Angel City Football Club has battled through a tough schedule to start the 2024 season.
Angel City has faced first-place Kansas City twice, third-place Orlando, fourth-place North Carolina and sixth-place Chicago so far this season. Bay FC is the only team Angel City has faced that is below it in the current standings.
Starting Friday, Angel City will face the first of two consecutive opponents near the bottom of the league. First is expansion team Utah Royals FC, followed by Houston on May 12.
“We’ve played all teams right around the top of the table,” ACFC coach Becki Tweed said. “We’ve been toe-to-toe with every team. I think for 60 minutes last week we outplayed Kansas (City) and we know that it isn’t enough especially to beat the top team in this league right now.
“We know we need to grow from that, but when you look at what we’re trying to do and where we want to go, it’s come out so far in every single game. It just has to be consistent and for longer periods of time.”
Angel City (2-3-1, seven points) allowed two stoppage-time goals last Friday, which turned a potential draw against the Current into a loss.
“We switched off for the last six minutes and you can’t switch off in the last six minutes against any team in the NWSL, let alone a team that scored 20 goals,” Tweed said. “That is reflective of something we need to look at every day. We just have to get better from it.”
Despite entering the week in 13th place in the 14-team league, the Royals have a 2-1 victory over North Carolina. The first-year club has lost four of its first six games. Former Santa Margarita High and USC star and USWNT member Amy Rodriguez is Utah’s inaugural coach. She is suspended for the game after receiving a red card last week.
“We’ve had more good games than not, but we’ve also not gotten results, so I realize that there’s holes and things to be fixed,” Rodriguez said. “I can see the long-term plan of this group is to keep building week after week and we’re starting to see that.”
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Utah has scored just four goals and allowed 11, which should be just what a struggling Angel City attack needs to get on track.
“We have to take every game as it comes,” Tweed said. “One game at a time. Every team poses you different problems every game. You pose a team different problems … sometimes matchups don’t make sense from the outside, but do make sense from the inside, so I think we’ve got to perform, we’ve got to play well. Individuals have to play well and we have to get our game plan spot on and if we’re the best versions of ourselves, there isn’t a team in this league we can’t beat.”
ANGEL CITY FC at UTAH ROYALS FC
When: Friday, 6:30 p.m.
Where: America First Field; Sandy, Utah
TV: NWSL+ (via NWSLsoccer.com); Bally Sports SoCal (delayed at 9:30 p.m.)