ACFC Midfielder Nealy Martin & Head Coach Alex Straus Discuss Home Opener Preparation
NWSL Angel City FC

ACFC Midfielder Nealy Martin & Head Coach Alex Straus Discuss Home Opener Preparation

Published on March 6, 2026 under National Women's Soccer League (NWSL)
Angel City FC News Release


LOS ANGELES - Angel City Football Club (ACFC) are preparing for its upcoming first home match of the regular season against the Chicago Stars at BMO Stadium on March 15, streaming live on Victory+ (4:00 p.m. PST kickoff). ACFC midfielder Nealy Martin and Head Coach Alex Straus were made available to the press today to discuss the match.

Please see quotes below:

ACFC Midfielder Nealy Martin

On preparation ahead of the team's home opener

"We've had a really good preseason thus far. We went to the Coachella Valley Invitational for a week, and that was our last time playing together before we had the internationals leave. I think all of the time leading up to that, we have been able to build something really special, tactically and also culture-wise within the group, so I'm super excited to see it come together next week."

On working with head coach Alex Straus at the end of last season and heading into a full first season for both of them

"It's just really good to get on the same page and see how he [Alex Straus] functions with the staff and with the players, and to understand how he views the game, and the game model that he wants to implement. I think everyone's on an even playing field when you come into preseason, all the spots are up for grabs. But, I think it's always really nice to understand the function and how someone views the game, because then you can get a feel for the field, for the spaces that we want to exploit or the style that we want to implement.

"I think there's always, with any good tactics, levels to it. It's his first preseason with the group and with a pretty new group, so you have to implement things slowly, and you don't want to peak in preseason. It's slow building these tactics, layering them in, and then adding little nuances to the game once we understand the system.I think we haven't implemented everything that we want to, which is exciting."

ACFC Head Coach Alex Straus

On the process of getting the team prepared to take on the Chicago Stars

"The process is to get the team ready for playing the first game of the season, which is next week. It's been a very unusual pre-season for me. We had the US National Team camp in January. We are lucky enough to have some great players and great talent that were called up for that, but we are still working and continue to work on a model and our identity, and how we want to play football against Chicago, but also against anybody, that doesn't change.

"We are working on our process and our principles of play, and getting the players ready to play 90 minutes in a week. The performance departments and I have a lot of work to do to get them up to 90 minutes. We have to continue to prepare and be as sharp and clear in our preparation, so when these players come back, and we put them into our environment, they can adapt as soon as possible.

On his priorities for this year's team in both defense and offence

"We want to be aggressive. We want to defend forward. We want to find a balance between player-versus-player pressing and zonal pressing, and that is often the key and the difficult part to work on. We need to be better at defending our own box than we were last year, so we have been working on that and will continue to work on it. What we prioritize when we have to defend what we call crisis management, when we are unbalanced in our last third, is something we need to improve. We let in too many goals in those phases last year.

"With the ball, we want to be the protagonist of the game. We want to control and dominate the game. We want the opponents to adapt to us and be more worried about what we do than what they are doing. That's a transition period for us, going forward to be that dominant team, which I think is very possible in this league. You see it more and more teams have that vision.

"You see [NJ/NY] Gotham has it, you see Washington [Spirit] did it last year, and North Carolina [Courage] has done it for quite some years in the way that they play. We want to do it, but it has to be efficient. We want to be vertical, but with control. We're not just going to do everything without control. We want to manipulate, create overloads, and punish opponents when we manipulate them into doing what we want and attack the spaces they give us. That's what we want to do with the ball."

Check out the Angel City FC Statistics

Share: Facebook | Twitter/X | LinkedIn | Reddit | Email



National Women's Soccer League Stories from March 6, 2026


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central