Angel City’s Masterful Handling of the Expansion Draft

I actually started December 11th pretty unhappy with the ACFC front office. They had just announced that Vanessa Gilles was extending her loan to Lyon. Now, I get that Gilles wants to play at Lyon. They’re an amazing team. And the initial loan made sense. But giving out loan after loan is basically letting Lyon have her for free. She’s a great player, and has become an integral player for Lyon, and they should acknowledge that value by paying an actual transfer fee that reflects her value. And I worry that it sets a precedent for European teams stealing our players, knowing they can avoid transfer fees, as long as the player in question wants the move.

So, I started off the day kind of grumbling about things. And then the news broke. ACFC had protection from BOTH Utah and Bay FC. And all it cost was Scarlett Cambreros, an international roster spot, and $50,000. That is simply outstanding work, and frankly, I’m not entirely sure how they pulled it off. Let’s start with Bay FC first. They received Cambreros and gave us Protection and $50,000. This seems win/win to me. When Thompson, Endo, Emslie, Leroux, and maybe even Press are healthy, Cambreros is just not going to be a starter. She will probably get more minutes at Bay FC, which I think is exactly what she needs at this stage of her career. She’s a player that really grew on me over her time at Angel City, and I wish her all the best, but we have many skilled players that can play as a wide attacker. Also, let’s not overlook the $50,000. Soccerdonna has Cambreros valued at €35,000 as a point of reference. Also, San Diego traded Kayleigh Riehl for $60,000 plus protection, and she played 1634 minutes for them. Cambreros, at only 910 minutes, projects more as a squad player than a starter, so getting $50,000 is pretty outstanding.

Next was Utah giving us protection for $100,000 and an international roster spot. The international spot bothers me slightly, as I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we bring in Ada Hegerberg in the summer. But if we do need an international spot, I’m sure that we can acquire one. The $100,000 is also not bad, considering that Louisville spent $235,000 to get Protection plus moving up 19 picks in the draft. As I said in my previous article, it does seem impossible to put a dollar figure on Protection, and it seems to oscillate based on how close to the draft you are, but $100,000 seems like a steal. And since we made $50,000 earlier, we’re actually only down $50,000 from where we started the day.

I also want to look at just what this means, because it’s way more than not losing two unknown players. There has been a lot written, recently, about just how terrible the expansion draft is. First, there’s the fact that only getting protection from one team still leaves you vulnerable to losing two players. You have to get Protection from both for it to really matter. Secondly, and much more importantly, is what this does to the psychology of the team. We see a lot of players being forced to leave, and we see a lot of teammates left behind, frustrated and angry. You can’t put a value on what that means, both to the individual players and the team dynamic. There’s also the matter of we don’t know who Angel City would actually have protected. This is again a delicate matter. Merritt Matthias’s contract was extended, for instance. If she’s not protected, then that’s a risky extension, because we might lose her for nothing. If she is protected, then that’s protecting a player that has never played a single minute for ACFC in favor of a veteran that’s played a significant role. The same would be true about Giselle Thompson. As she was 18 by the time the expansion draft happened, I think that she would have to be protected. It would be unthinkable to let another team to swoop in and take her after just signing. But again, that would be protecting someone who’s never played a minute for Angel City over someone who has been a key contributor. Again, you can’t put a value on this. Angela Hucles Mangano saved the squad untold anxiety, worry, negativity, and more by making these deals, and she waited until it was a good price and got both deals done simultaneously. There was so much drama over the Expansion Draft, and absolutely none of it involved Angel City. This was truly outstanding work.

And speaking of outstanding work by the Angel City front office, I also want to take a moment to talk a little about the Giselle Thompson deal. I don’t watch the USYNT games, so aside from some brief moments during the filming of Family Switch, I haven’t seen her play. However, I think that it’s fair to say that a player rated this highly would not have been available to us in the draft this year, and unless we traded for the #1 pick, there is no guarantee that we could have drafted her in a future year had she decided to go to college. That would have cost a huge amount of allocation money and/or other draft picks as we saw with Alyssa. Using the rules to our advantage to sign Giselle before she became draft eligible was a huge win. I have no idea what the recruiting process was like, (we did see on Instagram that Giselle was training with Angel City earlier in the year) but however they handled it, it seems like it was done exactly right. And as Southern California has been the home for many talented footballers, I would like to see more prospects follow this path to the first team squad. Also, the narrative that I’ve seen has mostly been that she’s Alyssa’s sister, and I love that they’re playing together, but I think that does overlook how good of a prospect Giselle actually is. She’s represented the US U-17’s and U-20’s already. I also find it unique that she’s trained from this age as a fullback. Especially in women’s soccer, it seems like the best all-around soccer players are made forwards by their youth coaches, and players only start to learn the fullback position once they’ve gotten to the professional leagues and/or national teams (e.g. Crystal Dunn and Rachel Daly). At Angel City we’ve seen Jasmine Spencer and Tyler Lussi as attackers converted to fullbacks. I think that it’s one of the most difficult positions to play, and Giselle’s ceiling is that much higher to me because she already has so much experience in the role.

Anyway, cheers to Angela Hucles Mangano and the rest of the front office! Way to finish 2023 on a great note, and I cannot wait for the new season.

Note: Just before publishing this, I saw the news that Angel City has re-signed Elizabeth Eddy and Gotham has signed half the USWNT. There may be knee jerk reaction to say that Gotham is pulling away from us by comparing these signings, but I don’t see that. First, Eddy is a great signing. She looked completely at home from the first time she took the field, and hopefully will continue to grow. I view her as a depth player, but I feel good if she’s filling in for someone injured, or coming off the bench. She looks like the kind of player every squad needs. Second, Gotham are looking scary. I am curious what their sales pitch is, though. As I understand it, all the free agents they signed were offered more money elsewhere. So what’s the appeal of Gotham? Yes, they are defending champions, but I think it’s pretty clear that they got there with a slice of luck and by peaking at the right time. They were not consistently the best team in the league last year. Looking forward to seeing them next year, but even with all these additions, I don’t think that they are unbeatable. This does put pressure on ACFC, and the rest of the league, to make some big signings, but we shouldn’t deviate from our plan. I’m sure that a club of our ambition is looking to bring in top players, and rushing things usually leads to bad deals.