LOS ANGELES — As the setting sun spilled a sherbet palette across the Los Angeles sky on Saturday, a group of Latinx artists and activists took the stage in the garden of the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes museum to discuss how they channeled their queerness into their superpowers.
The panel discussion was one of the banner events during a day that featured DJ sets and musical performances, arts and craft stations, and long, curling lines for Salvadoran hotdogs. Eight miles west, soccer players covered in thigh tattoos strutted around Brick House Studios to reggaeton and mumble rap. When they weren’t competing in a tournament of small-sided indoor games, they were hunched over controllers playing FIFA 23, perusing merch that looked like it came straight off of Fairfax Avenue, or grubbing on tacos from the truck parked outside.
Both events took place on the eve of Angel City FC’s home opener against its bicoastal rival, NJ/NY Gotham FC; the California club made its presence known with strategically placed tents piled with stickers, color-changing sunglasses, and game schedules for attendees in both places.
Those crowds were reflected at Angel City’s pregame fan fest Sunday afternoon, where supporters across the spectrum of age, race, and gender wove in and out of drum circles, dance performances, tailgates, and more food trucks, decked out in stylish variations of the team’s millennial pink and black.
And when the inside of the newly minted BMO Stadium wasn’t filled with the rosy haze of smoke bombs emanating from the supporter section, it glittered with appearances by Natalie Portman, America Ferrera, Christina Aguilera, Tia and Tahj Mowry, Shannon Boxx, Cobi Jones, Mia Hamm, and a laundry list of other celebrities — many of whom are investors in the club that has been resoundingly clear about its intention to change the landscape of women’s soccer.
But no amount of community immersion, pink smoke, or jumbotron shots of celebrity investors can guarantee a dub. Despite emphatic goals from 18-year-old No. 1 draft pick Alyssa Thompson and Japanese international Jun Endo (though the latter was called back after a VAR check), Gotham was better primed to absorb the game’s dramatic fluctuations and wound up scoring two goals to top Angel City 2-1 in their own house.
Premature prophesying in a league like the NWSL is ill-advised, especially when there’s only one season plus one game’s worth of tea leaves to read about Angel City, but it’s hard to ignore the gap between the club’s careful cultivation of a place in Los Angeles’ vibrant soccer community — and in the world as a progressive trailblazer in women’s sports — and the lingering questions about whether the team can actually deliver on the pitch.
Speaking to the media after the game, Angel City head coach Freya Coombe said the team has embraced the weight of those expectations.
“I think with that pressure comes a lot of opportunity which is really important for us, and I think that we are happy that the world is taking notice because that’s the way the game is going to grow, that’s the way the audiences are going to grow, that’s the way these women and these athletes’ brands [are] going to grow, and you can get them the respect that they deserve,” she said.
“Now it’s about us playing a brand of soccer that is going to excite people and be successful, and that’s going to take some time, but I think we’re making good strides forward with that.”
Dazzling performances from Thompson and Endo, plus the welcome return of defensive powerhouse Sarah Gorden after being sidelined last season with injury, certainly indicated progress. There were plenty of sustained moments of cohesion to comfort Angel City fans throughout the first half of the game. It was harder to withstand the possibility of onset déjà vu, however, when Angel City goalkeeper DiDi Haračić attempted a save in the box that sent Gotham striker Svava Guðmundsdóttir to ground. Again, a VAR check ruled against Angel City, and Gotham forward Midge Purce was the epitome of cool when she converted her penalty kick in the second half.
Ten minutes later, Purce sent a perfectly weighted pass to teammate Lynn Williams to run onto and score, which ultimately sealed Gotham’s victory.
Gorden was transparent in her disappointment with the result, admitting that it was difficult to answer some of the media’s questions because it was “really frustrating to lose like that.” The center back said the team needed to do a better job pushing for a goal in the final 10 minutes of the game, and that she wanted to improve her leadership from the back in those efforts.
“Honestly, it’s good for that to happen [in] the first game because now we know exactly where we need to build and be better,” she maintained.
Angel City captain Ali Riley counted the crowd’s energy as a win in addition to Thompson’s smashing goal. “Seeing the crowd, the representation in the crowd, the diversity, just what this club stands for — there are always going to be bright moments when Angel City plays,” she said. Echoing Coombe, Riley added that all the team needed to do was develop a winning soccer program to match the energy their fans gave them.
Barely a year into their NWSL journeys, Angel City and in-state rival San Diego Wave (who made the playoffs last year while Angel City missed out) have tapped the vein of California’s rich soccer culture to fill their stands with record-breaking crowds. Both clubs hosted home openers to sold-out crowds last weekend, and while Gotham players boarded their flight back to the east coast with a win in hand, they also had high praise for Angel City’s emergence.
“What Angel City has built here is incredible. The atmosphere is unreal. This is what we as professional soccer players want to play in every single week,” said Williams. “It’s hard to win here, it’s hard to play. You can’t hear what your teammates are saying. You’re relying on gestures half the time.”
Between long-term plans like Angel City’s 10% sponsorship pledge to community programs and the club’s upcoming HBO docuseries that has no doubt been given the Hollywood treatment (Portman is one of the executive producers), there’s little question about the team’s intentions to build a model for women’s soccer that looks radically different from anything that came before it.
But, as prolonged injuries to stars like Christen Press and Sydney Leroux nudge the squad toward hedging their offensive bets on 18-year-old Thompson, the larger question of Angel City’s ability to secure what might be the final pieces to their puzzle — winning games — will continue to loom large.
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