Two chaos teams collide. Another tough week for Angel City who suffered a 2-3 loss to Racing Louisville at BMO Stadium on Saturday night.
Claire Emslie and Sydney Leroux remained on the Availability Report for the game and young Brazilian Maiara Niehues joined them. This led Interim Coach Sam Laity to yet again move Gisele Thompson into the right wing position and start Moriya Miyabi as the right outside back due to Christen Press being on a minutes restriction, which she revealed after the game via social media. Megan Reid continued at center back in Savy King’s absence. Macey Hodge took Katie Zelem’s place in the double pivot.
Unfortunately, the Angel City on Saturday looked a lot more like the Angel City of 2024. Against Bay FC they mostly just looked a step or two behind. Connections between the backline looked a little rough around the edges. It seemed like they just needed to sharpen up. Against Louisville they looked all over the place. Passes were not connecting and players were running over each other. Racing is a side that likes to play aggressive and cause a lot of chaos. Angel City has already been struggling with getting caught out in transition, they became all the more exposed against Louisville’s assertive press.
What I mean by the team looking like the Angel City of 2024 is that the team seemed to be playing a lot more back and flat passes between the backline and the keeper. Angel City lacked its usual pace in the back without G. Thompson and King. These factors and the lack of connection between the starting XI led to a bunch of turnovers and a lack of progression.
Second tough game for goalkeeper Angelina Anderson in a row. The disruption to the backline personnel and the increase in negative play has made her less comfortable. Last weekend she gave up a penalty against Bay FC. This weekend she got her pocket picked by Kayla Fischer in the box and ended up pulling her shirt. There was no whistle and Reid managed a clearance, but the following chaos in transition led to Hodge giving up a penalty due to a handball in the box which Taylor Flint buried. Laity made some halftime adjustments by playing Tetris. He replaced Hodge with Madison Hammond, pulled G. Thompson to the backline on the right and Miyabi to the left. He pushed MA Vignola to the left wing, Alyssa Thompson centrally, and Riley Tiernan to the right wing. Right out the gates Tiernan scored a banger, but defensive breakdowns during a set piece and during transition led to the second and third Racing Louisville goals in fairly quick succession.
What happens next skews a lot of Angel City’s data and passing maps for this game. On an Angel City corner kick, Kayla Fischer, for no apparent reason, while completely off ball, decided to grab Hammond’s ponytail, whip her head around, and push her to the ground. Fischer was shown a red card, A. Thompson sank the resulting penalty kick, the 100th goal for the club, and Louisville went down to 10 for the rest of the game. Unfortunately, Angel City wasn’t able to equalize despite being a player up since Louisville just retreated into a compact low block for the rest of the game.
These past couple of games have shown that one or two players out puts Angel City’s lack of depth and adaptability on full display. I’ve said it a couple of times, Laity has done fairly well with his preferred starting XI executing plan A. If that is not available, it’s a bit of a mess. The team is in a position where the manager would rather play defensive players as attacking players before using the substitutes that are available right now. That’s not a great position to be in. I am hoping that players heal up during the international break and our new coach is able to provide some more tactical flexibility.
I think the team will welcome this upcoming international break. There are certainly things that Angel City needs to work on that were present before King’s medical emergency. A lot of those things have only been exacerbated by King and Emslie’s recent unavailability. However, mentally, I don’t think you just get over seeing your friend and teammate collapse and require life saving intervention in just a week or two, even if you know she’s safe and recovering. This week will hopefully be a time where the players can really take a second to care of themselves, each other, and regroup.