sippy Cup final this weekend.
The path forward is finding a coach and staff and everything around the football for this club that understands the NWSL of now, who is madly adaptable game to game and in game, understands the versatility of this roster and can unleash an attacking juggernaut, can uplift a speedy defense, and establish an identity on both sides of the ball. They also need to be able to bridge the gap between youth and veteran presence on this team so game day is not eleven talented players trying to figure out how to win or draw a game, but an attacking and exciting team unleashing goals on goals and beautiful football across the pitch. The theme can’t be we hope to make the playoffs next year… that would be underachieving and disrespectful to your squad and fanbase. The next coach and associated leadership needs to be equipped and able to look at this squad and hop on a podium to say, “Next year we are taking all the trophies and making up more trophies because we got squad LA, and the road to get there starts now and this is how”.
While this offseason will likely be the most important in this clubs young history of who will likely go forward into 2025 and beyond, as many players will be in their last years of contracts and can move on if they do not get right ; the future to greatness you see of the World Series headed Dodgers, or the banners at Crypto for the Sparks and Lakers, or even the MenSL team, is not far off. Getting there will require the Front Office and Leadership to not only fix the facility issues and continue to improve this roster, but getting a head coach with the understanding and vision and ability to take the next steps. They also need to be an Head Coach folks who players will want to play for as the facilities and other issues get cleared up with this club. This will take a massive search to do so this offseason .
So in closing you may ask :who would be a good candidate ? I have had one in mind for a while, and mannnnn we will get into that next week.
Stay tuned!
Written by SkyE
Skye is a content creator, community builder and Co-Host/Co-owner of Shea Butter FC. An engineer by day and passionate soccer fanatic all the time, SkyE hopes to help amplify voices of the marginalized, especially Black women, within the sports, and help build community to dismantle the barriers that made it hard for her to flourish within this game when she was younger.
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