Once fans could watch last weekend’s games, they got plenty of drama
The international window is over, and NWSL came back with its customary mix of thrills and drama on the field.
Two stoppage-time winners, a two-goal comeback in LA, two teams hanging onto road results under intense late pressure, a league record broken, a team people wrote off putting four goals past a projected contender, and some spectacular goals? That sounds like the NWSL.
Unfortunately, so does a broadcasting own goal that is arguably the major story from this weekend’s games. The NWSL giveth, and the NWSL taketh away.
Pro Soccer Wire‘s NWSL Weekend Take-Off is here to cover all of the highs and lows:
The 31-year-old is looking to make an unlikely late charge for a World Cup spot
Angel City FC has signed U.S. women’s national team midfielder Julie Ertz to a one-year contract, the club has announced.
After not playing for club or country since the Olympics in 2021, Ertz made a surprise return to the USWNT and played in both of the team’s friendlies against Ireland earlier this month.
USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski made it clear that Ertz needed to find a club immediately in order to be considered for the World Cup roster, and the 31-year-old has now done so with the team that initially acquired her rights from Chicago in 2021.
“I am so thrilled to be joining one of the most exciting clubs in the world in Angel City FC,” Ertz said in a club release. “From the moment they traded for my rights up until now, they have been unwavering in their support of my journey. I cannot wait to get to work with the team and finally experience the amazing game day atmosphere.”
“Having Angel City want me from the beginning is motivating,” Ertz added, “because someone respects the way you play, and that goes a long way. They wanted me on the team before and now.”
After never agreeing to a contract with Angel City, Ertz became a free agent this past offseason.
“Julie is a world-class player who has proven herself time and again at both club and national team levels,” said head coach Freya Coombe. “In addition to her quality on the ball, she will help us defend higher up the field and against opponent transition. Her leadership and World Cup and Olympic medal-winning experience will undoubtedly help us on our quest for a championship.”
With three months to go until the tournament kicks off in Australia and New Zealand, Ertz could make her Angel City debut in Sunday’s game against San Diego. It would be the midfielder’s first NWSL appearance in nearly two years.
A big moment, two teams in top form, and lots of wind in the NWSL weekend that was
It’s only week two in the NWSL, but we’re already getting mid-season levels of intensity and weirdness.
One long weather front extending from the Atlantic coast to deep into the Midwest resulted in a lightning delay in New Jersey and a goal scored by a gust of wind in Chicago. We had a two-goal comeback, a remarkable return to the field for Sinead Farrelly, and a month’s worth of league drama packed into one game between Angel City FC and the Orlando Pride.
If you’re the Portland Thorns or San Diego Wave, another thing at mid-season levels is the performance quality. These two seem, at least right now, head, shoulders, and arguably whole torsos ahead of the rest of the pack. It’ll come around for at least a few other teams, but for now, two of the preseason favorites seem to be meeting any expectation fans might have placed on them.
Community engagement? Check. Celebrity owners? Check. Winning? Not quite yet
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.
Photo by Katharine Lotze/Getty Images
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.
Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports
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.
Tactics, VAR controversy, and spicy quotes? NWSL’s not wasting any time
The NWSL is back for 2023, and immediately produced a characteristic mix of quality play (we see you, Portland Thorns), strangeness, and controversy.
Pro Soccer Wire will be bringing this look at one aspect from every game to you every Tuesday throughout the season. Great goals? Tactical nuance? Spicy quotes? It might be week one for NWSL teams, but there’s so much to tackle. We saw the return of some banter between old rivals, several glorious goals, a total change in system from one team, and VAR’s debut resulting in a pivotal call.
It took just 11 minutes for the teenager to deliver on her pro debut
The anticipation around Alyssa Thompson’s pro debut was massive and, just as she’s done at every point in her young career so far, Thompson delivered.
Thompson started for Angel City FC in their season opener against NJ/NY Gotham FC on Sunday night, with 22,000 fans packing BMO Stadium to see the teenager’s first official pro game.
The first overall pick in the draft had already shown what she could do in a preseason friendly against Club América, but Sunday was the first chance a NWSL defense had to show whether it could slow down the 18-year-old.
It took just 11 minutes for the answer: it could not.
Thompson got past her marker with a dip of her shoulder and unleashed a strike from the top of the box that goalkeeper Abby Smith could only get a palm on before it nestled into the back of the net.
“Dani [Weatherholt] got it on the side andI saw that there was space inside to get it back,” Thompson told Angel City’s website after the game. “So I got in that space, I looked up, and the goal was pretty open.”
“It felt amazing [to score],” she added. “I was super excited just to be at the home opener and score and get our team on the right foot.”
Though Thompson shined on her debut, her team would go on to demonstrate how they could struggle this season even with the standout rookie in their ranks.
Angel City had a second goal questionably chalked off after a VAR review, then watched Gotham strike back with second-half goals from Midge Purce and Lynn Williams in a 2-1 comeback win.
With Christen Press and Sydney Leroux still injured, Angel City’s attack will suffer, and will also be even more reliant on Thompson.
The teenager showed once again on Sunday that she can deliver the goods. Now it’s up to the rest of her teammates to keep the team afloat until reinforcements can arrive.
The 22-year-old has been the target of online harassment and intimidation
Club América midfielder Scarlett Camberos is set to join Angel City FC amid continuing fears for her safety in Mexico.
Camberos filed a transfer request this month after a man, only identified as “Jose Andres N,” threatened and harassed her, and also hacked into her social media accounts.
“In support of the request from our player Scarlett Camberos and in seeking to contribute to her psychological and emotional recovery, the clubs of America and Angel City FC are in the process of reaching a deal for her transfer,” Club América said in a news release on Tuesday night.
The man who harassed Camberos was only sentenced to 36 hours of house arrest, and Club América admitted it could not guarantee the player’s safety if she stayed in Mexico.
Club América called for Mexican authorities to enact tougher laws against sexual violence and harassment, as well as new laws against online harassment
“The response from [Mexican] authorities does not give the player and her family sufficient guarantees for her emotional stability, development as a person and or for a life free of violence,” the club said.
“It is unacceptable that after months of proven harassment, the aggressions continue unpunished.”
Camberos is far from the first Liga MX Femeníl player to suffer harassment or abuse. Tigres defender Greta Espinoza said last month she’d had a similar experience, only to be told by authorities that, despite providing more than 100 photos, there was not enough evidence for a case
Camberos, 22, joined Club América in 2021 after a standout college career at UC Irvine. The Los Angeles native made her debut for the Mexico national team in September 2022.
After just five minutes of her first Angel City FC game, Thompson showed what all the hype is about.
In a preseason friendly against Club América on Wednesday, the 18-year-old picked up the ball 40 yards from goal with several defenders in front of her.
It didn’t matter. Thompson used her speed and close control to blow a hole right through the América defense before rounding the goalkeeper and slotting home the first of what will likely be many goals with her new club.
18 Year Old Alyssa Thompson scored this solo goal 5 minutes into her first pro-game after becoming #1 draft pick 👀 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/YNEfQXBy7q
Though it likely won’t be quite so easy against NWSL defenders, Thompson still showed a breathtaking glimpse of what she’ll bring to Angel City in her rookie season.
“I feel like I’m ready,” Thompson said at the post-game press conference after Angel City won 3-0 at BMO Stadium.
Of the goal, she added: “It definitely helped relax me. I just felt like everything that I prepared for up to this moment has helped me score that goal. It definitely took some weight off my shoulders.”
Thompson has already earned two caps with the senior U.S. national team, entering the NWSL with huge expectations on her shoulders.
For one night at least, Thompson looked like she could not just meet those lofty expectations, but surpass them.
The Angel City star has suffered setbacks in her return from a torn ACL
Christen Press’ path to another World Cup is more difficult than anyone imagined.
The star U.S. women’s national team forward tore her ACL back in June 2022 during an NWSL match with Angel City FC, and has yet to return to full training. With the injury timeline for a torn ACL generally running between six months and a full year, many fans and observers were hopeful that the veteran goalscorer would be in action sooner rather than later.
Press posted an update to her Instagram account Wednesday, with photos of herself off and on crutches, and in one case a photo as she prepared to undergo surgery. Nine months is often a common time for players to return to training, but it doesn’t sound like that’s in the cards for Press at the moment.
“1 knee. 8 months. 3 surgeries,” read Press’ caption for the post. “My unique journey. Relentless optimism + enduring hope. Little wins. Letting go.”
It is not exactly news that Press might be on a longer return-to-play timeline than normal. Back in October 2022, USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski said the forward had “a slight setback” that would put her recovery timeline slightly behind that of Catarina Macario, whose own torn ACL happened 10 days before Press.
At that time, Andonovski said Macario could be doing at least some training by the end of February, a timeline that was shortened by a couple of weeks when the USWNT manager gave another update on February 1.
However, that doesn’t appear to be the case with Press. With the World Cup roster selection looming — the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that NWSL players will report to USWNT camp after the league’s slate of matches from June 23-25 — the timeline for Press to be in the conversation for a roster spot appears to be very short indeed.
Press also vital for Angel City
Angel City, meanwhile, will face a double-edged sword: a situation where Press isn’t quite ready for the World Cup, but does return to play while the tournament is going on, would undoubtedly boost her club team’s fortunes. With most of the league’s very best players on the other side of the world, there would be an opening for Press to go on a tear akin to Crystal Dunn’s MVP season with the Washington Spirit in 2015.
On the other hand, it’s currently unclear how long Press will be out. Pro Soccer Wire reached out to Angel City concerning the date of Press’ third surgical procedure, but had not received comment at the time of publication.
In a February conference call with reporters, Angel City coach Freya Coombe was asked about the timeline for Press to make her return to training. Her answer was largely positive, but notably did not commit to any sort of timeline:
“With Christen we’re really, really pleased with her progress and the way that she has been developing,” said Coombe. “We’ll continue to support her along the way. It’s about being there and celebrating her milestones as she achieves them and as part of her return-to-play [protocol]. But you know, everyone’s journey is unique, and we’ll just continue to support hers.”
If Press were to remain in the return-to-play protocol through the preseason, her return could be delayed even longer. Once a season begins, most of the team will have travel days for games, regeneration days, and other training occasions where a large enough squad for a “normal” session won’t be possible. Fewer sessions means a slower path when it comes to taking the step from being cleared to train to suiting up on gameday.
In the meantime, Angel City’s front line will largely consist of Simone Charley, Claire Emslie, and Sydney Leroux. That also comes with some injury-related concern: Charley spent much of last season working around knocks that limited her minutes. Leroux — whose 2022 was ended by injury — recently posted an update saying that she had been cleared to resume working with a ball, which is both a positive step and an indicator that she may not be 100% for the early days of the season.
After rediscovering her love for the sport, Reid is now an ever-present for Angel City
For most NWSL players, asking them to tell you how they got from their senior year of college to their current team results in a familiar story: success with their NCAA team, realizing that pro soccer was a true possibility, getting drafted, signing a contract, and earning minutes from there.
For Angel City defender Megan Reid, who with one more 90-minute appearance will have played every second of the expansion club’s first-ever regular season, the story is a little bit longer.
Speaking to Pro Soccer Wire over Zoom, the story of how she went from a college career at the University of Virginia to playing pro soccer in front of sellout crowds in LA requires nearly 12 uninterrupted minutes. It’s a journey involving loss, persistence (from Reid, and from others on her behalf), two-on-two games in a fire station garage, a dare from a friend, and nearly four years out of truly competitive soccer.
The 26-year-old offered a self-deprecating apology for being long-winded, but there’s nothing she could have left out.
It starts in 2016, when Reid’s father passed away. Reid was a junior at the time, looking ahead to her final season at the University of Virginia. At top NCAA programs, it’s customary for the coaching staff to start preparing a sort of resume for players who are going to pursue the game professionally, and as Reid went into her winter break in 2017, head coach Steve Swanson and his staff were doing the same for her.
The customary path with the familiar story was laid out. For Reid, it just wasn’t one she was ready to pursue in that moment.
“When I came back (to school), I was just like, ‘You know what? I don’t want to keep playing,'” said Reid, who saw sports as a bond she and her father had always shared. “It was just something that we were very much linked and connected with. So I think when he passed, I was not in a very good mental state… In the back of my head, I was always just like, ‘Oh, what would my dad say about this, or that?’ It just got to be a little bit too much for me, and I decided to put my mental health first.”
Reid had finished her degree up six months early, leaving her a semester in Charlottesville to process her grief, and to sort out what her next step was going to be. What struck her as the right move came from a discussion with her father.
“One of the last conversations that we had had before he passed was (about) what I wanted to do with my life,” said Reid, who had spent some time mulling over a career in the military. “I wanted to be able to stay active, I wanted to serve my community, I wanted to have a selfless career.”
For Reid’s father, the possibility of her being on the other side of the world was a tough one to take. Reid’s mother had passed when she was young, and keeping the family together was on his mind. “He was like, ‘Well, how about instead of the military, you do something within your community here?’
Reid lived close to a volunteer fire department in Charlottesville, and decided to give the idea a shot. She signed up for a ride-along on her 21st birthday, and the work spoke to her right away. Before she knew it, she was working towards becoming a licensed Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and firefighter, which she said “gave me a new sense of purpose and a new focus.”
‘I dare you.’
Gaining her EMT Basic certification in Charlottesville, Reid moved back home to the Bay Area. Unable to start medic school due to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Reid saw a chance to meet both a societal need for people with medical training to help in the grim early days of the pandemic, as well as a way to gain experience treating more difficult, traumatic injuries.
Reid ended up taking a paramedic internship in Sonoma Valley, where her soccer-mad crew captain jumped at the chance to have a proven college player around. It proved to be a critical twist of fate.
“He had heard that I was a (NCAA D1) player and he was like, ‘I’ll take her on my crew,'” said Reid. When not away on calls, the crew found themselves playing two-on-two games, and playing for fun sparked something in Reid.
“We’d play inside the bay, basically two foam roller goals,” said Reid, smiling at the memory. “That’s when I started kind of developed my love for soccer again. I think I just needed time and space, and to find my own love of the game.”
The next nudge? Some simple banter between friends.
“My friend was like, ‘wow, it’d be so funny if you just decided to play soccer again, and ended up in the league,'” said Reid, making it clear her friend was needling her with a little sarcasm. “I was like ‘ha ha, sure, but I am having fun (playing)’ and she was like ‘I dare you.'”
Based on the story so far, you can probably figure out how Reid would respond to a dare. Tackling the challenge head-on, she started to investigate whether there was even a path for an EMT who had been out of soccer for years to get back into the professional game.
“All these chips just perfectly fell on top of one another,” said Reid. “My old club team (Lamorinda United) got invited to the WPSL… I was like ‘okay, I guess I’ll up it from playing two-on-two to playing with a team, and just see how it goes.'”
Reid played seven of Lamorinda’s eight WPSL games, and found herself still enjoying the sport. With that hurdle cleared, she called Swanson, her UVA head coach, to see if he could connect her with a professional opportunity. While the timing made things difficult — October isn’t exactly the hottest part of the transfer calendar, after all — the staff at Lamorinda knew someone at Danish top-flight side Thy-Thisted Q, and Reid booked a month of training in a pro environment.
While Reid worked out in Denmark, Swanson kept making calls, and eventually delivered big news: he’d talked to San Diego Wave FC, and they had placed Reid on their discovery list so she could join their preseason training camp.
Reid effectively embarked on a pre-preseason, training with Virginia for two weeks in the winter before heading to southern California to seek out her spot on the Wave roster. However, what she found there was a tricky challenge: a nearly 40-strong group of largely unfamiliar players, many of whom weren’t yet on a contract, training at an intensity she hadn’t experienced in years.
Reid’s own assessment of her performance as part of San Diego’s camp is mixed, but ultimately she feels she showed “enough that like I was going to grow as a player and I would grow and develop fast.” Landing a spot on a Wave team that had already acquired Abby Dahlkemper and Kaleigh Riehl before the season, and then drafted Naomi Girma was always going to be a tall task, and ultimately Reid was given some bad news: the Wave cut their roster down, and she wasn’t on it.
Reid called Swanson to let him know, and her old coach asked for 24 hours to make some more calls before she started the drive up the Pacific coast. Just when that time was up, another one of those chips she mentioned fell into place.
“I was literally grabbing my keys” to head home, said Reid. “I got a call from (Swanson), and he was like, ‘Hey, coach Freya from Angel City’s gonna call you, be ready. She’s gonna ask you some questions.’ I was like, ‘Okay, sounds good,’ and literally as I was talking to him, she rang.”
“She was coming out of San Diego’s preseason training camp. We were down there, so of course it made sense for us to look at her,” said Angel City head coach Freya Coombe, who added that Swanson’s recommendation carried plenty of weight with her. Still, Coombe said she “wasn’t really sure what to expect” from Reid, given how long she had been away from the sport.
(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Reid admitted that her hopes were very high when she joined San Diego’s group, but for this second new environment, she shifted her perspective. Her focus now was to give it her all, and “just enjoy it, soak it in, and then grow from it.”
Reid’s shift eased her stress, while the situation with Angel City was also one where opportunities for center backs were more common. The club had made some moves to acquire proven NWSL defenders, but had some terrible luck when it came to injuries. Sarah Gorden, coming off of a Best XI season in 2021, suffered a season-ending knee injury during the first days of preseason. Paige Nielsen, fresh off of winning a league championship, then had to undergo surgery to remove a rib to deal with a blood clot.
Reid won a contract, but she felt that her place within the the squad was mostly going to be about competing hard every day at training, and maybe seeing occasional minutes here and there. “That expectation to play like I’m doing now was never really in my thought process,” said Reid.
Coombe told Reid to expect some time in the Challenge Cup, only for the bad luck among Angel City defenders to find her next. Reid suffered a concussion, missing three games entirely and being an unused substitute in the fourth.
Those games were rough for the club, as they gave up 11 goals in four matches, so once Reid was able to play, Coombe had good reason to give her a test. Reid made her debut in NWSL competition on April 17, and while Angel City fell 2-1 at OL Reign, they managed to hold the perennial contender to a draw until a stoppage-time winner.
Suitably impressed, Coombe called on Reid a week later, and she hasn’t come off the field since.
“She was presented with an opportunity and she ran with it, and that’s a credit to her,” Coombe told Pro Soccer Wire on a recent call. “You know exactly what you’re going to get from her week in, week out, which is absolutely brilliant for a coach, especially with a center back. To know that you’re gonna get the same performance, and her ability to maintain her fitness and play every minute, has been unreal.”
After all of that, it would be completely understandable to take some time to coast. Instead, even after becoming an ever-present center back for a playoff contender barely a year removed from those two-on-two games at the firehouse, Reid says she sees more aspects of her game that could use sharpening.
“I think I’m someone that loves to grow,” said Reid, telling a story about how an Angel City coach told her she’d done well to recover in a recent game only for Reid to pinpoint a moment where she could have not just intervened, but actually gained possession as well with a change in footing.
Even Reid’s physical durability, after playing 2,070 straight minutes, is an area she thinks she can improve on. She lists off the injuries that she’s dealt with since returning to the game: a hamstring strain in Denmark, a knee subluxation, and the other various bumps and bruises that don’t show up on an availability report, but do hamper a player’s improvement.
“I think that’s what a lot of times changes, a player’s ability to grow, is their ability to look at the smaller things,” said Reid. “For me at the beginning, it was the bigger things: getting used to speed of play, getting used to being a part of a team again, like all those kinds of things that were swarming me at once. Now, I can start to focus on the smaller aspects of the games, technically improving your weaker foot. The idea is to say ‘What weaker foot?'”
After the long journey Reid went on to get to where she is, the smart money is on a two-footed, fitter, and more technical version of Reid to once again be a fixture on the Angel City team sheet in 2023.
