Angel City FC keeps playoff hopes alive with win over Houston Dash

LOS ANGELES — Angel City Football Club is not ready to bid farewell to its playoff chances for the 2025 season.

Entering Sunday’s penultimate home game against the Houston Dash, a draw or loss would have knocked Angel City out of playoff contention.

Thanks to goals from Kennedy Fuller (53rd minute) and Maiara Niehues (86th minute), Angel City said ‘not today’ to the end of its playoff hopes with a 2-0 win over the Dash at BMO Stadium.

The win moves Angel City to six points behind eighth-place Racing Louisville with two games remaining. Angel City remains in must-win mode and will also need a lot of help to make the playoffs, but avoided the end, at least for this week.

“I can speak for all of us, we took a breath of relief of happiness, of joy when that final whistle blew because we worked every week for these results,” Angel City goalkeeper Angelina Anderson said. “Last week, they (Kansas City) had one shot, one goal, it’s really, really frustrating.

“Today (Sunday), I think the difference is was we had a swagger about us that we weren’t going to lose. Sometimes, it’s having that intangible mindset and air about us as a team, and I felt that.”

Fuller’s goal was the first for Angel City (7-11-6, 27 points) since the 14th minute against the Washington Spirit (Sept. 18). It also had a bit of that swagger that Anderson eluded to. Fuller looked away as he sent the ball on the left wing toward Hina Sugita. Sugita’s cross was then spilled by Houston goalkeeper Abby Smith. Fuller charged in for the rebound finish to make it 1-0.

Then came the moment in the 86th minute that had all the swagger and filth of any play by an Angel City player. Miyabi sent a ball upfield from deep in the Angel City defensive third. Jun Endo, on the left, took a one-touch, backheel flick toward Maiara Niehues ran onto the ball. Niehues then went around Smith and deposited the ball into the net for the 2-0 lead.

“I saw that touch from Jun and I almost started laughing, because it was so perfect,” Anderson said. “Watching the replay (on the video board) I was looking up there in awe. When I saw the flick, we see that kind of stuff from her every single day, so I kind of knew she was going to make some magic happen.”

Angel City had consecutive 1-0 losses against Racing Louisville (Sept. 27) and Kansas City Current (Oct. 6) and had a five-game winless streak entering Sunday. Coach Alex Straus has said he’s seen progress, but it could be disheartening when that progress isn’t met with results.

I look behind the results, and you have to when you dive in every week, I see a team that’s more and more dominant. We’re still not there, there will still be games where we’re off, but I saw it against Kansas (City),” Straus said. “Last week, we should have won that game. You saw it today, consistency, that’s what we need. Week in and week out, but also year in and year out, that’s the only way we can grow.

“Sometimes, we are not good enough. Today we were. We can’t get ahead of ourselves, we need to be balanced and calm, we have a game next week (against Portland Thorns), and we want to do it again, and we want to keep the consistency in our performances.”

Next Sunday, Angel City will conclude its home schedule against the Thorns. The regular season will end Nov. 2, after the international break, against the Chicago Stars.