ACFC 3-1 Houston Dash and ACFC 0-4 Gotham

So, I had started writing an article last week, but couldn’t get it finished before the Gotham game. But I’m going to leave that initial piece as is, and not reframe it in terms of the loss. Partially, I think that it’s an interesting bit of a time machine, but also, I think that it can be too easy to only look at the moment. Sometimes we need to focus on the integral, not the derivative. I won’t bury my conclusion: I think that Angel City is not as good as their record indicated through the first four games, but also not as bad as this loss to Gotham looked. Coming into the season, I felt like Angel City wasn’t a playoff team. After five games, my opinion hasn’t really changed, except that maybe we might make the 7th or 8th spot. That has more to do with some teams, like North Carolina, not being as good as I expected, rather than Angel City’s performances. But I think that the top teams, who I consider to be Kansas City, Orlando, Washington, and Gotham, are miles ahead of Angel City. This is fine, by the way. It takes time to build a contender.

Thoughts BEFORE the Gotham Game

Angel City remain undefeated, and fourth in the table. I still have so many questions, however, but this coming weekend against Gotham should provide more clarity than last weekend. Part of this is that I think Houston played poorly, especially in the first half. On both of Angel City’s first two goals, the Houston defense just seemed to stand still and absolutely nobody challenged the shooter.

xG Concerns

Overall, Angel City has the second lowest xG For in the league, with 4.0. Only the Royals are worse with 3.2. However, Angel City has scored 7 Goals from that, which is third in the league. But the two teams that have scored more do have better underlying stats. KC has 10 Goals from 9.2 xG, while Orlando has 11 Goals from 6.4 xG, but a lot of that comes from their opening 6-0 win over Chicago. A big part of Angel City’s overperformance is Alyssa Thompson playing at close to MVP levels through the start of the season. She’s been scoring a lot of difficult goals.

Conversely, Angel City is 10th in xG Allowed, with 6.0, but only 4 Goals actually conceded. Again, a big part of this is that Angelina Anderson has been amongst the league’s best shot stoppers.

When we combine these, we get an xG Differential of -2.0 (third worst in the league), but a Goals Differential of +3, (fourth best in the league). A big part of this is that we have such a small sample size. It’s also worth noting that the four teams we’ve played so far finished last season in 10th, 6th, 13th, and 14th. And the only one of these that made the playoffs, the Thorns, are missing 4 of their top 5 goalscorers from last year, as well as longtime captain Becky Sauerbrunn. Yes, all teams had to cope with a lot of change in the offseason, but I think that it’s hard to argue that Angel City has already played the league’s best. With upcoming games against Gotham, Orlando, and Washington, I think that we’ll have a much better idea of the strength of this team in a few weeks.

Thoughts AFTER the Gotham Game

xG

xG is also a good place to start, here. Gotham, unsurprisingly, won this battle as well, 1.4 to .6. But that .8 difference is not nearly as much as the final score. For one thing, the own goal was just unlucky. I don’t think that anyone did anything wrong there. It was unlucky and these things happen in football. Shots were 12 to 10 in favor of Gotham, but 4 to 0 in Shots on Target. The bigger indicator, I think, is that the four best chances, all went to Gotham, and two of them resulted in goals for Geyse and Esther. Those four chances were between .39 and .18. Angel City’s two best chances were both .1 xG, from Press and Kennedy, and they were both off target. So Gotham were clearly better, but they weren’t 4 goals better. The more worrying trend is that once again, Angel City had less xG than their opponent.

Individual Performances

There are a couple individual performances that stood out in these two matches. Emslie had 3 Shot Creating Actions in both the Houston and Gotham game, and it’s her ability to consistently generate chances against any kind of defense that seperates her. In the Houston game, she was second on the team in SCAs, and in the Gotham game, she was first. The lowest number of SCAs she’s had this year is 2, against Portland, and she leads Angel City in total SCAs and SCAs per 90 amongst starters. Emslie also led the team in Key Passes in both games.

Miyabi Moriya also deserves some recognition, I think. The own goal really was just bad luck, but I thought her overall game was good. She was tied with Emslie for the team lead in SCAs (3), and was tied for second in Tackles + Interceptions (4). She was also tied with Emslie for second most Touches in the Attacking Third (18), and tied for the team lead in Progressive Passes Received. She’s clearly willing to get forward. I think that Gisele is still the most dynamic option at Right Back, but I was impressed by Moriya’s overall performance, and I won’t be too worried when she does play.

I’ve talked about Macey Hodge before, but I just don’t see why she’s starting. Against Gotham, she was 17 of 26 on Overall Passing (65.4%), and only 3 of 7 on Medium Passes and 0 of 3 on Long Passes. Against Houston, she was 11 of 19 Overall Passes. For comparison, Alanna Kennedy was 23 of 39 (59%) against Gotham, which is a lower percentage, but a much higher number of Attempts. I also don’t understand why we’ve decided a centerback should be our primary central playmaker, but that’s a different story. Also for comparison, Jaelin Howell went 37 of 42 (88.1%) for Gotham, which are the kind of numbers that I think a central midfielder should put up. Angel City has had a real problem breaking the first line and getting the ball forward to the attackers. The primary cause for this, to me, is an inability of the central midfielders to receive the ball under pressure and then play a progressive pass. It’s not really a knock on Hodge that she’s not doing that immediately as a rookie, but I don’t get why we are keeping Zelem on the bench. And yes, I know that Hodge scored a goal, but I thought even that showed that she had her positioning wrong. She was very deep when that ball came out to her, and had a long run-up to meet it. She only scores that if the entire defense shuts down, which is exactly what happened. Contrast that to Zelem’s shot in 90+2’, which was just off target, but Zelem was already in the right position to receive the ball, no run up needed. So yes, Hodge scored, and Zelem didn’t, but I think that Zelem showed that she’s the more experienced footballer. If I could see an attribute that Hodge was bringing instead, I might feel better, but I just don’t. If any of you do see it, please, let me know. I want to understand.

And finally, M.A. Vignola deserves some credit for her work in these last two games. She’s lost a couple of high profile duels this season, but her overall defensive work has been very good. Against Houston she was tied for the team lead in Tackles + Interceptions (6) and led in Blocks (9) by a wide margin. Against Gotham, she had 10 Tackles + Interceptions, while no other ACFC player had more than 4. She also had the most Touches and most Pass Attempts in both games. I still don’t feel like she’s reached her full potential, but the priority now is just staying healthy for the full season. A full season of these kinds of shifts and I think that she’ll be in contention for some Best XI honors.

Alexander Straus

Angel City finally made the announcement that they are hiring Straus as the new head coach. He’ll begin work on June 1, after finishing the season with Bayern Munich. He has won the previous two Frauen-Bundesliga championships, and is on course for a third, currently with an 8 point lead over Wolfsburg. Prior to this, he worked in his native Norway, winning two club titles and also coaching the U-23 and U-19 National Teams.

Statistically, when we look at Straus’ Bayern teams, they have always been very strong defensively. This year, Bayern have the second best Goal Differential and the third best xG Differential, despite that big lead in points. But while Frankfurt has been scoring the most goals, Bayern has the best defense, and has had it in all three seasons that Straus has been there. His teams also seem to spread the goals around, with no real reliance on any single player. The leading scorer each year has accounted for 21%, 18.6%, and 24.5% of the team’s goals.

The Frauen-Bundasliga is not a balanced league, with Bayern, Wolfsburg, and Frankfurt consistently dominating. And they were a good team before Straus arrived, finishing no lower than 2nd since 2016. So the Champions League may provide a better insight. Bayern has twice made it to the quarterfinals under Straus, including this year, when they were knocked out by Lyon, losing 0-2 at home and 1-4 in France. They finished second in their group behind Arsenal, but did beat the Gunners 5-2 at home, before losing 3-2 in the away fixture. Obviously, Aresnal and Lyon are both semifinalists this year, and two very good squads, but my feeling is that this is where Straus’ Bayern squad ranks: not quite the elite tier, but just one down in the very good tier where we might put PSG and Man City as well.

There are several things that I like about this hire. First, Straus’ background as a youth head coach should be beneficial in developing the young players that Angel City has. Second, I like that he has already worked in another country, so he has experience adapting to a new league and style of play. And as both Norway and Germany have had some incredible success in the women’s game, I am hopeful that he’ll be bringing some new ideas to the NWSL as well. I also like that this is an important step for Straus. With 7 years of head coaching experience, and 15 years total coaching experience, Straus isn’t new to this, but he also hasn’t proved himself to be an elite coach yet, like a Bompastor or Giráldez for instance. It always makes me more excited when a new addition, whether that’s a coach or a player, has something to prove. And I think that it does show ambition on the part of Angel City to bring in a manager that has won 5 trophies in 7 years as a head coach. And one final note: Straus usually employees a 4-2-3-1 formation, so that shouldn’t be a big switch from what Angel City players are used to. I think that it will still take him some time to figure out the league. He’ll have to evaluate the current squad and decide what positions need strengthening. I’m not worried about results at all this year. I just want to see a vision for a style of play and the building of a foundation. And I think that the fans and ownership will give him that time. But next season, I think that we all are going to expect to see a winning team on the pitch.

All stats in the article are from FBRef

Next match is away to Orlando on Friday, 4/25 at 5p Pacific, broadcast on Amazon Prime. The Pride just had their first loss of the season and will be looking to bounce back.