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NWSL Angel City FC

Angel City Football Club Match Preview Ahead of Road Match in Utah

May 2, 2024 - National Women's Soccer League (NWSL)
Angel City FC News Release


Tomorrow, May 3, at 6:30 p.m., Angel City is on the road against the Utah Royals FC. The match will stream live on NWSL+ and air regionally on Bally Sports SoCal, with an English-language radio broadcast on iHeart.

Matchup

Last week, Angel City lost 3-1 at home to the top-ranked Kansas City Current. A strike by forward Claire Emslie put ACFC up 1-0 in the first half, a lead the team would hold until Current midfielder Vanessa DiBernardo put one away in the 54th minute. Forward Claire Lavogez put the nail in the coffin with a brace in the final minutes of the game.

Utah's last game was a 0-0 draw at home against the Houston Dash, the Royals' first draw of the season.

Utah are currently in 13th place in the standings with a 1-4-1 (W-L-D) record. Angel City are in ninth with a 2-3-1 record.

This will be ACFC's first-ever meeting with the Utah Royals FC, who joined the league as an expansion team this season.

Scouting Report

The Royals are technically the second NWSL club to call the Salt Lake City area home; an earlier team called Utah Royals FC which, like the current club, shared ownership with MLS side Real Salt Lake (RSL), played in Sandy from 2018-2020. A 2020 controversy over ownership forced a sale of RSL, while the Royals ceased operations and transferred their roster and trade assets to what is now the Kansas City Current. The NWSL approved RSL's new owners' expansion bid in 2023.

The current iteration of the Royals is coached by USWNT legend and Royals 1.0 star Amy Rodriguez. The job is Rodriguez's first as a head coach; she previously spent one season as an assistant at the University of Southern California, her alma mater. She was able to pursue a coaching career shortly after her 2021 retirement as a player thanks in part to a free USSF "B" License course that was offered to 24 NWSL players in 2021, a collaboration between NWSL, the NWSLPA, and USSF.

If the Royals look to still be finding their feet as a new expansion side, keep in mind that their single win so far this season was a 2-1 victory at home against the second-place North Carolina Courage- whose only other loss to date was against Angel City. That game saw defender Kate Del Fava put the Royals up 1-0 in the 15th minute. A 26th-minute equalizer by the Courage was soon answered by forward Ally Sentnor, and the home team maintained the lead over a dramatic second half.

The bottom line: no team in the NWSL should ever be underestimated, especially when playing them on the road.

ACFC Midfielder Rocky Rodríguez

On the transition to Angel City and feeling welcomed since day one:

"Since day one, I felt very much welcomed and I really appreciate that from the girls. It means a lot and it makes a huge difference for the transition. It's a lot to move from one state to the other and everything changes when packing your stuff and moving like that."

"Like I said, since day one, the girls have been so welcoming, so helpful, and whatever I've needed, they're there. I can see how in the past years the team and the players who have been in Angel City have really created a healthy culture, where there's a lot of unity and togetherness. I felt it from the first day and it hasn't changed, and it's really nice. It makes things much easier for the transition and even for the first season, just to be able to be my best self and it's also thanks to the girls."

On what it's like to play for Head Coach Becki Tweed:

"Something that struck me about her when I first came was her energy and that's a really important thing in a coach. She brings the energy and she has been very sensitive to the energy of the group during training, during warm ups and during games. That's something that it's really nice to have for a head coach."

"She's a head coach and has to be detail oriented and has a lot of things in her mind. She has a great staff where she receives support. Something that I really like about her so far is the way that she approaches corrections. It's from an encouraging or from a I know you can do better standpoint. That personally helps me a lot."

"The energy that she can bring and the way that she shifts into a positive thing, even if it's corrections you have to correct. It's from, I know you can do better. So that's really nice to have."

On what she loves about her country Costa Rica and the challenges of women's soccer:

"I love how much we protect, value and care for our natural resources. It's a country that lives off of tourism a lot. I really feel proud of the way that we take care of the natural resources because we know as the years go by, that it's more and more rare throughout the world in different countries."

"We have a lot of biodiversity. It's a crazy number of around 5 percent of the biodiversity in the world. We've understood what really matters and in our culture, we are very family oriented. Sometimes we enjoy life to a fault to us. Just like any other country, we have the good things and the not so good things."

"When I was growing up in Costa Rica, I felt really frustrated because of the lack of development in specifically women soccer. That was my dream when I was a kid. As soon as I realized that I couldn't fulfill my dreams in my home country, that's when I made the decision that I wanted to leave to live my dreams out."

"Still to this day, we haven't made a lot of progress. That only speaks to the amazing women soccer players specifically, because that's where I developed my career with our national team. We've made huge strides despite the lack of development in our home country. That shows the strength that we have. There's a lot of talent, but we all know that talent is just the beginning. That's what's been frustrating about my home country."

"As time goes by, you learn to love even the things that at one point frustrated you. I'm hoping that for the next cycle of the World Cup, we can keep making history. We've gone to two World Cups and it's only getting harder to qualify. I'm hoping that despite the difficulties we may have in Costa Rica, we still rise, and we've shown it. We've shown it in the past and I hope that we can keep doing that first of all, for ourselves."

"Soccer has the power of inspiring a whole country. Regardless of whether soccer is developed or not, that's always going to be our battle.I've also learned that not everything is in our power, but what we can do is show up for us, for the country and hopefully to inspire the future generations to do what we couldn't accomplish in this generation."

ACFC Head Coach Becki Tweed

On her focus and communication with staff on the sidelines during games:

"Something that we want to try to be really mindful of on the sideline is that the game can be emotional and we try to take emotion out of it. Otherwise, you can see or feel things that maybe aren't as bad or as good as you think they are. We try to remain really fact and film based. "

"We have our analyst and one coach that sits up high and sends messages down. When we look at our game plan - is it working, is the opposition doing exactly what we thought they would do, how are they pressing, how are they building, where are the spaces and where are they hurting us? Does our game plan reflect what the opposition is doing and who we want to be?"

"We try to get as many answers and pictures. If things change as the game goes on and you can't see it from the sideline, can you see that from above, and get that information down to us so we can look at it and get that message across to the team? Overall, staying as least emotion based and as most fact based as possible is really important."

On the importance of the club taking it one game at a time in upcoming matches:

"We have to take every game as it comes. One game at a time. Every team poses you different problems and every game you pose a team different problems. Sometimes matchups don't make sense from the outside but do make sense on the inside."

"We've got to perform, we've got to play well. Individuals have to play well and we have to get our game plan put on. If we are the best versions of ourselves, there isn't a team in this league that we can't beat. However, every team comes with its different challenges. Every environment comes with its different challenges. Being on the road versus being home in this league is very different."

"This league is this league because of how competitive it is and how brilliant teams below or above each other can pull out results on a daily basis. It's important for us, but we have to stay present and stay game to game focused. We have to go one game at a time, and this Utah game is the most important thing that we have in front of us right now.

On challenges ahead of facing Utah Royals FC and what she sees in the young club:

"We watched them back and they had a brilliant result against North Carolina at home. Coming to Utah isn't an easy place for anybody to play. They're a new team, very young, and have individual players that can have moments of brilliance with what they've tried to go for. They're a young group that is very coachable and will continue to go from strength to strength as they grow each week, but also have that little bit of naivety and that young club and player mindset when it comes to set pieces, throw ins, restarts and just stuff that they haven't had time to evolve in."

"Individual player wise, they have Ally Sentnor, which she'll pose any team a problem on the front line. She can play off both feet. She's a goalscorer and a really bright talent for the future. Them bringing in Amandine [Henry] and some other internationals from outside adds that experience in them having played in different leagues and coming from different places growing up where they've had to play different styles and can problem solve."

"They're well rounded, they have a plan. Playing any team in this league offers you some threats and some things that you want to take advantage of, and it's about finding those things. We have to play well tomorrow and we know that we have to play well, but we have to play well for 90 minutes."

Her thoughts on Rocky Rodríguez:

"She is a brilliant footballer. She's great on the ball and always wants the ball. She links everything together really well. She has the ability to get forward, score goals and be an attacking threat. Also, she's really good at having that composure closer to the goal where you can build out using her. She's comfortable with the ball at her feet."

"Something that is really underrated in this league is being calm in the chaos and she is the one person I put at the top of the list of who is calm in the chaos. A meeting starts in one minute and she's like, 'it's ok, i'm going to be on time,' while everybody else is stressed to run in the door."

"She just brings that calm mentality where nothing phases her as such. She's really laid back in the sense that it brings this nice opposite to almost what you would envision LA is like and her mentality to the group and the team on and off the field."

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