Tag: Angel City FC

What are my NWSL team’s playoff chances? Your guide to the last two matchdays of the season

There’s so much potential for NWSL chaos this weekend

The NWSL season has just two rounds of games left, with every team having two more chances to pick up points.

Eight teams are alive in the playoff race, and somehow only the Portland Thorns know that they’re definitely going to the postseason. The table is packed like the stands at Snapdragon Stadium! It’s as crowded as a storage container locker room at Segra Field! It’s a lot to take in, is what we’re saying.

NWSL Chaos is in the eye of the beholder, and while we can all agree on an idea like a seven-team tie was the wildest thing out there last week, that dream is over. We now have a wide range that are all arguably the most bonkers outcome.

The last version of this piece was omakase; you got one incredible scenario to savor, but no choices. This time, you’ve got the whole menu to look over, with truly wild scenarios peppered throughout this piece.

What are my NWSL team’s playoff chances? Your guide to the last two weeks of the season

What if everyone finishes tied for first? The NWSL wants to find out!

There are less than two weeks left in the NWSL regular season, and yet no team has clinched a playoff spot. Only three teams are officially out of the running, and the prospect of a truly bonkers final table — we promise, there is a possible scenario detailed below that is a true mind-melter — is still very much looming over proceedings.

Here, then, is Pro Soccer Wire‘s breakdown of every team’s situation heading into the last 12 days of the season.

San Diego Wave smash NWSL attendance record in Snapdragon Stadium opening

A record crowd of 32,000 saw the Wave beat Angel City FC on Saturday night

The San Diego Wave continued their incredible expansion campaign on Saturday as they smashed the all-time NWSL attendance record in a 1-0 win over Angel City FC.

A record crowd of 32,000 witnessed the first NWSL match at Snapdragon Stadium, the brand-new venue the Wave will share with the San Diego State football team.

The previous record for a standalone NWSL match was 25,218, which the Portland Thorns set in 2019 at their home stadium Providence Park.

“It feels incredible to win for our fans, and as someone who has been involved in this game for 30 years, I’ve waited for this moment,” Wave head coach Casey Stoney told the club’s website.

Stoney continued: “To be able to do this without another crest, like in England how we rely on Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool to gain big crowds, but this is San Diego Wave, eight months into existence and to pull a crowd like this, it just shows what San Diego is as a community, and we want to keep them coming back because the potential for this team and community to keep growing is huge.”

The Wave’s expansion campaign has been hugely successful on the pitch as well, as Saturday’s win over their expansion rivals lifted them to first place in the NWSL table.

17-year-old rookie Jaedyn Shaw scored the game’s only goal, her third in as many NWSL appearances so far. Wave goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan added a dramatic penalty save in the 74th minute to preserve the three points.

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What are my NWSL team’s playoff chances? Your guide to the stretch run

We stared at the NWSL standings for 10 hours so you don’t have to

The NWSL is officially in the home stretch, with the season down to its final three weekends. Most teams have just four games left to play, and we have an incredible five teams all within two points of one another at the top of the table, along with a potentially wild race for the last playoff spot.

Here, then, is Pro Soccer Wire‘s breakdown of every team’s situation heading into these final, critical games of the season.

PRO admits ‘egregious officiating error’ in Gotham FC vs. Angel City match

When one mistake is actually three mistakes

The Professional Referees Association (PRO) isn’t mincing words after a major mistake over the weekend.

PRO on Monday released a statement admitting to what it called “an egregious officiating error” in Angel City’s 3-1 win at NJ/NY Gotham FC, a call that deprived Gotham of a clear goal early in a match that was effectively a must-win for them to keep slim playoff hopes alive.

In the 12th minute, Taylor Smith played a ball down the right flank, where both Midge Purce and Ifeoma Onumonu were making runs. Purce got to the pass first, cutting the ball back to Onumonu. Onumonu tried to sweep the ball home first-time, but her shot appeared to take a hefty deflection off of Angel City captain Ali Riley.

Nonetheless, it spun up and over DiDi Haracic, bouncing off the back post and over the goal line. Haracic grabbed it, but that’s where the confusion really kicked in.

Referee Brandon Stevis, after a moment, gave Gotham a corner kick. Which is to say, the call was that there was a deflection off of Riley, and that the ball did cross the endline, but it did not enter the goal.

While Onumonu’s shot did have plenty of spin on it, the amount of movement it would take for the ball to have looped up, gone completely over the endline somewhere above the crossbar, bend back into the field of play, and then hit the post, would seem to require the laws of physics to not actually hold.

Currently, there are no known reports that the laws of physics break down inside Red Bull Arena.

With Onumonu’s shot not doing anything impossible in our reality, that effectively means we have several different errors resulting in the play ending in a corner kick. The first is straightforward: The ball clearly goes over the line, so the call on the field should be a goal.

But, if the referee has decided that there’s no goal, why would play even stop? If it’s not a goal, Haracic is saving a shot that hit the post, so there’s no reason to stop play at all. It’s either a goal, or the game should just continue on.

And then to add onto that conundrum, the ball only ever crosses the endline once…when it enters the goal. It’s never close to going out for a corner. Of all three mistakes, this one’s the furthest from being true. At least you can understand how, on a fast-moving play, a referee or assistant referee aren’t in position to see a shot cross the line. NWSL doesn’t have VAR, this kind of missed call will happen. But…a corner? How?

These are questions PRO appears to have been asking internally, leading to the following statement:

During the National Women’s Soccer League match between NJ/NY Gotham FC and Angel City FC on August 28, an egregious officiating error was made in the 12th minute when a goal was incorrectly not awarded to NJ/NY Gotham FC after the ball had crossed the goal line between the goal posts.

The match officials misjudged where the ball had crossed the goal line, and wrongly awarded a corner kick to NJ/NY Gotham FC.

The officials involved in this error have been removed from their next PRO assignment(s).

While PRO deserves credit for addressing the mistake quickly and clearly, it won’t help a Gotham team that desperately needs to catch a break. Within five minutes of this play, Angel City took the lead, and by the 31st minute, the visitors were up by three and effectively coasting to a win that may have major consequences in the NWSL playoff chase.

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Lo’eau LaBonta offers up an NWSL Celebration of the Year frontrunner

We’re making up a very important award

Lo’eau LaBonta is in good form, on the soccer side and the entertainment side.

The Kansas City Current midfielder bagged a late equalizer for her side in a 1-1 draw with Angel City FC Friday night. Just moments after the visitors had taken the lead, LaBonta drew a foul in the box, and then got up to fire home the penalty kick, preserving a Current unbeaten run that is now 11 games long.

LaBonta is having a career year for Kansas City, with the goal taking her total up to five in the regular season, along with four assists, and made NWSL’s Team of the Month for August.

She also seems ready to push the league forward on the celebration front. After firing a typically powerful penalty kick into the upper corner, LaBonta gave the home fans a brief scare, feigning a glute injury before…well, let’s say she made it clear she had no such injury.

It’s equal parts twerking and Willy Wonka. Just tremendous work from LaBonta, and worthy of further consideration.

LaBonta said after the game that celebrations in women’s soccer tend to be more like what Angel City offered up when Cari Roccaro gave them the lead: the scorer raises their arms, teammates rush in for a group hug, and that’s that.

“Female soccer players tend to just all go to each other and ‘Kumbaya,’ and we love that,” LaBonta told reporters after the game. “I think we really want to start making it a little more fun and having individual celebration. So, that was sent to me on Twitter, and I said ‘bet.'”

LaBonta does have some challengers to best when it comes to the NWSL Celebration of the Year, an award that should exist in reality but is currently just contained within this article.

Washington Spirit and U.S. women’s national team forward Trinity Rodman may be her strongest competition. Rodman and teammate Ashley Sanchez have had a few Tiktok-inspired celebrations throughout 2022, and have shown no signs of turning towards a more conventional celebration.

Rodman most recently offered up an iconic pose after powering through the North Carolina Courage defense to score.

Portland Thorns striker Morgan Weaver offered up another, more obscure celebration earlier this month, offering up some kind of high-stepping, hand-swinging puzzler.

A rare Becky Sauerbrunn goal earlier this year brought up another candidate, with Sauerbrunn recently explaining that it was a tribute to her partner doing the same pose before—you guessed it—a keg stand in college. There are few times college keg stand behavior should be replicated, but this was indisputably one of them.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ChaJGe2FKpW/

Pro Soccer Wire will of course keep you up to date on all NWSL Celebration of the Year candidates, and hopefully more players will take up LaBonta’s challenge to really push the limits.

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Julie Ertz welcomes baby boy Madden with husband Zach Ertz

The USWNT star and her husband have welcomed baby boy Madden

Julie Ertz has announced she has given birth to a baby boy named Madden Matthew Ertz.

The U.S. national team star welcomed the baby last Thursday with her husband, Arizona Cardinals tight end Julie Ertz.

Madden was born on August 11, weighing 8.2 pounds and measuring 22 inches.

Ertz announced the birth with a post on Instagram, saying: “One week already with our sweet boy! Madden Matthew Ertz you are so loved. Beyond grateful to be your mommy. @zachertz and I can’t even put into words how blessed we are to be your parents.”

The 30-year-old joins a host of USWNT players who have recently given birth. In May, Crystal Dunn welcomed baby boy Marcel.

Allie Long gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in June, while Casey Krueger gave birth to a baby boy in July.

Additionally, Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger announced earlier this week that the pair has adopted another child, their second.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ChaKMQfph4g/?hl=en

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Hammond responds after Zerboni uses ‘harmful’ anti-Native American phrase

“Our larger culture continues to perpetuate harmful stereotypes”

Madison Hammond, the NWSL’s only Native American player, spoke out Tuesday night in response to NJ/NY Gotham FC’s McCall Zerboni using an anti-Indigenous metaphor in comments to media following her side’s 4-2 loss to the Houston Dash over the weekend.

Gotham supporters group Cloud 9 referred to Zerboni’s statement as “unacceptable,” and demanded that both Zerboni and Gotham address the matter with both a public apology and internal action.

Hammond then posted a thread on her Twitter account spelling out the harm Zerboni’s words could do, and noting that she had spoken with Zerboni privately.

“This has to be acknowledged and is really important. Not because I want to call out one person but because it’s indicative of how our larger culture continues to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about Native Americans and Indigenous cultures,” said Hammond.

“I’ve spoken with McCall and I know she didn’t intend harm but phrases like ‘too many chiefs’ ‘pow wow’ ‘sitting Indian style’ and many more are rooted in brutal racism and are still way too common in our everyday lexicon,” Hammond added.

Hammond concluded by stating that she hopes this begins “a necessary conversation” about anti-Indigenous phrases being used in the NWSL and elsewhere.

Zerboni offered an apologetic tweet of her own, though it did not specify what actions she was actually apologizing for.

Less than a week before her comments, Zerboni was Gotham’s nominee for the Ally Award, a new NWSLPA award sponsored by Ally Bank.

The Ally Award “recognizes the athlete that embodies the idea of ‘teammate,’ supporting and motivating rookies and veterans alike. The 12 nominees portray the character and leadership that have helped elevate the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) globally,” said Ally in a press release announcing the nominees.

On Wednesday, Gotham made its first public statement about the matter, saying that as an organization, it “will not abide by any language that perpetuates harmful stereotypes.”

“We have addressed the matter internally and will continue to seek opportunities to educate our organization and community about the impact words have on others,” concluded the club statement.

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Angel City adds Sydney Leroux in trade with Orlando Pride

ACFC got a much-needed boost for their attack

Angel City FC has given their attack a significant boost, as they’ve completed a trade to bring Sydney Leroux over from the Orlando Pride.

In the deal, Orlando will receive Angel City’s natural first round pick in the 2024 NWSL College Draft, $75,000 in NWSL allocation money, and a potential $10,000 allocation money bonus this year and in 2023 based on Leroux’s performance.

“I am so excited to be a part of Angel City and everything being built with this club,” said Leroux in a press release from Angel City. “The atmosphere I felt playing at the Banc [of California Stadium] on Mother’s Day was unbelievable. It really feels like I’m coming home, between going to UCLA and living in LA. Angel City is truly putting women’s soccer on the map in Los Angeles and it shows if you invest in women, great things will happen. I am excited to be a part of that.”

Leroux, 32, had two goals and an for Orlando this season, as the Pride struggled throughout the spring and suffered the added difficulty of new coach Amanda Cromwell being suspended during an investigation into alleged retaliatory conduct.

In 2019 and 2020, injuries, pregnancy, and Orlando having to miss out on the original Challenge Cup kept Leroux off the field, but she came back with a vengeance in 2021. An 8 goal/2 assist season in which she played in all but one Pride game marked her best season since 2013.

For Angel City, the rationale for the trade is straightforward. Christen Press suffered a torn ACL earlier in June, and when coach Freya Coombe has looked to rest striker Simone Charley, the alternative has often been to push attacking midfielder Savannah McCaskill up as an ad hoc forward due to a lack of attacking depth.

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Christen Press was not on the USWNT roster even before her injury

The veteran forward has not been with the USWNT since last summer’s Olympics

Vlatko Andonovski has confirmed that even prior to her recent injury, Christen Press did not make the U.S. women’s national team roster for the upcoming CONCACAF W Championship.

Press was was forced out of Angel City FC’s game Saturday night against Racing Louisville, limping off the field with an apparent knee injury.

Though it seemed possible that Press’s exclusion was due to her injury, particularly with fellow veterans Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe returning to the squad, Andonovski made it clear that was not the case.

“I have to say that Christen Press was not on the roster even before the injury,” Andonovski told reporters on Monday. “We’re very sorry for her injury and don’t have confirmed information on the extent or the significance of the injury, we just hope that it is not too serious.”

Press has not been with the USWNT since last summer’s Olympics, after which she took time away from the game to focus on her mental health.

Though Andonovski believes Press is doing well with Angel City, he cited the increased forward competition with the USWNT as the reason for her exclusion.

“I think that she’s performing well but it’s not just her now at this point, it’s her competing with the players that are in front of her,” Andonovski said.

“For Christen to be back on the field it’s not just to perform well in her club environment, it’s also outperform the players that she’s competing against. And that would be players like Mallory Pugh and Sophia Smith, Alex Morgan, Ashley Hatch and Trinity Rodman. It’s not easy to be a forward in the United States right now. Obviously it’s great but it’s not easy because the competition just got bigger and bigger.”

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