The 2025 NWSL season is officially halfway through, so let’s reflect on what we’ve seen from Angel City so far and talk about what they need to do in the back half of the season. Buckle up. This one’s a long one.

The Past

2024 was a low point for Angel City. Even without the salary cap violation points deduction, the team amassed the fewest points over a season in club history and would miss the playoffs no matter which way you slice it. Clouds of infighting between ownership and the pending sale of the team loomed over the organization for long stretches of the season. New controlling owners Willow Bay and Bob Iger officially entered the picture in the fall, leading to some big offseason changes. Head Coach Becki Tweed and General Manager Angela Hucles Mangano departed the club after a lackluster season that some players have now said left them frustrated and questioning themselves. There was undoubtedly a new energy around the group when the season started by bringing in Mark Parsons as Sporting Director and opening Angel City’s new training facility.

The Present

Angel City currently sits in 11th with 15 points and a record of 4-3-6. They started the season with a four game unbeaten streak and had a habit of scoring early goals. Ghosts of Angel City seasons past have come back to haunt them, but at times, the team has battled those ghosts and won. Despite a tough string of games headed into the break, overall, the team looks better than last season. The margins appear to be narrower across the table compared to 2024, so Angel City still has a chance of sneaking into the playoffs after the break. Let’s continue to talk a bit more about how things have been going.

The Good

Angel City has seen a marked improvement in their offensive output in 2025. Last season they scored 29 goals. They are already 69% of the way to meeting that total halfway through the season with 20. I think part of that has to do with having a somewhat more stable midfield that can assist in progressing the ball and creating chances. Angel City has always had players who can score; it’s just a matter of whether they could get on the ball closer to goal. This season, they are.

A couple of seasons ago Angel City became the butt of jokes for signing multiple teenagers. However, the youth movement seems to be all the rage these days, and Angel City has had a slight head start. The core for the future appears to be centered around the Thompson sisters, Tiernan, Kennedy Fuller, and Savy King. All of these players have performed well in the first half of the 2025 season. The longer they have to develop and build chemistry together, the more dangerous they become. Angel City fans might be tired of hearing this, but the future appears to be bright.

The MVP

Alyssa Thompson has undoubtedly been the most important player for Angel City this season. Arguably, she has been one of the best players in the NWSL in 2025. She sits with a g+ of 1.85, a statistic that aims to measure a player’s total on-ball contribution in both attack and defense by calculating how much each of their touches changes their team’s chance of scoring or conceding a goal over two possessions. The only two players ahead of her in this metric right now are the Pride’s Barbra Banda and the Current’s Temwa Chawinga.

Thompson came into the league in 2023 with a lot of hype. So much so that her early-season hot streak earned her a spot on the USWNT roster for the 2023 World Cup. However, after returning from the tournament, she seemed to struggle a bit, falling out of the starting lineup and leaving her to try and make an impact off the bench. Thompson had a solid 2024 that started with a lot of assists and ended with a fair number of goals. Back to being a mainstay in the XI for Angel City, she reentered the fold for the USWNT after the Olympics and hasn’t dropped from the group since. Now at 20 years old and in her third year in the league, Thompson has become the player for Angel City where the team just looks better when she’s on the field.

So far this season, Thompson has scored 5 goals and contributed 2 assists. She leads the team in (non-penalty) xG, shot-creating actions (SCA), and both touches and carries into the attacking penalty area. In Thompson’s first couple of seasons it felt like she could either get her shot off earlier or find a teammate instead of taking the 1v1 all the way. She’s grown quite a bit since last season, and you can see an increased sophistication to her game. She’s not just a threat on goal, but a playmaker and significant contributor to the entire attacking unit.

It’s way too early to say that Alyssa’s finally reached her potential because it’s undeniable that her star is still rising. It is such a joy to watch this young player’s confidence grow and for her to start hitting her stride. As her Gen Z counterparts might say, Alyssa Thompson is her.

The Rookie

Riley Tiernan, a 22 year old out of Rutgers University, has been making her presence known. The rookie is third in the Golden Boot race among star-studded company. Above her are the aforementioned Banda and Chawinga, along with Gotham’s Esther González.

The new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) abolished the draft making 2025 the first season where college players going professional were completely free agents. However, by pre-season, Tiernan had not signed with an NWSL team. Instead, she ended up as a Non-Rostered Invitee (NRI) at Angel City. The forward put in the work behind the scenes, and it showed in her performances at the Coachella Valley Invitational in February. She was officially signed ahead of the season in March.

Tiernan has started every game in 2025. She has 7 goals and 1 assist, and fans have watched her grow from game to game. Initially, it seemed like she was all gas, no breaks, pure hustle. After the first couple of games she seemed to understand her role more, feel more comfortable in the system, and operate a bit more efficiently. After her first career goal against the Seattle Reign, a floodgate opened and she’s been a threat on goal ever since.

A bit of finishing luck has probably been on Tiernan’s side, but she has pretty consistently had a nose for goal. I think what’s exciting is that there’s a lot of room to grow, and now Straus will be guiding her development. If he can help her continue to chop up defenders and get into even more dangerous spaces, she may become unstoppable.

The Veteran

Christen Press. The franchise’s marquee player. Goal-scoring legend. Signed with Angel City through the rest of this season, the future of her playing career after that up in the air.

There have been some grumblings from fans and pundits about Press’s lack of playing time. From my perspective, if she becomes game fit to play for anywhere between 25-60 consistently for the rest of the season, that would be excellent. I think that Angel City’s problems require deeper solutions than having Christen Press ride in on a white horse to score bangers. Would that help? Of course. It’s just not fair or realistic to put that level of expectation on a single player, no matter how prolific, when the team’s weaknesses are multifactorial. Besides, Angel City’s struggles are not in the goal-scoring department.

Press herself has discussed that after her two-year layoff due to injury, she is trying to approach the game differently. She is trying to play with joy and maintain a healthy level of work/life balance. Two things she says have felt foreign to her for most of her career. She is trying to be a mentor to the young players on the team. She understands that the rest of her playing career is going to look different and that she is going to have to adapt.

Most of Press’s minutes have come off the bench, but she has shown she can still be productive. She served the buzzer-beater up to Tiernan against Washington, and unlocked the low block against Utah. Even in appearances where she does not have a goal contribution, she tends to get into threatening positions and combine well with the other substitutes like Katie Zelem, Madison Hammond, and Casey Phair. I think there’s value in having her come into a game late and be a leader. How many times have fans watched a frantic last 15-20 minutes of a game? How many late goals has the team conceded? How many points has Angel City lost from winning positions? The team has a lot of young talent, and game state has affected the group’s mentality many times. I would rather have Press bring a sense of calm, help hold on to a lead, or score a necessary miracle goal than be leaving the pitch in those crucial moments.

The Bad

In 2024, Angel City’s defense could be characterized by poor giveaways, negative passing, and chaotic breakdowns in the buildup. They’ve been helped a bit by midfielders like Alanna Kennedy, Katie Zelem, and Macey Hodge, who can help more effectively break up play and progress the ball forward. The connection from the back to the front is much better this year. It’s on the true defensive end that things still feel like they’re stuck in 2024.

Since the beginning of the international break, I’ve been looking at various numbers and visualizations to try and understand Angel City’s defensive woes better. After trying to look at player profiles, compare players across seasons, read passing maps, learn about g-, and examine Defensive Net g+. I’ve done my best, but I’m not sure if the cause of their problems is fully quantifiable.

Angel City is toward the bottom of the league in xG Allowed (12th) and g+ Allowed (13th). The goals allowed have come from all types of build-up play, with the greatest amount of damage being dealt during transition. Overall, Angel City allows teams to take an above-average amount of good and great xG chances.

In general, Angel City is middle of the pack when it comes to interceptions and toward the top in blocks. They are in the bottom half of the league when it comes to the number of tackles attempted, and that percentage of dribblers successfully tackled is where Angel City is ranked among the lowest in the league. This may suggest that for as many goals as they’ve conceded, they might not be intervening enough. Furthermore, when they do get into duels, they aren’t coming out on top enough.

Angel City’s defensive personnel aren’t bad players. Outside backs Gisele Thompson and MA Vignola have both shown improvement compared to 2024. Captain Sarah Gorden doesn’t look like her 2023 self, but she is still a great player. I would trust her to handle the likes of Banda and Chawinga over pretty much anyone else available in the Angel City backline. Savy King was growing into her role next to Gorden, keeping things fairly tidy in the back. Although she is distinct in profile from the aforementioned players, Megan Reid isn’t a bad defender by any means. So what gives?

I think that many fans would say that there has been a decline in defensive performance since King’s medical emergency. I am one of those fans. However, in trying to dig deeper, this claim isn’t necessarily supported quantitatively in a clear fashion. The only metric I could really find that would correlate King’s absence with worse performance is that Angel City is tied for third in the league for errors that led directly to a shot with eight. Five of these have occurred since King’s medical leave.

Above are player radars comparing Gorden and King and Gorden and Reid. At this point in the season, King and Reid have played a similar amount of minutes, and these radars would perhaps suggest that Reid is far and away better than King, and in some respects better than Gorden. This is also reflected in the g+ , as well as the net g+ data, which looks at things like defensive g+, valuing defensive actions, and g-, valuing preventative defense by taking into account g+ allowed. However, the reinsertion of Reid into the starting XI has not done anything to stop the hemorrhaging of goals.

I think the moral of the story here is that Angel City’s defensive problems are multifactorial. Regardless of the pros and cons of Gorden, Reid, and King’s individual qualities, it felt like the chemistry across the backline was better with King in it. Reid leaves something to be desired when it comes to pace, as well. While the team gains maturity and organization with players like Kennedy and Zelem in the midfield, they lack some pace when tracking back. This personnel combination can potentially exacerbate any holes in the defense during transition.

After the loss to the North Carolina Courage, Hammond and Gorden spoke in the post-match press conference about how their defensive challenges come down to mentality and that they are confident that this is something that can be fixed. I do think this plays a part. Sometimes it looks like the entire backline collectively powers down for a moment and turns back on, but it’s too little, too late. I hope that this break with the new coach will help address not just the footballing defensive holes, but the mentality to stay switched on for 90+ minutes and remain composed in high-pressure moments.

The New Guy

Head Coach Alexander Straus has been on the touchline for three games so far this season with 13 left to go. His record so far is 0-1-2, and his first three NWSL games were…well…very NWSL-coded. Flukey deflection goal. Conceding in the last minute of stoppage time. Probably a hard pill to swallow considering he only lost two matches during regular season play throughout his entire tenure as the manager of FC Bayern Munich. Welcome to the NWSL!

In terms of hire, I think Angel City nailed it. The results remain to be seen, but it seems like they found at least the right type of person to take on the Head Coach role. Similar to Sporting Director Mark Parsons, Straus is a talker. That’s okay with me as I’ve enjoyed all of the press conferences and interviews he’s done since arriving at Angel City. He seems like an ambitious, interesting, and passionate person who knows himself, the way he wants to play, and how to handle pressure.

In an interview with Expected Own Goals on June 17th, Straus made it clear that he knows where the team is now and there’s a lot of work to do. He acknowledged that it takes time to build a consistent, winning identity, but he is committed to that process and not taking any shortcuts. Eventually, he wants Angel City to be the main actor in games, playing a dynamic and fluid style in a structure that best suits the players available. To get there, he believes in creating culture and identity around consistency, habits and principles. For a team that seems prone to mental lapses and has struggled to control games for 90 minutes, this feels like the exact right path to tread. From there, he can help to develop the many young players, and even the seasoned veterans, on the squad to come together as a truly cohesive unit.

Something interesting that Straus talked about was the players’ desire to deliver for the fans and how he feels this could be something that is weighing on their minds. He sees it as his job to relieve the players of that pressure so that they can play freely and make good on that desire. Los Angeles is a sports city that is highly associated with winning. The Lakers. The Dodgers. The Sparks. The Galaxy. Fans expect championships, and there is a unique pressure that comes along with playing for this city. Straus has experience winning, as well as playing on the biggest stages in women’s club football. He has worked at one of the most well-known clubs in the world. Both Freya Coombe and Becki Tweed were basically at the beginning of their Head Coaching careers when they took on the role at Angel City. In hindsight, neither of them were ready to be managers in this market. It makes sense that Angel City would try to hire someone who has handled the spotlight in the past, so that they can help the players just focus on playing and being themselves. Straus has his work cut out for him, but I think that he’s the right man for this job. We just need to give him time to execute the vision.

The Vision

Before the season started, Parsons spoke about his hopes for the footballing identity of Angel City. He went out and hired a Head Coach that seemed to align with what he is hoping to see. Let’s go through the features Parsons feels embodies a Los Angeles team and see how implementation has been going so far.

The Break

The international break is going to be an important time for the team to take some necessary time off and prepare for the second half of the season. Straus will have a few weeks and a couple of friendlies to get the players on the same page to move forward. It will be great for him to have this time so he can get to know the players so that he can help them reach the next level.

Over the break, the club will welcome goalkeeper Hannah Seabert, Icelandic forward Sveindís Jane Jónsdóttir, and 20 year old Evelyn Shores to the group. I think that all three of these players will be helpful signings for both the now and the future.

The goalkeeper union before the break was very green. Seabert has played in Europe for most of her playing career. Angelina Anderson is signed with the club through 2027 and has been getting looks with the USWNT senior and U23s. The club is likely still betting on Anderson for the long term, but having someone in the group who has seen more games, different leagues, and various competitions can only be a positive for Anderson’s development.

Jónsdóttir is an exciting 24 year old forward coming over from VfL Wolfsburg, perennial rivals of FC Bayern Munich in the Frauen Bundesliga. She mentioned playing under Straus at Angel City sweetened the deal for her in coming to Los Angeles. It will be interesting to see whether she slots in at striker or right winger since she seems to be able to play anywhere across the frontline. She notched a goal and an assist for her team before Iceland’s Euros 2025 campaign came to an end in the group stage.

The name Evelyn Shores may ring a bell because she was the only college player invited to the most recent U23 camps, scored the game winning goal in one of their friendlies against Germany, and scored the $1 million goal at this most recent TST 7v7 tournament. Shores decided to leave the UNC Tar Heels early to go professional this summer. I don’t follow the college game at all, so I am not fully sure what to expect but from what I’ve seen on social media it sounds like she can play in both the midfield and at outside back. In a recent article by The Athletic, Parsons praised Shores for “Her ability to receive the ball and know where she wants to go, to be able to link play with passes, be able to break lines with passes, to be able to break lines on the dribble and get into areas too, where she’s gone from building the attack to creating opportunities…And most importantly, she plays with purpose.” As of this writing, Angel City has not announced any player departures, loans, or retirements so the exact roster composition is yet to be seen.

For better or worse, a large-scale defensive and midfield overhaul is something that’s likely scheduled to take place during the offseason. That means that solidifying the defense will have to come from a shift in the players’ mentality and changes to the structure to maximize the players available right now. I thought that the 5-3-2 played against the Kansas City Current was a potentially interesting option. Overall, communication and organization need to improve, regardless of the formation. However, deploying Vignola and G. Thompson as true wingbacks may loosen their margin for error while tracking back if Gorden, Reid, and Alanna Kennedy all stay closer to home. I think a midfield trio of Hodge, Zelem, and Fuller could then help feed A. Thompson and either Tiernan or Jónsdóttir up top. If Angel City sticks with the 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, then I think one of the two fullbacks needs to be committed to sitting back. It often feels like G. Thompson or Vignola are caught too far up the field at the same time, or get pulled too far out of position too soon. This exposes the center backs unnecessarily, especially if Kennedy and Zelem can’t track back quickly enough. Having more built-in solidity to the formation would hopefully put players in better positions to be more successful in their defensive actions.

Hopefully, the roster will be back to full health when the NWSL picks back up. Both King and Emslie left the starting XI around the same time and their absences have had negative downstream effects. The buildout is much sketchier and progression needs to go through the left channel. Both Vignola and A. Thompson are more dribblers who cut inside, while Emslie sends in more crosses from the wide space and G. Thompson can do both. In the past few games, defenses have clamped down on the left side, and it has been much harder to get into good spaces up top. Offensive threat drops off even more if opposing teams can additionally neutralize Tiernan or Fuller. Unfortunately, no other right wing option so far has compared to Emslie in terms of chemistry with G. Thompson so far. Although Julie Dufour has had a couple of very bright moments, overall her performances have been a bit lackluster. Emslie’s prolonged injury leaves Angel City’s offense too one-dimensional. If the defense can tighten up, even just a bit, and players come off the injury report and Jun Endo builds up her match fitness, then Angel City can start looking scary again. I look forward to seeing what Straus can do with the rest of this season.

I said that it would be long, but it’s been fun! I learned a lot in doing this write-up, and I look forward to continuing to expand my soccer knowledge. If you made it this far, thank you. To everyone out there following along with my little project, I appreciate you.

*All photos are from the Angel City Media Center unless otherwise credited

*Team xG Charts by Catalina Bush