The club has opted for a change after Coombe was in charge for a season and a half
Angel City FC has fired head coach Freya Coombe, the club announced on Thursday.
Assistant coach Becki Tweed will act as interim head coach until a permanent replacement is announced.
Coombe took charge of Angel City prior to the club’s expansion season in 2022, joining after a stint coaching NJ/NY Gotham FC. Angel City was in playoff contention for most of last season but ultimately fell short, finishing eighth in the 12-team NWSL.
This season Angel City has gone backwards, as it currently sits in 11th place with a 2W-3T-6L record.
“Freya assumed the role of leading an expansion club with some of the most ambitious goals in all of sports and embraced this immense responsibility head on with strength, patience, and humility,” general manager Angela Hucles said.
“She established a strong culture and work ethic that helped build the foundation on which we will grow. After considerable deliberation and evaluation of where we are in our season, we have made the difficult decision to make a change.”
Angel City has been hit hard by injuries this season, particularly in attack: Simone Charley suffered a major knee injury early in the season, while Jun Endo just went down with a knee injury of her own. Sydney Leroux only just returned after missing the first half of the season while Christen Press is still out after an ACL tear suffered a year ago.
In response to her dismissal, Coombe posted a message on social media thanking fans, players and the club for the chance to coach one of the league’s most high-profile franchises.
The midfielder has missed her team’s past two games with a thigh injury
Angel City head coach Freya Coombe believes Julie Ertz will be fit for the World Cup after the midfielder missed her team’s past two games with a thigh injury.
In her team’s most recent match, a 4-1 loss to OL Reign on Saturday, Ertz did not participate in warm-ups, indicating she likely had no chance of playing despite being in the matchday squad.
Time is of the essence for the 31-year-old, who is aiming to make the U.S. women’s national team World Cup squad after only recently returning from nearly two years away from the game.
Ertz has played just three times for Angel City after she signed in April, most recently appearing on May 13 in a loss to the Washington Spirit.
With less than a month until the USWNT World Cup roster is announced, Coombe said she is still confident that Ertz will be fit enough for selection.
“She will get there,” Coombe told the Los Angeles Times. “There’s one thing that I’ve learned about [in] my short time working with her is just her mentality. I think her mentality is such that she will absolutely get there.”
“I was surprised at the level that she came in at — in a good way,” Coombe added. “I do think that there’s another level for her to go in terms of her match fitness and just being to be up to speed with the games. There’s more room for her to go and then getting to that fifth gear.”
After Ertz was recalled to the USWNT in March, head coach Vlatko Andonovski cautioned that she wouldn’t be able to simply walk into her previous role as the team’s unquestioned starter at holding midfielder.
“Nothing is going to be given,” said Andonovski. “I also have to say, we’ve been very pleased with Andi Sullivan and her progression, so Julie coming in doesn’t mean that everyone moves on the side and Julie gets into that spot. I said earlier, she needs to come in, she needs to prove herself.”
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.
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.
