ACFC 1-2 Washington Spirit and Year to Year Review

I actually enjoyed this game, except for the whole final result. But I thought that it was exciting, there was a fast pace throughout, and less referee controversy than recent weeks. And at this point, unfortunately, I’m not really expecting Angel City to win. This performance was actually very much what I’d expect from them. Alyssa looked great, there were some bad individual mistakes that led to goals, but the team fought until the end. Still, we’ve only managed 3 points from the last 15 available. In particular, I thought that Zelem and Emslie were not as good in this match. Not bad, exactly, but not as good, and it seems like when there is any kind of fall off from some key players, there just isn’t anyone else that has stepped up.

Depth

One of the big talking points from this game is Reid’s error on the first goal, but I don’t blame her, as much as I blame Angel City’s lack of depth. Reid has been here for three years, and I’ve never, ever thought that she looked comfortable in possession. When the decision was made to play out of the back, it would have made sense to me to bring in a centerback that is comfortable and experienced with that style, since the centerback is so crucial to it. Instead, we traded away Nielsen, which ensured that Reid is in the starting line-up because there is literally no other centerback on the roster. That was Week 4, and Angel City then played 12 more games, which included an injury to Gorden. Everyone got a good long look at Reid playing possession-based football, and honestly, I thought she did better than I’d expect, but by no means did she turn into Sam Staab. It was clearly still a weak point in the team, and I think that the results demonstrated that it wasn’t working. There was then another opportunity to bring in a centerback during the second transfer window in August, even as a change of pace or back up in case of injury, but nothing happened. The front office doubled down on Reid or nothing.

I want to take a minute to look at the money here. We did bring in Zelem and Press rejoined the team from the SEI list. But Zelem was a free agent, and Press was already on the roster. So on one hand, that’s adding the salaries of Zelem and Press for about 12 weeks, but we’re subtracting the salaries of Nielsen and Henry for 32 weeks, plus Le Bihan’s for about 14 weeks. We don’t have exact numbers for any of these players, unfortunately, because they’re not public. We know Press makes a lot (relative to the NWSL), and I’m sure that Zelem is also on a good salary. But Henry had to be also: she’s a global star. And Nielsen and Le Bihan were both on veteran salaries, not first time deals. So adding about 24 weeks of salary, but subtracting 78. Even if Zelem and Press are being paid substantially more, this should still be a saving against the salary cap. In addition to that, Angel City received $175,000 for Henry and Nielsen (I’m baffled that we didn’t ask/couldn’t get anything for a player as good as Le Bihan). This is all a really long way of saying that Angel City had plenty of salary cap room during that second transfer window, they had the cash for a transfer, and they had a roster spot available. So with all of that, I think it’s fair to say that Angel City made the choice to play with Megan Reid and Sarah Gorden as the only centerbacks in a possession based system. So when I saw Reid’s error on that first goal, I couldn’t help but think that the blame for that lies with the front office. You put a player in a bad spot, and there will be bad results.

It also really makes me question the transfer policy. At the time of the Nielsen/Henry trades, the club’s announcement stated that we needed salary flexibility and roster space. We ended up not spending the money that we made on those deals, and it’s impossible for me to believe that we were right up against the cap at the start of the season, since the cap went up $400,000. In terms of roster space, we haven’t played Katie Johnson or Elizabeth Eddy pretty much at all this year. Combined, they have 100 minutes. It’s up to the players, but for both of them a loan to one of the new USL teams makes a lot of sense to me. The players make the same salaries, but they probably get to be starters, even if it’s a lower league. I can’t imagine that they like being on the bench game after game with no real chance of playing. The Henry trade was probably going to happen no matter what, because I don’t think that she was happy and/or the rest of the team wasn’t happy with her. She has since forced her way out of Utah and is playing for Toluca. But increasingly, I don’t know what Angel City gained from trading Nielsen.

The additional development of Riley going on the SEI list meant that there was another roster spot open. Angela Hucles Mangano had said that there was another deal, in addition to Zelem’s, that didn’t get over the line in August, and I’m fine with that. Don’t try to force a deal that isn’t there. But only bringing in two players (which includes Press), when we lost four players is not helping the team. So what ever deal it was that fell through, okay, but there should have been two other deals in the works. A lot of Angel City fans I see say something about how our best players are out injured so we need to be patient. But we don’t bring in replacements for those injured players, we just lament them.

Now let’s compare that to Washington. They brought in Esme Morgan and Leicy Santos midseason, and at they time, they didn’t really look like signings the team needed. But Morgan is a Lioness who was part of the 2023 World Cup squad and Santos impressed for Columbia at both the World Cup and the Olympics. And when Washington was hit with an injury crisis, they could turn to these players. They came into this game missing Trinity Rodman, Ouleymata Sarr, Casey Kruger, and Croix Bethune. Those are their top three goal scorers and top four assist makers. That group includes three players that were on the USWNT Olympic gold medal team. The player who isn’t (Sarr), is tied for fourth overall in NWSL scoring. Washington was missing a lot of talent in this game. But because of proactive moves, they still had talent that could step in, while Angel City was choosing to rely on starters that don’t fit the system, and who wouldn’t make the starting lineups of most other NWSL teams.

Goals

39’ Washington Spirit - Back in the 12’ minute, there is a similar situation where Reid has the ball, Ashley Hatch applies pressure, but Reid is able to spin out of it, and makes a good run up the field. I think that plays into what happens here, in that it gave Reid confidence to hang onto the ball, and Hatch has a better idea of what Reid is going to do. As I’ve already said, this is a bad mistake by Reid. She has an option to play to Vignola, or back to Haračić, but she waits too long. It’s not the only mistake, though. When Reid gets the ball, and she still has time, both Zelem and Hammond try to move in as a passing option, but when both defensive midfielders collapse inward, that invites Washington to apply pressure, which they do. At least one of them, in this case Zelem, has to stay higher. Hatch also does a great job here by taking away the passing lanes to Gorden and Spencer first. Then, when Reid shows some indecision, Hatch makes her move and steals the ball. She’s almost immediately in the box, so Reid can’t foul her, and just like that, it’s in the back of the net. Hatch is a name synonymous with goals, not just green chile, so it’s not a surprise to anyone. This goal moves her into a 6th place tie with Megan Rapinoe on the All-Time NWSL Goal Scorers list. One other detail: Vignola makes the initial pass back to Reid, but Hammond was open, and in a better position to switch the ball to Spencer on the right. For whatever reason, in Angel City’s entire history, I don’t think that the midfielders have been utilized enough. The standard Angel City play is to pass back to the centerback, but the better play, in my opinion, is to get the ball into the midfield instead. So yes, at the end, it was a poor moment of indecision on Reid’s part that directly led to the goal, but I think that there are other factors and choices from her teammates that could have helped the situation.

51’ Angel City - This play begins with a throw-in on Angel City’s right just inside Washington’s half. The ball goes back to Gorden, who then sends it over to Reid. Reid spots Alyssa out wide left, and makes a great long pass to find her. This isn’t always something that Reid excels at; she’s 36th percentile in Long Pass Completed and 73rd percentile in Long Passing Completion Percentage. But this pass is perfect, and Alyssa brings it down perfectly as well. That puts her in a 1 v 1 with Paige Metayer, who is not naturally a fullback. Alyssa does a couple stutter steps that freezes Metayer just enough to get that half a yard of space. Which is all Alyssa needs. She takes the ball into the box, and puts in a beautiful low cross that finds Bright on the 6 yard box. She opens her foot, and deflects the ball into the net. It’s Bright’s first official goal for Angel City, and Alyssa’s 6th assist of the season, which is a club record for single season assists. To me, this goal is all about the switch from Reid, and the tremendous skill from Alyssa. But well done by all involved.

78’ Washington Spirit - From an Angel City corner kick, Dougherty Howard puts the ball in and Fuller gets a decent volley on frame, but it’s comfortably saved. Kingsbury then makes a great play, and throws the ball out quickly to Kouassi to start the counterattack. Kouassi impressed me the whole game, but primarily with her speed. This counter attack is absolutely lightning quick, but Angel City has some fast players too. It’s a 2 v 2 with Gorden and Spencer versus Kouassi and Makenna Morris. Vignola is joining late, but she’s covering Ratcliffe, who’s also arriving late. You can’t see it on TV, because they cut into a closeup briefly, but in person, I’d swear that I saw Gorden look at Morris, but then angle her run to join in pursuing Kouassi. The thing is, Spencer has caught up to Kouassi and pushed her wide. Gorden, though, gets caught in limbo, where she’s not in a position to make a tackle, she’s not in the passing lane, but she is keeping Morris onside. Morris is also completely unmarked. So Kouassi just has to chip the ball into the center of the field and Morris has an easy finish. To me, this is completely on Gorden. In a 2 v 2, I think each defender has to take an attacker. You can’t necessarily stop a shot, but if you push the attacker wide, then your goalie has good chance at saving it. But when you leave a player completely open in the middle of the pitch, then you’re hanging your goalie out to dry. I thought that this looked like Gorden playing Hero-ball. She didn’t trust Spencer to make the stop, so she went after the ball carrier herself, but in the end, she didn’t help at all. Gorden has put out a ton of fires for us this year, and should rightfully be considered the best defender that Angel City has ever had, but in my opinion, she’s at least as much at fault for this goal as Reid was on the first.

Year to Year

We still have four games left, but since Bay FC and the Utah Royals joined the league this year, now is actually the time to make comparisons to last year, i.e. we’ve played 22 games, and last year there were 22 games. So let’s see where we are compared to last year. Angel City has 9 fewer points (22 to 31), 5 fewer goals scored (26 to 31), and 7 more goals conceded (37 to 30). xG is not down as much (29.9 to 30.8), and xGA is up (35.9 to 29.9). Shots (253 to 305) and Shots on Target (96 to 103) are both down. Shots on Target Against is up (115 to 107). Possession is up (53.9% to 51.2%) as is Total Passes (10802 to 9769). It’s a lot, so here’s a table to put all the numbers in one place.

As you can see, basically everything that can get worse, did get worse. The only things that were raised were Possession and Total Passes, which I think of as more neutral stats that just give insight into the style of play, rather than performance level. Of course, this isn’t perfect, because this year we’ve played some teams twice and other teams only once, but 22 games is still a pretty good sample size. And looking at this, I think it’s fair to say that this year’s Angel City team is worse. Because the xG and xGA both were worse, it’s not like we can look at the Goals and Goals Allowed numbers and call them a fluke. And when you score fewer goals, and concede more at the same time, it should be expected that you win fewer games. One interesting note is that on an individual level, we have three goalscorers (Emslie 7, Leroux 6, and Alyssa 5) who have surpassed last year’s top goalscorer (McCaskill/Alyssa with 4). But one of the main differences is that last year we had 14 players with a goal, while this year we only have 9, and Bright just got in under the wire. Actually of those 9 goalscorers this year, none of them have multiple goals outside of the top 3 I mentioned. So, take this information as you will, but I think that it does provide context to the season.

Conclusions

At the press conference after this game, both players and coaches were saying how they think that Angel City is really close. I just don’t see that. Washington has 10 more points than last season’s Shield winners, and they’re not even the best team in the league this year. Orlando has 17 more. Meanwhile, we see Angel City moving backward. It’s true that Washington didn’t play us off the field, but they were also without their four best players, and they still found a way to win. I think that the players and coaches do need to believe that the team is close, and it means a lot to me that they keep fighting every game, for 90 minutes. I watch sports to be inspired, and this team does inspire me. But as an organization, I think that Angel City has to realize that we’re not within touching distance of the top teams, and the gap is widening. Something has to be done differently.

All stats in this article are from FBRef.

The next game is Friday October 4th at 7p away to Seattle, on Amazon Prime.