Retrofitting in Retrospect

They might have one more game to play, but the season for Angel City Football Club ended on Sunday.

It ended before the team even took the pitch. Racing Louisville FC tied Gotham FC 2-2 just before kickoff, dashing what faint playoff dreams still lingered1. As someone sitting in the stands during warmups and whose phone kept refreshing that score, the result was something of a relief. That seemed the case for everyone else when they learned the news. Portland would be a very tough team to beat in a must-win scenario; elimination removed the pressure.

One of the most compelling things about sports and games is that the end is something that the players write themselves. There is a kickoff, then 90 minutes later there will be a result. No pre-destination. No arch plan dictating what was going to happen. Just the future in a constant state of flux. Every team and fan thereof walks into a season with a sense of destiny and visions of grandeur. Even at its most dire, the hope of “this will work out” continues until these final whistles come.

Turns out the Gotham/Louisville result didn’t matter. ACFC lost to Portland. Elimination was inevitable anyway.

But the end of the season came with another major milestone. Two veteran ACFC players retire at the end of the season, and the post-match featured an extended ceremony commemorating the event. The main post on r/AngelCityFC was a day-after thread titled “Volume 1 Closes and Volume 2 Begins”.

Looking back, it’s easy to layer a narrative over the top of life that has happened. But life is not narrative. It doesn’t owe people anything, there is no guarantee of emotional catharsis or some just rewards. Whatever we find in it is what we make ourselves in retrospect. Past is not precedent, precedent is not a guarantee. It’s just a trend.

Even with one game left to play, I’ve spent the last week or so reflecting on my favorite soccer team, looking back at all the things that happened this season. Ups. Down. Chaos. Change. Evolution. Promise. And it’s made me think about the story we told and what it might mean for the one we’ve yet to tell.

So… if you like Angel City and/or soccer and/or building narratives out of life’s messiness… hey welcome. If not? Well… see you next time.

Brand forward thinking

Founded by entrepreneur (and current CEO) Julie Urhman, actress Natalie Portman, and a couple venture capitalists, Angel City FC drafted off the size, scope, and soccer-hungry audience of Los Angeles. The club launched as a bold new brand that would help define the future of women’s soccer. The eponymous documentary about them talks extensively about how it came about and shows all the challenges that come from new faces trying to build something without a base of institutional knowledge2.

Four seasons in, ACFC has failed to capitalize on the promise of its foundations. Attendance is down relative to last year, and what once seemed like a team that could do anything has become a team that’s only made the playoffs in its sophomore season. Meanwhile, San Diego Wave FC (who joined the league the same year as Angel City) has made the playoffs three times. Angel City barely made it their second year, and the Wave ended that season at the top of the table, winning the 2023 NWSL Shield3.

Urhman and the ACFC front office have a sleek operation that capitalizes on local Los Angeles talent (film production etc), marketing, and building a brand. But while Angel City can represent the high prestige of women’s soccer, a sense of the sport thriving and growing, management has failed to build a team that can consistently win. At a certain point, the team’s inability to succeed has tarnished its initial swagger as representing “excellence”. While I have no desire to stop being a season ticket holder (I love the sport and this team with a rabid irrationality), the season ticket holders in my section spoke openly about how they renewed out of inertia. They said they’re giving the team one more season to figure out how to turn things around… or they’ll walk away.

Considering that Uhrman and co. walked in with the stated goal of filling every seat at every home game, home attendance dropping this year relative to last is not good, especially while overall league attendance has remained stable.

Yikes.

Rebuilding the plane while flying it

It’s been a tumultuous experience. ACFC is on its third head coach in four seasons, and at least one full season’s worth of games have featured an interim head coach. There’s hope that newcomer Alex Straus (himself an experienced coach who helped Bayern Munich FC women’s team to win the Bundesliga three years in a row) will help right the ship. But given that he came in at the midpoint of the season and oversaw a seismic turnover in players in his attempt to rebuild the team to his specifications, the back half of the season where he was in charge was ultimately a disappointment. Despite this, since his arrival, there’s been more overall cohesion to the vision of how the team plays and much of that has to come down to Straus.

So what’s the issue?

There is an example to explain the role of a producer. In 2014, Sony Pictures released The Amazing Spider-man 2, their followup to the Andrew Garfield-led reboot. Producer Avi Arad (who had previously produced almost all of the non-MCU films up to that point) assembled what could only be a top tier team: director Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer), screenwriters Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, Star Trek), composer Hans Zimmer, and an all-star cast including Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane Dehaan, and Sally Field.

But the movie didn’t work.

It’s not like people turned in bad work (though… the script wasn’t great but that’s a Kurtzman/Orci issue), but there is a sense of Arad pulling together top talent that didn’t cohere. One of the jobs of producers is to ensure the quality of the final product. To apply a quote from the Steve Jobs movie: producers “play the orchestra.”

Looking back and building the story of who Angel City has been, the roster changes over the season exemplified the team’s ability to attract top tier talent, but without a vision for how the team works as a cohesive unit that means very little. Some of the changes were out of the team’s control. Forward Claire Emslie (their #2 highest scoring player) got pregnant early in the season while defender Savy King had a medical emergency on the field midgame and needed to take the rest of the season off to recover. Forward Sydney Leroux received an excused absence just days before the first kickoff and hasn’t touched the field once all season. Others, like Alanna Kennedy, Katie Zelem, and Julie Dufour reflected quality international players who didn’t quite mesh with the team’s style of play. Angel City traded them away in August.

None of this, though, tops forward Alyssa Thompson leaving the club in September to play for Chelsea, one of England’s top teams. By all accounts, this was Thompson’s decision, but it was a serious blow. In just three seasons (she signed onto the team as a rookie in 2023 at the age of 18) Thompson was ACFC’s top goal scorer and the face of the team as an up-and-coming talent representing the next generation in U.S. soccer. With one of the youngest average rosters in the league, this gas undermined the club’s vision as the future of the sport.

This has all compromised Straus’s vision. It’s difficult to come in midseason, and working with what pieces he has means bringing in newer talent like forward Sveindis Jane Jónsdóttir and midfielder Hina Sugita can only do so much. He’s building the team in its new direction. It will take time. Now, though, he has to do it without one of the key components of the team’s meager success over the past three years. And as soon as Alyssa left, ACFC’s attack proved basically nonexistent.

(None of this is to slam rookie Riley Tiernan, who’s scored 8 goals this season (and might still score more in the final game). In less than 8 months has become ACFC’s fifth highest-scoring player of all time. She’s remarkably effective, but there’s a sense that the burst of genius at the beginning of the season has evolved into a more careful honing of skills. In another season or so, she will be an even better version of her early excellence. This exact same thing happened with Alyssa Thompson: she came on like a bolt of lightning, teams had to figure out how to play against her, they shut her down for half a season or so, and she worked to come back stronger and more capable than ever.)

The next generation

Sunday’s game also featured a retirement of two of Angel City’s “Day One” players: forward Christen Press and defender Ali Riley.

Christen Press was their first signing and came in as a legendary player with goal scoring capabilities. She played nine games until an ACL tear put her on the bench for two full seasons. When she returned, it wasn’t the glory that came earlier. She mostly came in as a substitution in the second half of games and the goals fans expected never really materialized4. Her retirement was a celebration of who she was and came with an air of wistful imaginings of what might have been had the game she loved not so seriously injured her.

Meanwhile, Ali Riley has worked to be the soul of the team. As captain, she was a massive morale booster and represented the team as its face on the field. Her boundless energy and bright exuberance has made her one of the shining lights of this first era. Like Press, she also suffered an injury last season and missed most of this one, only coming on to play the final ten minutes of the final home match.

Both are devastating losses in their own way. And yet, while it does feel like a death in terms of career, there is a sense of Press and Riley moving onto something new. They are evolving and will remain involved in the sport but in new capacities. Riley especially is almost certainly going to stick around ACFC and continue to build the community and brand into something special.

Chrysalis

Taken with the departure of Alyssa Thompson, the arrival of Straus, and the retirements of Press & Riley, this season’s close does represent a clean slate so the team can start anew with whatever comes next.

That newness brings with it tremendous hope. Seeing the slow, consistent growth in the second half of the season has been tremendously encouraging. Straus has made a difference. Angel City’s midfield has always been a struggle, but for the first time ever there’s been remarkable improvement to shore up that weakness. The offseason will undoubtedly see him focus on the team’s attack and turning the team’s inherent tenacity into scoring goals (which they’ll need to win games…). Player turnover will happen, but with a strong vision at the center, it should work better than signing quality players and praying it works.

This season is one we survived. It’s one where it feels like the team sought long-term solutions rather than quick fixes. That has made it feel agonizing in the moment, but in retrospect I feel much more confident at the end of this season than I did this time last year. It’s felt like molasses, but that’s how life feels in the day-to-day scope. This team feels like (and is) a radically different team than the one that took the field in that home opener. Just look at who is and is not playing relative to that first game.

Angel City is a team that can absolutely rebuild itself. Many other teams can struggle with creating the sort of brand recognition that it has. But winning and losing is a state of existence that can come from solid leadership. Orlando ended the 2022 season third-to-last but were basically unbeatable in 2024. Kansas City came in second-to-last place in 2023, allowing 36 goals in 22 games; two years later they have a 20W-2D-3L record, allowing just 12 goals in 25 games. Remarkable.

The best teams are more than a front office or some owners or their star player or the hot new coach. Angel City has worked to build a community that is inviting, inclusive, and hopeful for the future of the sport. The fans are still fervent. Home games are a diverse ecosystem of multiple cultures, races, genders, sexual orientations, and more. As Press and Riley pointed out, what they have created is remarkable and a grand promise of what the sport could be if they can just back it up with wins. With Straus as coach, Sarah Gorden as captain, young newcomers improving every game, and old hands helping to keep the ship steady, the prospects really are bright. Riley and Press leave having cemented a solid foundation in place. Now it’s time for the next generation to keep building.

The fourth season of Angel City is the story of a chrysalis, growing and mutating and preparing to hatch. All the pieces are there. With a little bit of luck, we’re about to burst into something remarkable.

I can’t wait to see it next year.