ACFC 2-1 Utah Royals

I’m honestly pretty conflicted on how I feel about this game. It wasn’t a bad performance, but it also wasn’t a good performance. When I look at the stats for this game, there’s not a lot that jumps out or looks unusual compared to what I saw watching the game. At the final tally, we did get three points on the road. That’s the most important thing, and definitely something to be proud of. This was another tale of two halves, except without the catastrophic six minute coda that the last KC game had. The first half was the better one for Angel City, though Utah actually wasn’t bad. But then in the second it was all Utah. So let’s look at the good and the bad of several categories. Stats are from FBRef, unless otherwise noted.

Pressure and Possession

Utah’s press looked effective throughout the match, but especially in the second half. Utah had 11 Tackles in the middle and attacking thirds, compared to 6 Tackles in those same areas for Angel City. Angel City also had 36 Clearances, compared to only 6 for Utah, so were it not for some desperate attempts to get the ball out, those tackle rates for Utah could be much higher. What’s especially notable about the Angel City Clearances is that 13 of them came from midfielders and attackers. Clearances, by their nature, are almost always going to go back to the other team, but especially when it’s your forwards making those clearances. That definitely suggests that there isn’t anyone else further up the field. Possession finished 53%-47% in favor of Utah, but Angel City actually had a 51%-49% lead at halftime, meaning that Utah held a 57%-43% advantage, aka 14% more, in the second half. Angel City players were dispossessed 10 times, compared to Utah’s 8, but the big difference is that only Utah’s front three were ever dispossessed, while Nabet, Curry, Fuller, and Hammond (twice) were dispossessed for Angel City, in addition to our front three. I think that we expect attackers to lose the ball sometimes (the role does require some risk), but when defensive midfielders and defenders lose the ball, it’s usually in much more dangerous areas.

Shots

In the first half, shots were 5 - 4 in favor of Utah. xG was .35 - 1.52 in favor of Angel City, though it should be noted that a penalty kick is worth .79 xG, so that greatly skews the total. Still, without that pen, Angel City still has almost double the xG of Utah, and that’s reflected with a 2-0 halftime lead. In the second half, though, shots were 8 -1 in favor of Utah, with the xG being .42 - .03, also in Utah’s favor. That’s a big advantage in both categories, and 8 shots in a half is never good. But giving up .42 xG in a half, and .77 xG overall, isn’t particularly bad either. In fact, aside from the goal that Utah scored, they only had one shot worth more than .1 xG. Haračić made some nice saves, but for the most part, they were all saves you’d expect her to make. I doubt that any of them are going to be winning the NWSL Save of the Week award. The best, I thought, was the double save after the Henry free kick.

Goals

The first goal might be the best build-from-the-back attack that Angel City has had all season. After winning the ball back from a Utah miscontrol, the ball is played back to Haračić. She is immediately under pressure, but has Gorden to her right, Reid in the middle, and Curry out wide left. She opts to play the ball to Reid in the middle. The Angel City defenders are immediately engaged by three Utah attackers, which allows Reid to break that line with a pass to Hammond. Monaghan is still immediately on Hammond, who turns out of pressure to find Rodríguez to her right. Rodríguez has three defenders closing, but takes a nice touch to move away from the pressure and finds Curry wide open on the left. This is all exactly right. When a team is utilizing a high press, that guarantees that someone else is open somewhere else on the field, and the trick is finding that player. This is also something that I don’t think we ever managed to do in the second half. But back to this goal. When Curry receives the pass, she has acres of space in front of her. She’s able to carry the ball about 30 yards, before passing it up to Alyssa, just entering the attacking third of the pitch. At this point, in Utah’s half, there are five Angel City players and seven Utah players. Alyssa takes the ball at the sideline and dribbles to just inside the box and puts in a left footed cross to the middle of the box that Leroux heads home. There’s several aspects of this goal that I love, aside from the ability to play out of pressure at the start of the play. First, when Alyssa gets the ball, she takes the outside, rather than taking the defender head-on. So many times this season, I’ve seen her try to go straight through a defender. I’ve even heard Becki Tweed calling out, in match, for her to take the outside, and she finally does. I think that it’s much more difficult for a defender to make the tackle when they’re running, and if they give you a channel past them, then take it. Second, it’s a great driven cross. Even though the ball isn’t actually that far from the keeper, there’s so much pace on it, that Haught can’t try to make a play. Third, Leroux is arriving late to meet the cross. Too often when Angel City crosses the ball, which we’ve done a lot of over the past two years, it’s to a static target in the box. I think that the defender always has the advantage in that situation, unless it’s someone like Abby Wambach getting the header. I think that a late runner is harder for defenders to track, and it makes it easier for the attacker to plot a course to meet the cross. Great run and finish by Leroux, and let’s see more of that in the future.

I’m less enthusiastic about the second goal. It begins with a free kick in Angel City’s half, taken by Gorden. It looks like the team is set up to play from the back, but Gorden opts to go long. I don’t have an issue with that, but she takes it kind of quickly, so that players like Emslie are still just waiting on the halfway line. Leroux gets positioning in front of two Utah defenders and wins the header back in towards the middle of the pitch. There’s a Utah player who actually has the better positioning on this ball, but Fuller shows some great acceleration to get in front by the time the ball comes down, absorbs the shove in the back from the Utah player, for which the ref calls advantage, and makes the pass to Alyssa while falling to the ground. Really tremendous job by Fuller to keep this play alive. And just as a quick aside, I think that she’s due for a goal contribution soon. She’s third on the team with 9 shots for a total of .5 xG, and is also third on the team with 5 Key Passes and with an xA of 1.0, yet has no goals or assists. She also only had 20 touches in this game; I think that we need to find ways to get her the ball more frequently. But back to the goal. Alyssa receives the ball in the middle of four Utah defenders. She does a great job to keep the ball from them, gets into the box, and is brought down by a combination of challenges and wins a penalty. Emslie does a fantastic job of sending the goalie the wrong way and slots it home. This is a goal where too many things had to go right, though. Leroux winning the ball over two defenders isn’t a high percentage play, Fuller beating a defender to the ball that has positioning on her isn’t a high percentage play. And Thompson escaping four defenders isn’t a high percentage play. To get all three of those requires more than a little luck combined with some truly skillful play from Leroux, Fuller, and Thompson. Great play, but I can’t imagine that the coaching staff is looking to try to replicate this attack.

Utah’s goal begins with them winning back possession in their half with pressure on Alyssa. She gets dispossessed and Utah emerges with the ball. Curry has advanced pretty far, as I’m sure she’s supposed to, but when the ball gets turned over, she makes a run towards the ball. Monaghan, meanwhile, sees all that empty space on Angel City’s left, takes off, and they get the ball out to her. She carries the ball a good 40 or 50 yards, almost to the Angel City penalty box. Curry sprints back, trying to cut off Monaghan, but Monaghan starts drifting in centrally, denying that route, so Curry moves back to the outside, into her normal position, and Reid steps forward taking responsibility for Monaghan. Meanwhile, Ally Sentnor is coming up fast through Angel City’s central right channel, and Spencer, the fullback on her side, is a good 30 yards behind. Reid doesn’t really step up to challenge Monaghan, allowing a diagonal pass through to Sentnor. Hammond has gotten back and cuts off Sentnor’s route to goal. Curry and Reid are both marking players. Spencer is just getting back, but her eyes are on Sentnor, and I don’t think she sees Foederer making the run in behind her. Sentnor does sees her, though, and makes the perfect square pass to a wide open Foderer, who takes a first time, side-footed shot into the corner from just about at the penalty spot.

So, first of all, as a USWNT fan, I’m excited for Ally Sentnor. She looked dangerous all night, and her highlight reel for the year is already impressive. As an Angel City fan, though, this is frustrating. Hammond isn’t aggressive because she can’t afford to get beat. She’s just trying to slow things down until the reinforcements arrive. Unfortunately, the reinforcements (in the forms of Spencer and Rodríguez) also kind of slow down when it looks like Hammond has her covered. I think that Sentnor is the type of player that always is going to require two defenders to contain her, and unfortunately for us, she had the time and space to put the ball on a plate for Foederer here. For this match, Sentnor led all players from both teams with 6 Shot Creating Actions, she was tied for the lead in Shots with Henry, and she was just behind Alyssa Thompson in xA and xAG, with .6 to Alyssa’s .7. She shouldn’t have that kind of time and space to make a play. I think that the altitude probably played a factor in this, but if that’s the case, maybe the fullbacks shouldn’t venture so far forward, especially if we have a two goal lead. In general, though, it does look like all the defenders start to relax a little, even though the danger hasn’t passed.

Conclusions

The important thing here, compared to the last match against KC, was that we still held on for the win. Like I said at the beginning, there were some things to like, and some things not to like. Utah completely controlled the second half, and while we ceded that control to them, we still managed to keep their shots from manageable areas (except for the goal, of course). Wins on the road aren’t easy in the NWSL, but Utah is a team we should expect to bear. And I don’t think that performance would have been good enough to beat a team with significantly more quality. But it was good enough on Friday. I also want to take a moment to say thanks to Casual FC for the shout out. If you don’t know them, they do a really good preview podcast ahead of each game, and I think they’re worth checking out.

International Postscript

One story from last week that I want to give a little extra attention to is the Copper Queens, Zambia Women’s National Team. Barbra Banda has been absolutely scorching the NWSL since she arrived, and her national team has also been doing well on the pitch, qualifying for the last World Cup and the upcoming Paris Olympics. Off the pitch, things are a lot worse. Their coach is currently under investigation for misconduct during the World Cup, but he’s still in charge. The president and the general secretary of the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) were also arrested last week on charges of money laundering and consequently Zambia’s High Court has issued an injunction preventing the annual general meeting from taking place. This action is being viewed as “undue influence by a third party” by FIFA, and could result in FIFA disqualifying Zambia from the Olympics. Now, there are very valid reasons why FIFA has this rule. It’s important that governments do not have “undue influence” over their FAs. But I really can’t help but feel like the players are the ones FIFA would punish for FAZ’s fraud. It’s also worth noting that these players make as little as $20 a month playing in the Zambian Women’s Super League (per The Guardian, and yes, that’s per month). Many of them have jobs in the armed forces, as that has proved to be an employer that is accommodating of their national team commitments. You can read The Guardian article or there’s another good one in The Athletic. But I thought that this was an important story that I didn’t see getting the attention it deserved. I’m not sure what the solution is (it would be great if all football officials just weren’t corrupt), but there it is.