The current town versus the home town. Angel City fell 0-2 to the Portland Thorns at home on Sunday, but the last of their playoff hopes had already been squashed just a few minutes before kickoff. Racing Louisville’s 2-2 draw with Gotham resulted in the elimination of both Angel City and the Houston Dash from the 2025 playoffs.

Despite the loss, the vibes in the stadium were pretty good. Sunday was the last home game for women’s soccer legends Christen Press and Ali Riley before they retire at the end of the 2025 season. On a hot, sunny afternoon, BMO Stadium saw its largest crowd in a while to send off the Angel City veterans and hometown heroes. The crowd was lively and encouraging of the players despite the result, despite the football not really being the most exciting on either side, it still felt like a special day. You can read my reflections on the day’s celebrations and Press and Riley’s retirements here.

Head Coach Alex Straus stuck with the same formation that he has been using since the arrival of Hina Sugita from the Portland Thorns, however, the tinkering with the front three continued.

If all are fit and healthy next year Straus has some combination of Jun Endo, Riley Tiernan, Sveindís Jónsdóttir, Claire Emslie, Maiara Niehues, Kennedy Fuller, and Prisca Chilufya to fill out the starting attacking unit. Honestly, that’s pretty exciting and I think he knows that. He’s trying to figure out how to get as many of them on the pitch as possible at the same time while gelling and remaining effective. Thus… things are as they often are at Angel City, a work in progress.

The team looked solid and dominant against the Houston Dash the weekend before, but against a stronger roster things did not work out so swimmingly. It’s interesting too because the Thorns and Angel City had traded key pieces of their rosters to each other just a few weeks prior. Who better to try to neutralize Sugita in the middle of the park than her former teammates?

The press was not as aggressive, the passes were not as clean, and the attacking threat was not as cohesive. Their shape was sandwiched into ineffectiveness. The Thorns probably have among of the strongest midfields in the league and the combination of Sam Coffey, Olivia Moultrie, and Jessie Flemming did well to disrupt Angel City’s forward progression. Keeping Nealy Martin and Sugita relatively pinned back meant that the forwards were much too deep to gain many instances of numerical advantage going forward. Defensively Angel City was letting the Thorns have time on the ball and conceded quite a bit of space. Portland’s first goal comes from absolutely no one putting pressure on Moultrie outside of the box. The 20 year old has been putting together an excellent 2025 season, so it’s not all that surprising that she ended up scoring a pretty sweet goal.

Overall, though, neither team was really offering much in terms of quality going forward. Each team’s non-penalty xG for the game is about even, and the only quality chance of the whole game was the penalty kick given up by Sara Doorsoun. I’m not sure if I can talk about the officiating in a productive way, so I’m just going to not. It’s not the reason Angel City lost by any means, but it was frustrating to watch.

Substitutions of Jónsdóttir for Tiernan, Press for Fuller, Niehues for Endo brought a bit more dynamism to the attack, but alas the ball never hit the back of the net. The vibes in the stadium were still good despite it all. Both Press and Ali Riley played decent minutes for their last game in Los Angeles. The roar from the crowd any time either player touched the ball was pretty incredible and I think that the outpouring of love and support for the two legends transcended anything that was going on on the pitch. Atmospherically anyway.

Angel City has one more away game against the Chicago Stars on November 2nd, but the focus is now plainly and openly on the future. In the post-match press conference Straus spoke highly of Press and Riley before answering questions about the offseason. He discussed that the group is still working on raising the standards and implementing championship level habits. Straus did not reveal the identities of any recruitment targets, but he was clear that he wants to push Angel City to become winners and to do that he knows they need to make big swings.

The NWSL 2025 season is coming to a close which means the team is about to go through some more big changes soon. Until then, there is one last game. For Press and Riley one last time, let’s hope Angel City can end a pretty tumultuous season on a high note.

**Images courtesy of Angel City