First and foremost, thinking of Savy King and her family and sending her well wishes. King experienced an on-field medical emergency during Friday night’s game and required transportation to the hospital. As of this writing Angel City reported that King was responsive in the ambulance and was undergoing further evaluation. The NWSL has confirmed that King was in stable condition before leaving BMO and remains stable. Needless to say, I’m hoping that Savy is okay and is receiving all of the medical and social support that she needs at this time. I also hope that the players on both teams are being cared for. It is really stressful to witness a medical event to a teammate and friend with the level of ambiguity that surrounded this situation. It was clear that this was an intense experience for everyone that was at BMO on Friday and I do hope that player mental health has been taken into account in the days following.
It feels difficult and somewhat silly to talk about this game in light of what happened but I’ll try my best.
Interim Head Coach Sam Laity received a red card for running onto the field after Tiernan scored the game-winning goal against the Spirit at Audi Field last weekend, so Assistant Coach Eleri Earnshaw stepped up to take on head coaching duties. No major changes were made to the starting XI or formation. Macey Hodge returned to the gameday roster but Katie Zelem, rightfully, retained her place in the starting XI. Notably Sydney Leroux was removed from the Availability Report and will likely be working her way back onto the gameday roster soon. The Utah Royals continue to be plagued by injury but forward Mina Tanaka has returned to 90 minute fitness and Alex Loera has been removed from the Season-Ending Injury list, so hopefully things are slowly turning around for them in that regard.
The first half ended scoreless despite Angel City maintaining most of the possession and momentum. Early scoring streak snapped. Utah played a pretty compact 4-4-2 within their defensive third. At times it even felt like there were five in the backline and all numbers except for Ally Sentnor were behind the ball. Looking at the Royals defensive actions you can see that they were sitting pretty far back with a significant amount of these actions occurring within their own box.
Utah hoped to hit Angel City on the counter following their defensive play, but it never quite manifested into anything. Perhaps because they did have so many players back and just don’t really have the pace to then get everyone forward again. Their opportunities looked a little bit better during the second half when Brecken Mozingo started trying to run in behind the backline, but MA Vignola seemed to take her defensive shortcomings from the week before personally and was shutting Mozingo down all game. The backline kept things fairly under control when Utah did get forward aside from a couple of nervy moments, but Utah simply didn’t have the attacking juice to punish Angel City despite Tanaka’s return.
The Royals sitting back and clogging the box resulted in a pretty quiet night for Riley Tiernan and Kennedy Fuller with most of the attack coming from the wings. Unfortunately, Claire Emslie didn't have a great game and Gisele Thompson’s, frankly incredible, runs throughout the first half weren’t amounting to much down the right side. This changed within 20 seconds of Christen Press coming on for Emslie in the 65th minute. Utah turned the ball over in their buildout and Alanna Kennedy sent a decisive pass down to Press who expertly found herself in the seam between defenders. She managed to stay on her feet to send Madison Pogarch flying from her attempted tackle to send the ball curling into the top far corner. Press made her return to the field after two years out due to an ACL tear toward the end of last season. She has said that she wants to be playing joy in this new phase of her career and I think the celebration of her first goal back at BMO showed exactly that. It was a truly special moment to witness.
Unfortunately, about 10 minutes later, Savy King went down due to a medical emergency. In the stadium it was tense as the situation seemed to escalate. Thankfully she was stabilized for transportation to an ambulance to be taken to the hospital. For better or for worse (I personally think “for worse”), the game continued after the event adding 12 minutes of stoppage time to the end of the game. Technically King went down a single minute too soon for the officials to have been able to just call the game without picking it back up later. However, the effects of watching someone go down like that had rattled the players on both teams. The league has since defended how things played out after King’s transport due to her being in a stable condition stating that all league protocols were followed. Perhaps that’s true but for me I don’t think it’s okay to see players seemingly in tears on the field because of what they just experienced.
Despite the circumstances Angel City scored a second goal during stoppage time. It started with Press making fools out of Utah defenders on the left wing. A ball meant for Tiernan got intercepted, but Madison Hammond who had subbed in for Zelem and Alyssa Thompson were able to stop Utah’s forward progression together. From there, A. Thompson took the ball and ran through the entire defensive line to seal the game, undoubtedly, in Angel City’s favor.
This was a tough game due to the emotional whiplash that came with the night’s events. However, along with feeling worried for Savy, I left the stadium feeling really proud of the team. Regardless of the severity of what happened, which we may or may not ever really know (which is absolutely Savy and her family’s right), medical emergencies are scary. Full stop. The group showed an incredible amount of resilience to close out that game not just with all three points but with a second goal.
After the match the mood was somber but it was great to see the entire teams and staff of both Angel City and the Royals come together afterward in a big circle expressing their support for Savy and her family. It shows just how amazing these players and this women’s soccer community really is.