Angel City FC can’t hold off North Carolina before NWSL break

LOS ANGELES — Early this season, Angel City Football Club appeared on the right track to success.

Since then, the ride has been bumpy and off course, and Sunday, Angel City again struggled with its main culprit: the late goal conceded.

North Carolina Courage broke a 1-1 tie in the 79th minute on Manaka Matsukubo’s goal, allowing the visitors to escape BMO Stadium with a 2-1 win in front of 16,057.

Angel City (4-6-1) has allowed only 14 goals this season, but half (seven) have come in the 75th minute or later.

“The past two games, it has been a little bit disappointing falling short,” defender Sarah Gorden said. “Feeling like we have some really, really good chances …the balls bouncing across the box, maybe we get a foot on it, a head on it, and it’s either not going in, or we’re just not there. That was something we talked about all week, putting the ball in the back of the net, winning our 1v1 battles in those moments, taking care of both boxes, and ultimately, we didn’t do that tonight.”

After a sluggish first half in the sun, both teams found the back of the goal early in the second half. Ashley Sanchez and Matsukubo combined, with the latter slipping a perfectly placed through-ball to Evelyn Ijeh, who finished the sequence with the goal in the 48th minute.

Three minutes later, Maiara Niehues got on the right end of an Evelyn Shores’ cross and headed home the equalizer. That’s where the game remained until the North Carolina midfield trio of Ashley Sanchez, Riley Jackson and Matsukubo carved through the Angel City defense for what would be the winning goal.

As time ticked away, Angel City had a pair of clear chances to find the equalizer. Prisca Chilufya’s header in the six-yard box was directed toward North Carolina goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan. Shores had a header off of a corner kick that was easily secured by Sheridan. Then in the 93rd minute, Taylor Suarez found herself in a good spot, but her shot was scuffed as two defenders crowded her on the goal line, and Sheridan would eventually fall on the ball.

Chalk it up as another frustrating night for Angel City coach Alex Straus.

“In all these games, I think that we do enough to win and that’s the frustrating part and we don’t get a point,” Straus said. “We have enough chances today to win. You look at the numbers again and I’m bringing them up and I’m getting tired of myself talking about it, but that’s the thing that we can fix.

“I think the structure and the organization today is good. The first goal and the second goal, they have quality up front …We have some big, big, big chances at the end. We should have scored. We are structured, but we need to do more.”

Angel City heads into the summer break on 13 points, coming off as up-and-down a first 11 games as any team could have. Teams have a mandatory week off June 8-14. The break for the men’s FIFA World Cup is June 15-28.

Angel City will return to action July 3 at home against the Orlando Pride.

Angel City opened the season with three consecutive wins and went into the April break with a 3-1 record. Since returning, the club has undergone growing pains, losing their first three games and finishing a busy month of May with a 1-4-2 record, slumping down to 12th place.

“I think maybe it’s Houston at home (March 27, 2-1 win), Orlando away (April 3, 2-1 loss) and maybe one more game, but I can’t remember it, that we deserve to lose. The rest we deserved to win, when you look at the numbers behind,” Straus said. “I’m a strong believer, over time, that will show itself on a scoreboard and we need to be consistent showing it on the scoreboard.

“We’ve not been played out and today, we’re the better team, again, and we lose.”

On the back end of the schedule, Angel City’s turnaround will have to come on the road. Of the final 19 games, 11 will be on the road.

“We felt like we had so much momentum the first few games of the season and we’ve kind of lost that,” Gorden said. “June will be all about refining ourselves and our system a little bit more and also just finding that belief again because that’s what we need.”