Angel City Football Club has officially reached the must-win portion of the 2025 season.
Entering the week, Angel City was seven points behind the eighth and final playoff spot, with three games remaining.
Sunday’s home game against the Houston Dash is an elimination game, with a loss ending Angel City’s playoff hopes. A draw could also be enough to eliminate Angel City, assuming the San Diego Wave win or draw against Racing Louisville.
This situation was likely expected. After the coaching change in June, with Alex Straus taking over, it has been a crash course for Angel City (6-11-6, 24 points) to learn his playing style and philosophy.
“It’s been a tough year and I’m really feeling that right now,” defender and captain Sarah Gorden said after Monday’s 1-0 loss against the Kansas City Current. “But I am proud of the group … It’s just that final defensive thing and final offensive thing that we were lacking.”
Lately, despite Angel City being winless in the last five games, the structure and development have been evident going into the game against Houston (7-10-6, 27 points).
“If we can perform like this going forward, we will win a lot of football games,” Straus said following Monday’s loss. “I’m proud of the players, the way that they looked and at the same time, we also need to address the weaknesses.
“We need to humble enough. I can talk about the last couple of months, but it has been years, 3 or 4 years … it’s been too many easy goals against us. It’s some behaviors that need to be fixed. That will change, one way or another, because I will not accept that going forward. We cannot win anything if I accept that. If we fix that, I believe we’re not far away from competing against these teams.
“We played a good game against Washington, one and half weeks ago, and we deserved something (a positive result) against Kansas (City), the two best teams.”
Prisca Chilufya acquired in trade
The remaking of the Angel City roster continued Thursday with the acquisition of forward Prisca Chilufya in a trade with the Orlando Pride for $50,000 in intra-league transfer funds.
Chilufya, 26, joined the Pride in January after a transfer from FC Juarez. She made 16 appearances, scoring a pair of goals. In two seasons with Juarez, she had 14 goals in 48 games.
Chilufya is a member of the Zambian National Team.
Maithé López recalled from loan
Angel City announced that it has recalled forward Maithé López from her loan at Lexington SC in the USL Super League. Lopez made seven appearances, scoring a goal.
Angel City signed the 18-year-old from Real Santander in February to a four-year contract.
HOUSTON DASH at ANGEL CITY FC
When: 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: BMO Stadium
How to watch: ESPN