ACFC 1-2 Racing Louisville

We were lucky enough to be at this match, but somehow, I don’t feel like I gained that much from being there in person. Or I should say, about the match. Lynn Family Stadium is actually pretty cool, and has a great feel to it. Every seat there feels like it’s practically pitchside. Unfortunately, not enough people took advantage of that, at least for this game. With an announced crowd of only 5,493, I felt like the atmosphere was a little lacking. And in general, I’d say, the match just felt a little bit lacking all around. Some of that has to be the travel; Louisville is one of the hardest cities to get to in the NWSL, though I think they did have a charter, (one of the perks of the new CBA was a loosening of the charter restrictions). But it did feel kind of lackluster from both teams.

Facets

I think that this is a particularly difficult kind of game to breakdown, and I don’t think that there are any clear answers. Football is a complex sport, which is what makes it so good, but that means that there are usually only complex answers. On the one hand, I don’t think that anybody would say that Angel City was outplayed. On the other, I also don’t think anybody would say that Angel City dominated, and Louisville stole all three points. Louisville fans might say they got lucky with this win. Angel City fans, I think, are going to say we didn’t do enough, and mistakes cost us once again. Louisville are obviously happier with the three points, but I don’t think that anyone would be happy with the performance.

The stats support this, I think. xG was 1.3 to .5 in Angel City’s favor, yet we only had three shots that were worth over .1 xG. Shots were 17 to 10 in Angel City’s favor, but Shots on Target were 6 to 5 in favor of Louisville. Angel City also had 65% Possession. So not outplayed, but not particularly threatening sounds right. I saw a lot of talk after the game that the midfield was at fault, and didn’t do enough to get the attackers the ball. I don’t think that’s particularly fair. Katie Zelem alone had 9 Shot Creating Actions, so she was definitely getting the ball to shooting positions, but it wasn’t really our attackers that were taking the shots. Curry led the team with 3 shots, and then four other players had 2 shots, but only Alyssa Thompson would really be considered part of the front three. The others were Dogherty Howard, Spencer, and Vignola. If defenders are getting more shots, then I don’t think that it’s exactly an inabilty to get the ball forward, I think it’s more an inability of the forwards to get into shooting positions. Actually, that’s not fair, because I think that Emslie and Alyssa have done a good job, but they are playing so wide that it forces them to mostly be creators, rather than finishers.

The thing that all of this reminded me of, though, was the midseason report I did, that first made me realize that Angel City really doesn’t rank in the top half of any category. We have trouble with creating chances, but also with finishing. Similarly, we have trouble conceding chances, but also have below average goalkeeping. The problem with this game, I think, is that there was an overlap of multiple aspects of these things. Chance creation wasn’t great, but it was okay. The defense wasn’t great, but there were some bright spots. We held Savannah Demelo to her second lowest number of passes all year, for instance. But the finishing left something to be desired and there were individual errors on defense. When multiple facets are lacking, and no aspect is exceptional, then a 2-1 road loss is not surprising.

Goalkeeping

I did not think that Haračić had a great game, but I found something interesting when I started looking at numbers. Angel City has the worst PSxG+/- in the league at -2.7, but Haračić actually doesn’t have the worst individual number. Her PSxG+/- is -1.9, while Anderson contributed -.7 to the total. Lysanne Proulx at Bay FC has the lowest total with -2.4, while AD Franch has a -2.3 in KC. These three clubs are the only ones that actually have a negative PSxG+/-. Portland is in the positive, but Shelby Hogan is at -1.4. Here’s the thing though, Proulx, Franch, and Hogan are not in goal anymore. Katelyn Rowland (PSxG+/- of +.5) has taken over as the starter in Bay, and Proulx has actually now transferred to Juventus. Hogan was replaced with Mackenzie Arnold, who has already posted a +2.9 mark so far. KC brought in Almuth Schult, who has a PSxG+/- of +1.0 in her three games so far. Three games is a small sample size, but that does include a shutout of Orlando, so it hasn’t exactly been easy. Angel City fans may remember Schult as our #3 keeper in 2022. She played one match, the final game when the playoffs were almost certainly out of reach. She has 66 caps for Germany, and won an Olympic Gold Medal as the starting keeper in 2016, so it seemed odd that she wasn’t rated more highly at Angel City, although I always felt like Freya Coombe placed more faith in Haračić due to their time at Gotham together.

At this point, I do think that we’ve seen enough in three years to get a sense of Haračić’s level, and for me, I don’t think that she’s a starter in the NWSL. I do think that she’s a starter on a lot of teams in England, France, and Mexico, to name a few. Going back to the Louisville game, their second goal reminded me of a similar situation in a 2022 game against San Diego. Haračić turned the ball over in a similar manner, but in that case, Tyler Lussi immediately stepped in with the foul, despite the fact that she was on a yellow and it led to her being sent off. That’s one of the things I loved about Lussi, though. She had no qualms taking a tactical foul. But I digress. My point is that we’ve seen this kind of play from Haračić before, both in terms of distribution and shot stopping, and I think that any other NWSL team would have gone with a different goalie at this point, as has happened with Bay, Portland, and KC. Angel City is sticking with her, and I know that they’re trying to do things differently. But at this point, I don’t blame Haračić for the mistakes in the Louisville game. I think that she is definitely trying her best; I would never question her work ethic or passion. But the front office and coaching staff know what to expect, and they’ve stuck with her. I understand that Angel City doesn’t want a cutthroat, win-at-all-costs mentality, and actually I don’t either. But I personally feel like there’s a path where Haračić goes to a team and league in which she can thrive, and Angel City can upgrade their goalkeeping to be more comparable to the rest of the league.

Goals

18’ Angel City - A goal in transition! Not a surprise. This begins with Alyssa intercepting the ball at midfield. As soon as she gains control, Emslie is sprinting up the field. Alyssa threads the ball through to her, Emslie takes a touch, and then takes the shot with her left foot. It’s only a .08 xG shot, and Lund has the angle to save it. But what Emslie does really well is that her shot is low and hard to the far post. Lund is almost definitely going to make the save, but this type of shot forces her to parry the ball back into the box. Dougherty Howard is there for the rebound, and slots it home. Lund doesn’t even dive.I’m a big believer that a low, hard shot to the bottom corner is almost always the right choice.

26’ Racing Louisville - This is a pretty painful goal. It starts with Sarah Gorden trying the long ball upfield, but it’s disrupted by Taylor Flint. Louisville wins the ball and there are five quick one touch passes by Louisville to move the ball around. It ends up with Borges, who has her head up. At this point, Gorden is coming across the pitch to try to cut off DiGrande’s run, which opens up a hole for Balcer to run into. This is actually especially aggravating as Balcer is a good yard past Gorden, but Spencer is keeping her onside, even though Spencer is behind her, and in no position to make a play. Borges puts in the cross, and Balcer gets kind of a looping header from 16 yards out that beats Haračić. It’s not great to give up a header without much power from that far out, but this goal is also caused by the bad turnover, and bad defending. Really, just not a lot to like from an Angel City perspective.

68’ Racing Louisville - Another pretty painful one. It begins with a back pass from Spencer to Haračić. Haračić hits it straight to Beckie who takes a touch, nutmegs Curry, and then scores. As I mentioned earlier in the similar situation with Lussi, I think that Curry has to take the yellow card here. She’s in a bad spot, because she has two attackers she’s trying to cover, and she’s scrambling because one second before this, she was trying to stay as far as possible from a Louisville player to receive a pass. Beckie’s shot is also not from a great angle, only a .08 xG shot, and you’d expect that Haračić wouldn’t get beat on the near post, but there it is. Like I said, it was painful.

Conclusions

My overwhelming feeling is that Angel City has a lot of work to be done. Really, I think that every aspect of the team needs to improved. Personally, I’d like to see just one area get figured out. For instance if we had a free flowing attack, but were also conceding a lot of goals, or had a really organized defense, but couldn’t score, then I’d actually feel okay. It would be a foundation to build on. But we’re kind of trying to do everything, so we can make that final playoff spot. I don’t think that making the playoffs is going to solve our problems. Last year, Kansas City, Orlando and Washington didn’t make the playoffs, but you could see the foundation of their success, coupled with strong additions in the offseason.

Saturday also had the coincidence that in addition to Beckie and Balcer scoring against us, Cascarino and Lacasse both scored in the San Diego v Utah game. Meaning that all three other teams playing that day brought in new players to help score goals, and all four of those new players scored goals. Now I think that this is a coincidence, but it does underscore the lack of activity from Angel City during the recent transfer window. The word was that there was a signing of a high caliber that we couldn’t get over the line, and those things happen. But since we cut Le Bihan and traded Henry and Nielsen, in part to open up roster spots, not getting a deal done feels that much worse. The thought that sums it up for me is that Angel City is standing still, while the rest of the league gets better. I’m sure that we will see steps taken in the offseason, but this game in Louisville didn’t look that different to me than a lot of games in the past three years, and I fear for the foreseeable future. But I don’t want to end on a bleak note, so I’ll just say that if you ever get a chance to see a game at Lynn Family Stadium, you should take it. And the fact that our players came home with all ACL’s intact is also a win.

Next match is Monday the 23rd against Portland, 7pm at BMO and on CBS Sports.

All stats in this article are from FBRef.