ACFC 1-2 NJNY Gotham FC

It does feel like something of a broken record, and in this case, it’s even the same scoreline as the last time we played Gotham. I thought that we were outplayed. I thought that Gotham were comfortably in control throughout the match. And I thought that Angel City showed a lot of fight and character and never gave up. I do think that these last two results are something of a mirage, however, that needs to be acknowledged. Both Orlando and Gotham flew across the country and got out to 2-0 leads in the first half. There is absolutely no incentive for a team in that situation to keep pushing at the levels they had been. There is every reason for them to conserve energy and just try to see out the game. So yes, in both games, we came back stronger in the second half, and both times it would be easy for our players to give up. They didn’t give up, but our opponents also eased off. Neither this game nor the Orlando game was close, in my opinion, and those strong second halves were at least partially influenced by the fact that our opponents were comfortably in control.

I hear a lot of talk about how hard the team is working, and the analogy that comes to my mind is the first time I went cross-country skiing. I had no experience with this, and really struggled every time I had to go up a hill. After sliding down several times, I eventually just dug my poles in and literally dragged myself up the hill. Of course, people who actually know how to ski cross country can angle their skis so they don’t slip and just go right up the hill, a lot faster, and with a lot less effort. Angel City works really hard. There is no question of that in my mind. But I feel like there has to be a way that the team could actually accomplish more with less effort, like skiing up a hill. Sometimes working hard isn’t the best option.

Chances

My usual litmus test is to look at how many chances each team had that were worth more than .1 xG. In this case, it doesn’t actually look that bad: 4 chances for ACFC and 6 for Gotham (plus an additional chance at .09). One of those Angel City chances, however, is the penalty. I’ll talk more about the penalty in the Goals section, but for now, I think that this was less a chance that we earned and more a chance that Gotham gave us. Aside from the penalty, Angel City’s 3 other quality chances all came in the first 7 minutes. And one of those was the followup on the rebound of the first shot, so they don’t really count as two seperate chances. The third and final chance in this sequence was the shot from Rodríguez from 6 yards out. It was worth .39 xG, by far our best chance, but somehow Rodríguez actually puts it over the goal. She’s reaching back for it, but the really maddening part is that if she’d left it, I think that Alyssa was in a great position to fire it into a nearly empty net. And for the next 83 minutes, we never get another chance as good as that, aside from the penalty. Every other shot was .03 xG or worse. And we can’t even say that we dominated the opening of the game, as Lavelle forced a double save out of Haračić in the 3’. Gotham didn’t generate nearly as much in the second half, and it’s no surprise to me that their chances went down with Lavelle and Dunn coming off the pitch. Even so, Gotham had 4 shots in the second half, all after Emslie’s penalty, and two were worth .06 xG, while another was worth .09 xG, all better than anything Angel City could produce. In this same span, after the penalty when Angel City were looking for an equalizer, we only had three shots, two of which were from Megan Reid on set pieces. Sometimes that’s what it’s going to take, but I do view it as a bad sign when we desperately need a goal and it’s a centerback that is taking the shots.

Rocky Rodríguez

I was intrigued when I saw that Hammond, Nabet, and Rodríguez were all starting this match, and I was wondering if we were going to see more of a 4-3-3, with a No 6 and two No 8s, which would allow Emslie and Thompson to start further up the pitch. But instead it was actually our usual 4-2-3-1 with Rodríguez playing the No 10 role. This honestly baffles me, and please, if someone can explain it to me, I want to understand. But I have never seen her as a No 10. That wasn’t her role in Portland. She hasn’t had an assist since 2021. Her best offensive season was back in 2019, actually, with Sky Blue when she had 3 goals and 3 assists. Yet, when she was signed, there were multiple Angel City posts describing her as a No 10, and at the start of the year there were commentators saying that she was brought in to replace McCaskill. I was never a McCaskill fan, but I would at least describe her as a No 10. And while I’m all for getting beyond basic statistics, it should raise questions when you bring in a player with 1 Goal and 0 Assists to replace someone with 4 Goals and 3 assists.

I’ve also mentioned before that I thought we overpaid for Rodríguez, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever totally spelled out my reasoning for that. We paid $275,000 in Allocation Money for Rodríguez, while actually only one day earlier, the midfielder that I would have liked to see on Angel City was traded for $150,000 in Allocation Money. That player is Taylor Flint, who is, I think, a more natural Defensive Midfielder and also has the height and aerial presence to be a target on set pieces and crosses. This year Flint is leading the NWSL in Tackles, Interceptions, and Aerials Won. She’s also five years younger, and should just be entering her prime. So for many reasons, I think that Flint was a better overall fit in soccer terms, but she actually cost $125,000 less. That sum is actually more than we received for Paige Nielsen. And as one of the reasons given for trading Nielsen was to gain salary cap flexibility, it at least appears like that move might not have been necessary is we hadn’t spent the money on Rodríguez.

But even if we just say that everyone in the front office thought that Rodríguez was by far the best player out there, I don’t understand the price. Last year in the league, she played only 656 minutes, from 14 matches, with only 8 starts. I think that injuries and the World Cup played some role in that, but still, her minutes and starts went down every year that she was in Portland. She was no longer a key player for them. There is also the fact that it was well known that Portland wanted to bring in Jesse Fleming. This would have made even fewer minutes available in the Thorns midfield, thus making Rodríguez’s role even smaller. But then there was also the rumor that Fleming wanted to come to Portland, but that the Thorns were just not quite in a position to meet the transfer fee that Chelsea were asking, so they needed to raise money. To me, when you’re negotiating with a club that needs cash, and you’re offering to take a player that is not in their plans, you should be getting a discount. You have all the leverage in that scenario. $275,000 looks more like we were in a bidding war, and that number became a lot harder for me when we traded away Nielsen and Henry.

All of this is to give the background for my feelings at seeing that Rodríguez was going to be our No 10 in this match. And I didn’t think that it went well. She had 2 shots, neither on target, 2 Shot Creating Actions (one of which was a shot itself), 0 Passes into the Attacking Penalty Area, and only 2 Touches in the Attacking Penalty Area herself in 74 minutes. I’m a longtime advocate for Le Bihan as the Angel City No 10, and in the 12 minutes she played, she actually had 3 Touches in the Attacking Penalty Area, more than any other Angel City player for the match. Her average of 4.04 Shot Creating Actions per 90 is obviously over twice as good as what Rodríguez did as the No 10 in this match. And she actually scored last time we played Gotham, albeit in pretty lucky fashion. I honestly don’t know why she doesn’t start every game; I think that she’s almost always a positive. Of course, all of this is with the caveat that our sample size for Rodríguez at No 10 is only 74 minutes, and it happened to be against the team with the best defense in the whole league. I believe in my assessment, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that we’d need more data to be truly conclusive.

I also want to be clear that I don’t think that Rodríguez is a bad player or that I don’t want her on the team. I’m putting the spotlight on her here because, to me, it’s reflective of a number of Angel City’s issues. Primarily that she’s a big name and popular player, but that her skill set doesn’t match up with the team’s needs. We tend to think of Rodríguez as a goal scoring midfielder because when she does score, it’s usually a golazo that you want to watch over and over, but she never actually scores that many goals a year. In Portland, goals were a bonus for Rodríguez, but the team wasn’t counting on her to score. Last year, she was 14th on the Thorns in Total Shots. For Angel City right now, she’s 4th on the team in Total Shots, so I think clearly Angel City is needing her to score, and trying to put her in positions to score, but I think that she’s actually a better player when the goals just come naturally. With us, she’s trying to force it.

To me, she’s a box to box midfielder that could be great coming off the bench as a game changer, or to close things out when we have a lead. And I am aware of her scoring record for Costa Rica, but again, we’ve never seen her do that at any point in the NWSL. The transfer fee to sign her, to me, is indicative of the front office wanting Rocky Rodríguez specifically, rather than a player of that profile. And once Henry was traded, Rodríguez was by far the most experienced midfielder we have, so of course we play her, but now she has to work twice as hard to play a role that doesn’t suit her skills and force the game, rather than let it come to her. To me, this is the roster equivalent of dragging yourself up the hill with your ski poles.

Goals

16’ Gotham - This play begins with Gotham pressuring in our defensive third. After winning the ball back, Matthias has the ball on Angel City’s right. Lavelle presses her, and Mathias tries to get the ball out to Rodríguez. Her first touch is heavy and Gotham pounce on the loose ball. It ends up with Nealy Martin, right in the center of the pitch. At this point, it doesn’t actually look too dangerous, as all four defenders and all three midfielders are between the ball and the goal. Martin puts the ball right up the middle to Ella Stevens, who drifts into the half space to receive the ball. It’s pretty alarming when you pause at the moment the ball gets to Stevens, as Curry, Gorden, Nabet, Hammond and Gisele are all focused on her, and nobody is looking at any other Gotham player. Gorden steps up to pressure Stevens, but to no avail. Stevens has a nice one-touch pass to Gotham’s right to find Crystal Dunn, who has another one-touch pass to find Rose Lavelle alone in the box, as Lavelle is that player that no Angel City defender was watching. She controls the ball with one touch, and then hammers it home. Haračić has no chance.

40’ Gotham - This goal comes from an Angel City throw-in. Mathias is taking the throw-in on Angel City’s right, and all three midfielders have come to that side to present targets. Hammond seems to be pointing at Rodríguez, and so when the ball isn’t thrown directly to her, she doesn’t react. I think that Mathias was trying to put the ball into space for Hammond to run onto it, but instead, it’s Yazmeen Ryan who picks it up. It is astonishing to see how fast Gotham can turn defense into attack. As soon as the ball is turned over, every Gotham attacker is running into space. Ryan puts the ball across to Lavelle, and since all our midfielders were on one side for the throw-in, there’s a huge pocket of space for her. Lavelle puts a one-touch pass diagonally into the box. It’s a great pass, because even though it’s slightly overhit, it’s not going straight at goal, meaning that Haračić can’t come for it. Ella Stevens has gotten positioning on Gorden, and takes the ball to the corner of the six yard box, where she puts the ball across to Delanie Sheehan, arriving late. It’s an easy tap in for Sheehan, actually a .92 xG shot.

There’s two things I want to highlight. 1) Ella Stevens finishes with 0 Goals, 1 Assist, and 0 Shots, but make no mistake, this was a great center forward performance and she played a big role in both goals. She occupied our defenders, she’d hold up the ball, and distribute to her teammates that were in the space she creates. You could say her attitude wasn’t great, and I wouldn’t argue, but her football was outstanding. 2) Going back to my theme of hard work, I don’t think that Gotham outworked us on either goal. They used passing to open up space, and then had runners move into that space. These are the kinds of plays I’d like to see from Angel City.

69’ Angel City - First and foremost, I hope that Gisele is okay. She receives the ball high up on Angel City’s left, off a nice switch from Hammond. Gisele is trying to get to the endline, before cutting back, but she gets totally crunched by Mandy Freeman. I didn’t think that Freeman was reckless in this game overall, but this challenge seems way too aggressive. Freeman has Lynn Williams about 3 yards away in support. Angel City has three players in the box, while Gotham has eight, including Berger. There’s no real risk of anything, but Freeman decides to go in hard and gives up the penalty. That’s why I feel like this was a chance that Gotham gave us, rather than one that we manufactured. Emslie steps up and finishes it with authority, despite Berger going the right way. Great penalty. She’s 3 of 4 on penalties this season.

Conclusions

The Olympic break is probably coming at a great time, and I think that everyone involved with Angel City, from the players to the fans, probably needs to take a breath and step back from things. It will be interesting to see what happens during the Summer Cup, but I hope that we get to see some players that haven’t gotten many minutes yet. I really don’t think that it’s a competition to take too seriously, at least until the knockout stages. I’ll be taking a short break too, so no Goosecat articles next week. But I’m working on a comparison piece looking at how the NWSL stacks up to some of the top European leagues. I’ll also have to turn my attention to the Olympics and see how the Emma Hayes era kicks off.

Angel City’s first Summer Cup match is July 20th at 7p vs. Club América at Titan Stadium and on Paramount+.