ACFC Centerbacks
Centerbacks were a small group at ACFC in 2024, which I think was a big problem. After Nielsen was traded away, we only had two centerbacks left, so there was no cover for injury, no room for rotation, no competition for spots.
Sarah Gorden
It’s no surprise that Gorden was the minutes leader among centerbacks. Last year she was an Ironwoman, and while she didn’t quite hit that mark this year, she played in 24 matches, all starts, for 2,056 minutes. This is actually 76 minutes more than last year, due to the extra games played. With Riley also missing so much time, Gorden took over captain’s duties as well, wearing the armband in 21 matches this year.
Defense
I won’t really go as much into where the centerbacks compared to teammates, like I did with the fullbacks, just because there were so few centerbacks. Instead I’ll focus on how they compare to the rest of the league. Gorden doesn’t really shine in any defensive statistic, although I think that a large part of that is how Angel City set up. She was 44th percentile in Tackles, 61st percentile in Tackles Won, 16th percentile in Blocks, and 22nd percentile in Interceptions. She is in the 97th percentile of Ball Recoveries (7.35 per 90), which I think is largely due to her speed, i.e. when other teams try long passes in behind, they almost never win that race. Gorden also has a very good Tackling Success Rate (81%, which is in the 88th percentile of all NWSL centerbacks), and only committed 8 Fouls all season, which puts her in the 82nd percentile. She also drew 26 Fouls, which puts her in the 93rd percentile.
Passing
We saw a big shift in Gorden’s passing numbers this year. Last year, she averaged 47.0 Total Pass Attempts. In 2021, when she made the NWSL Best XI with Chicago, she had 40.4. This year, that number went up to 66.5. And while Gorden ranks in the 93rd percentile of centerbacks for Pass Attempts, she was only in 41st percentile for Pass Completion Percentage (82.9%). This is actually pretty concerning for me, as she had a lot of easy passes either across to Reid, or back to Haračić, so there was ample opportunity to inflate those numbers. But I can also remember several times, though I don’t have the numbers on it, where Gorden just hit the ball right out of play. Those Percentage numbers are also low for every length of pass (39th percentile for Short Passes, 52nd percentile for Medium Passes, and 27th percentile for Long Passes). I think that a possession-based system relies on a ball-playing centerback, and I think that Gorden is a good defender, but I had considered her average in her passing ability. Now looking at these numbers, I’m going to change that to below average. Once again, I think that Angel City was playing a system that was not designed for the strengths of the players that were already on the roster.
I’m not a big believer in Pass Completion Percentage as a stat by itself, but I think that there is some value in comparing these numbers with other players in the same role. So if we look at Kaleigh Kurtz and Naomi Girma, the primary centerbacks for the two other NWSL teams with the most possession, we find that Kurtz has a Completion Percentage 2.2% higher than Gorden, while Girma is 8.4% higher. When we narrow that to Short Pass Completion Percentage, Kurtz is 4.3% higher, while Girma is 6.5% higher. These maybe seem like small differences, but since pretty much every incomplete pass is a turnover to the other team, it’s imperative that a centerback makes those passes.
xG +/- and Other Possession Stats
Let’s turn our attention to how the team performs with and without Gorden, because I think that it’s especially hard to look at centerbacks individually. Gorden is 11th on ACFC in Team xG For per 90 while she’s on the pitch (1.34) and also 11th in xG Against with the same constraints (1.52), for an xG Differential of -.17. However, Angel City is much worse when she’s not playing. Gorden has a +.75 when we compare her on-field versus off-field xG Differential per 90, which is the second highest number on the squad.
Carries were another area that Gorden stands out. She led Angel City in Carries, and was in the 99th percentile of NWSL Centerbacks in Total Carrying Distance and Progressice Carries, as well as the 86th percentile in Total Carries.
But one final bucket of cold water: she was in the 20th percentile of Miscontrols, 14th percentile of Times Dispossessed, and 31st percentile of Errors. She also was only in the 16th percentile of Aerials Won, and 1oth percentile of Aerial Win Percentage.
Additional Thoughts
Okay, this has mostly been numbers without too much analysis so far, but I wanted to present the whole picture. I think that Gorden is a good defender, but this season she was stretched too far, either by the demands of the system or her own expectations. Or maybe both. As I mentioned, I thought that her passing ability was not good enough for this system. Angel City constantly had trouble breaking the first line, and I thought that Gorden’s passing was a big part of that. Which isn’t entirely fair. We’ll look at Reid next, who superficially has better passing numbers, but I think that most of the time it was Gorden that was tasked with breaking the first line, whether through a pass or a carry.
Defensively, I think that Gorden also tried to do too much, and that ended up hurting the team. I went back through all my game analyses and found that of the 42 Goals that Angel City Conceded last year, I thought that Gorden was at least partially responsible for 11 of them. And this was often things like stepping into midfield to make a challenge that she doesn’t win which leaves a hole behind her (Kansas City), or dropping off which inadvertently keeps an opposing attacker onside (North Carolina). Too often, I thought that Gorden didn’t trust other defenders to make the stop, so she tries to do it herself, which only results in disarray, usually leaving an opposing attacker unmarked, and the team conceding. I still think that Gorden is an excellent defender, but when she isn’t playing with teammates that compliment her skills and mitigate her defencies, then we see a season like this. I also wonder if being the acting captain made her feel like she needed to do more. But I think that the team would have been better if she wasn’t constantly getting forced, or choosing, to go into bad spots. All of that being said, I think that she was still one of Angel City’s best players this past season.
Megan Reid
Reid has had kind of a rollercoaster in her time at Angel City. She was an Ironwoman in ACFC’s first season, but then had only 794 minutes, with 8 starts, in Year 2. At the beginning of 2024, she started on the bench again, not playing a single minute of the first three games. But then Paige Nielsen got traded, and Reid played at least some minutes in every game after that point, with starts in 18 of those 22 games.
Defense
Reid’s Tackling stats aren’t bad. She’s 73rd percentile in Total Tackles, and 67th percentile in Tackles in the Defensive Third. Additionally, she was 67th percentile in Shots Blocked, but only 33rd percentile in Interceptions. She generally avoid fouls too, with only 7 Fouls Committed (80th percentile), although 3 of those earned Yellow Cards (37th percentile). She was only in the 10th percentile of Ball Recoveries, although I think this is almost entirely due to her playing next to Gorden, who is usually going to be the one to chase those down. The category that Reid really stood out in was Clearances, in which she was in the 95th percentile, and actually finished 4th in the whole league. I’m going to have to speak more at length about Clearances and how they relate to the whole team strategy, but suffise it to say that I don’t think that this is actually a good category to be a leader in. Clearances are definitely necessary, but I don’t think they’re preferable, and they should be viewed as a last resort. And finally, Reid is close to league average in the air, ranking in the 52nd percentile of Aerials Won and 45th percentile of Aerial Win Percentage (52.4%).
Passing
I mentioned earlier that Reid superficially had better passing statistics than Gorden, which is to say that her Pass Completion Percentage (85.7%) was 2.8% better than Gorden’s. As with Gorden, Reid was attempting more than 18 additional Passes a game this year compared to 2023. But digging into it, Reid’s Short Passing Percentage was actually .8% worse than Gorden’s. Medium and Long Passes actually look pretty good, though. Reid was 84th percentile in Medium Passes Completion Percentage and 73rd percentile in Long Pass Completion Percentage. But she had 134 fewer Medium Pass Attempts than Gorden and 48 fewer Long Pass Attempts. So despite the fact that Reid has better Completion Percentage rates in those categories, I think that she’s making easier passes. In other words, Reid is only taking those passes when they present themselves, while Gorden is the one who has to try to make something happen when nothing is presenting itself. Overall, Gorden was attempting 10 Passes more than Reid per game. Still, I do remember Reid having a couple nice Long Passes that made something happen. Of course, Long Passes from the centerbacks were not really something emphasized this past year, either.
xG and Goal +/-
Reid’s season in 2024 was one of those very weird ones where there is little-to-no correlation between xG and actual goals. Overall, Reid played 76.8% of the available minutes last season, which is certainly a large enough sample for her time, but also a decent sample for what the team looks like without her. When we look at Actual Goal Differential On-Field vs. Off-Field per 90, Reid is 3rd on Angel City with a +1.08. But when we look at Expected Goal Differential instead, Reid posts a -.44 per 90, which is 21st on the team.
Additional Thoughts
My feeling is that Reid is just in the wrong role. I think that she would be an outstanding third centerback. If she was brought on late in games when we’re trying to park the bus, or filling in when needed for injuries, etc. I would always feel confident in her stepping onto the pitch. But I don’t think that she’s an NWSL starter. She’s also in an odd position where she doesn’t have a ton of experience, but she is going to be 29 next year. To her credit, I think that she has been improving, and she’s recently received some call-ups to the Canadian National Team, which I think is only going to help her. But how much development can we really expect at this stage of her career? Again, I think that she’s a solid depth player, but I don’t think that she’d be a starter on at least 12 NWSL teams. I don’t think that she should be a starter for Angel City either.
Paige Nielsen
It kind of makes me sad to write her name again; it feels so long ago that she was an Angel City player. But Nielsen did play three full matches last season for Angel City. I think that 270 minutes is too small of a sample size to make any meaningful conclusions, however. I also debated comparing her season with Reid’s, as Reid effectively replaced Nielsen’s minutes, but I think that Houston’s style and situation was just too different. So I don’t want to draw too many conclusions, but there are a few interesting numbers to look at, and these are all just from her three games with Angel City this year.
Nielsen’s 2.0 Aerials Won per game, 3.3 Tackles + Interceptions per game, and 1.33 Blocks per Game would have her as the top ACFC centerback in these categories. xG Differential for On-Field vs. Off-Field is also interesting. Nielsen is 6th on the team with +.61 per 90, but two of the players equal to or above her in this metric also only played in those first games (Henry and Anderson). I wrote about this in my midseason report, but especially from an xG standpoint, those first two games were beneficial if a player was on the field then, but not for the rest of the season. But again, I view this as a curiousity. I don’t think it’s fair to draw any conclusions from this.
Thoughts on the Centerback Position Overall
From Day 1 at Angel City, it has frustrated me how the entire team comes back to defend. At first I thought that this was a Freya Coombe thing, but it’s continued long after she left. And consequently, I think that makes it very hard to judge the centerbacks at Angel City. Curry, Spencer, Alyssa, Rodríguez, Gisele, and Emslie all have more Tackles than any ACFC centerback. Alyssa has more Tackles in the Defensive Third than any ACFC centerback. And that’s not because Angel City is winning the ball before it gets to the centerbacks. According to Opta, they are 8th in Passes per Defensive Action and 12th in High Turnovers. Angel City also is 5th in the league in Tackles, so it’s not that we aren’t tackling either. So that’s why I find it concerning when we see our centerbacks ranking in the 35th and 22nd percentiles in Tackles + Interceptions. I like this stat because it doesn’t differentiate how you win the ball back, just whether you win it back. When we look at Tackles + Interceptions on a per 90 basis, Gorden and Reid actually fall to 18th and 19th on the team.
I really can’t escape the feeling that first Coombe, and then Tweed, didn’t have confidence in the backline and tried to protect them. And it hasn’t really worked either. In Angel City’s first season, we were 4th in Goals Allowed, but that’s gone down to 9th in 2023, and finally tied for 12th in 2024. Going back through my match reports, I came across mulitple instances where the fullbacks had come in centrally, or where Angel City actually had a numerical advantage in the box, but conceded anyway.
This is all a very long way of saying that it’s hard to accurately judge Angel City’s centerbacks in their defending, at least statistically, because I think that other positions were sacrifing themselves in order to protect the center. We can judge them better on passing, and I don’t think that Gorden or Reid get high marks here, despite playing a system that should give them a high number of easy completions. Going back to the Tackles, though, I also can’t say that I totally understand. Tackling actually seems like the skill that both Gorden and Reid are best at, so it seems like they should be the ones to engage the ball carrier. Maybe there’s a piece of this that I’m just not seeing. But I do believe that when our wingers collapse into the box, that just invites more pressure.
So now that I’ve completed my end-of-season review of fullbacks and centerbacks, I feel like most members of our backline, individually, looks pretty decent, if not outright elite. And yet, there is that 12th place in Goals Allowed, 11th in xGA, 9th in Shots Allowed, and 13th in Shots on Target Allowed. Clearly defending is an issue. My feeling is that the fullbacks’ statistics are not a mirage; they did play well. The centerbacks’ statistics are something of a mirage. The midfield takes a large chunk of responsibility for this too, as does coaching. I’m also not quite sure how to say this, but there always seemed to be an element of panic in the defense as well. When things started to go bad, there wasn’t confidence that we could win it back; it seemed to be trying to solve the problem just through sheer numbers in the box. And too often that meant three defenders converging on the ball carrier and nobody marking another attacker.
And finally, I want to talk about Goals. Our centerbacks scored 0 Goals this season, which maybe doesn’t seem like a big deal. They’re centerbacks and their primary job is to defend. But I’m a big believer that teams have to have multiple ways to score goals, and converting set pieces is a way to get wins when the offense can’t break through. We were 3rd in the league in corner kicks (139), so the opportunity was there. But in 2024 ACFC centerbacks had 18 Shots for 1.5 xG, but never got a goal. Nielsen, of course, did get a goal last season, at BMO even, but she was playing for Houston. I think that it’s worth noting that’s not exactly a fluke. Nielsen had as many shots in 3 games as Gorden had in the whole season. For her career, she has 3 Goals and 4.7 xG. I don’t think that Nielsen is the biggest set piece threat, but I do think that she was the best target centerback that we had at the start of the season, and that is just another facet of what we traded away. Again, Angel City gets enough set plays. If we had someone that could score just a couple, I think that’s an easy four points in the standings.
Both Reid and Gorden are under contract for next season, but I think that another centerback is essential. It was essential anyway, but as Curry was the one who filled in there in emergencies, and she is now gone to Seattle, it’s even more essential. And ideally this would be a player with height and passing ability.
Additional Notes
There’s been a lot happening at Angel City in the last few days. I do have thoughts I’d like to share, but that will happen in due course. Specifically for the coaching, I’m going to wait until a new head coach is hired, and then I’ll write about both that new person, as well as my thoughts on Becki Tweed’s time. Unfortunately, I can’t spend all my time writing Goosecat. But feel free to ask any questions that you might have about all the changes.
All stats in this article are from FBRef and Opta.