ACFC 4-3 Washington Spirit

What a game. At this point, I’m trying to imagine what Alexander Straus is thinking, watching these games in Germany, and he must like this performance. One week after losing a 2 goal lead in Orlando, Angel City had another 2 goal lead erased. And at 3-3, at the end of the game, if Angel City had taken that final corner short and just held there, most people would have said that’s a good point on the road. Going for the win, and getting the win, is absolutely the kind of mentality that I love to see.

Game Statistics

The win isn’t everything here. This is the first game that Angel City hasn’t lost the xG battle (FBRef has a tie, 2.6-2.6, but American Soccer Analytics has it as an Angel City win, 2.73-2.01), and only the second time this season that we outshot the opponent (the other time was the win against Seattle). Angel City had 6 Shots that were over .2 xG in this game, and 3 of the Goals were from closer than 10 yards. They were genuinely getting the ball into dangerous areas and then finishing. The Shots look even better. ACFC outshot the Spirit 22-11, and 9-3 On Target. The downside, of course, are the three breakdowns that led to Washington goals, but at least it wasn’t a case of Washington having sustained pressure throughout the game. Angel City also had the lion’s share of Possession: 58%-42%. This win wasn’t just a smash-and-grab by Angel City. It was thoroughly deserved.

I am obligated, though, to point out that this was a significantly weakened Washington Spirit squad. They were missing, Trinity Rodman, Hal Hershfelt, Casey Krueger, Leicy Santos, Ouleye Sarr, and Aubrey Kingsbury, while Brittany Ratcliffe and Croix Bethune were only healthy enough for substitute appearances. Andi Sullivan is also out for the season. Even Jonatan Giráldez missed this game, due to a red card in the previous match. The Spirit have some amazing depth, but that’s at least six starters that they were missing. You can only beat the team in front of you, but we should maintain perspective.

Riley Tiernan

I haven’t written about Tiernan yet, but at this point, her performances demand to be talked about. After her brace in this game, she’s up to 5 Goals, which puts her second in the Golden Boot race behind Esther, and leading all rookies. The goals are great, but with 5 Goals from only 1.3 xG, the likelihood is that she’ll come back down to earth. Her goal against Orlando, for example, is something that probably shouldn’t have gone in, but did. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that single-season record for Goals by an ACFC player is 7, and Tiernan already has more than any ACFC player in 2023 had for the entire year. Even if she slows down, she’s still likely to have a monster season.

The thing that I like the most, though, is that goal-scoring is only part of her game, and arguably not her best part. Foremost for me is that she is a willing runner and has maybe the best pressing of any attacker on the team. She is 2nd on the team in Tackles in the Attacking Third (4), which puts her in the 79th percentile of NWSL forwards (per 90), and is already equal to what Leroux and Bright had combined for the entire season last year. And Angel City’s press hasn’t always been in evidence this year. In many games, Tiernan looks like she’s the only one hunting for the ball. She is also always willing to chase down long balls and try to run in behind the opposing backline, which can be very disruptive in combination with Alyssa, as was seen in her goal against Orlando.

There are a few observations that I want to make about her goal scoring. She has 3 Goals from close range (11, 9, and 4 yards), and two from long range (25 and 18 yards). On all 3 close range goals, you’ll see her make a small adjustment, right before the ball arrives, to get into some space. She’s never just waiting for the ball, it’s always just a step here or there to create separation from the defender. She also has 3 Goals with her right foot, 1 with her left, and one with her head. The left footed goal, is the most encouraging, because a lot of players would try to force that particular shot with their dominant foot. She looks comfortable taking the shot with whichever makes sense. For her longer range goals, I think that the goalkeeper should have done better on both, and the defenders too on the goal vs. Houston, but I love that both are are low, hard shots. I think that way too many players try to bend a ball into the top corner, but I always like a low, hard shot because if you don’t score, there’s a good chance that either there’s a good rebound or you get a corner. There are also some people in analytics that promote finding the spots on the field that a player is most productive, and maximizing their time there. I’m very against this, because defenders will recognize if you’re trying to do the same thing over and over. So I like that Tiernan is willing to take these longer shots, even if they’re not statistically great chances, because that is going to keep defenders guessing. And they’re not terrible chances either. But everything I said above boils down to it’s not just one thing that’s going right for Tiernan. She’s scoring in lots of different ways, and that makes it more likely that she will be able to maintain her scoring levels.

The other aspect I want to talk about is playmaking. Tiernan already has 1 Assist from .9 xAG and 1.1 xA. That’s not a lot, she 36th percentile in xAG and 79th percentile in xA amongst NWSL forwards this year, but these marks are both better than what Leroux had for all of last year. At the start of the year, it didn’t look like she was on the same page as the other attackers, but I think that these relationships have been improving and should continue to improve.

So my expectation is that her goal scoring will slow down, but not disappear by any means. Even if she’s not scoring, though, I think the value that she brings with her pressing and playmaking justify her being the starter. I’d like to see her passing get a little bit more accurate, as well as an improvement in her back-to-goal and hold-up play. But she already looks like a tremendous addition, and the front-runner for Rookie of the Year.

Distribution

Looking at the NWSL’s pass charts, Alanna Kennedy’s Long Passes caught my attention. Of course, the single most notable one was the long diagonal to Alyssa before her cross to Gisele for that great second goal.

Alanna Kennedy’s Map of Succesful Passes

In the map above, you can see those long diagonals from right to left that open up the field. But actually Kennedy’s 7 Long Pass Attempts pale in comparison to Zelem’s 23 Long Pass Attempts. I’m not even going to include Zelem’s because there are just too many lines to make sense of it. That got me thinking about comparisons, so I wanted to see what this performance looked like compared to the others, but the Gotham match specifically, for the polar opposite of the Spirit match. All of the following Long Pass stats will only be outfield players. Against Washington, Angel City had a season high in Long Passes with 70. In comparison, the Gotham game had only 43 Long Passes. However, the season low in Long Passes was the Houston game, which was also a win. The thing is, I wasn’t really convinced by that Houston game, and thought that you could argue that Houston should had done better on all three goals they conceded. Looking at the Gotham game, It’s not surprising to see the lack of Long Passes as Zelem only came on inthe 90’ and maybe more importantly, Alyssa missed that game. It’s not just enough to have some who can play Long Passes, you need someone to receive them, and Alyssa has been the best outlet, always looking to run in behind the line this year. Anyway, I think that this is interesting, but I’m not prepared to say that there is correlation here to identify a strong performance. I would say that it suggests that when Angel City spread the ball and switch the point of attack, they are more likely to cause problems and win games. But for now, it’s just a suggestion, and something to keep an eye on.

Of course, a big part of this is Zelem. She has the most Long Pass Attempts per 90 of anyone except Anderson on ACFC. Hodge was not part of the team for the road trip to Orlando and Washington, dealing with what was described as a minor injury. It will be interesting to see if Zelem remains the starter with Hodge being healthy. To me, she’s more than proved that she deserves to start, with her 2 Goals the icing on the cake, but clearly Sam Laity and I don’t see the midfield the same way. The more important question is, what does Straus want to do?

Concluding Thoughts

As I said before, I thought that Angel City had some easier matchups at the start of the year, and I thought that we’d really learn where the team is at after this stretch against Gotham, Orlando, and Washington. So what did we learn? My answer is that there is still a wide gulf between Angel City and the elite teams. But for the first time, I think that there is actually something to build on. There is plenty of work to do, but there are patterns of play that are both successful and sustainable. The Orlando loss, actually, is the game that makes me think that ACFC is closer to contending than I thought in preseason. So I’m going to upgrade my personal expectations from just-missing-the-playoffs to finishing-seventh-or-eighth.

All stats are from FBRef and the NWSL

Angel City is back at BMO on Friday 5/9 at 7:30p Pacific, versus Utah Royals. The game will be on Paramount+. I think that Angel City can pick up more points here. Sam Laity will be serving his suspension for a red card. He probably thinks it was worth it.