This article will be shorter than the last, as the only players who spent time at CAM were Kennedy Fuller, Maiara Niehues, and Jun Endo. Of these, only Fuller has enough minutes to really make accurate observations on her stats. One quick note on the methodology before we begin: from the NWSL, there are 16 players that I’m including in this grouping, and much of this is at my discretion. I’m including everyone that ASA considers an AM, and has more than 360 minutes. I also included Jaedyn Shaw, Olivia Moultrie, Rose Lavelle, Vanessa Di Bernardo, and Savannah DeMelo. Most of these are categorized as CMs, but in my mind they play the role of an Attacking Midfielder, despite their formation. My unsupervised clustering model also classified these players as Creative No 10s, so there is a basis for their inclusion here beyond my opinion.

The Role of CAMs

Before we look at individual players, though, we need to look at the role of the No 10 at Angel City (for the purposes of this article, I will use CAM and No 10 interchangeably, though differences can exist). To me, a No 10 makes their living in the final third, and is tasked with unlocking a defense and either creating or scoring goals. My opinion is that a No 9 should occupy the opposition’s centerbacks, and the No 10 can sit in the pocket of space that is created underneath them. That’s just an opinion, of course, and I think that Angel City has viewed this differently, with the No 10 often overlapping the No 9.

Looking at the Passing Network above, we can see that the CAMs average position is further ahead of the Center Forward. There are a lot of averages to take into account in this kind of chart, and I hesitate to make too definitive a statement about something so broad, but I don’t see the CAM as the nexus of distribution to other attacking players, pulling the strings and orchestrating things. Part of this is Angel City’s preference to progress up the wings, rather than through the middle. I can see the idea behind this strategy; if the CF can pull the defenders out, then the CAM can run in behind. This would really make the CAM into more of a second striker role, scoring goals rather than creating them. My feeling, though, is that this puts the CAM too far away from the other Central Midfielders, and often leaves her stranded alone on an island.

We can see that playing out in the plot above. Out of 16 players qualifying as Attacking Midfielders, Fuller ranked 12th and Niehues ranked 14th in Touches in the Attacking Third. Endo has more Touches, but of course she also spent time as a winger. As a quick aside, I think of Endo as a winger, but she played slightly more as a CAM in 2025. Part of this was the change to a 3-4-2-1 at the end of the season in which she was arguably playing a hybrid of both positions. Fuller also played a few matches at DM, which may account for having slightly more Touches than Niehues. It is clear, though, that Angel City CAMs are not on the ball as often as their peers.

For the radar plots, I will use the following categories:

Goals Added - ASA’s total value of the player’s contributions
Carries - Is dribbling a prominent part of the player’s game?
Shots - Does the player take a high volume of shots?
npxG - What is the quality of those shots?
SCAs - How much does the player contribute to generating shots?
Attacking Third Touches - How involved is the player in the attacking third?
xAG - What is the quality of the player’s final passes?
Passes into the Penalty Area - Simple volume metric for passes played into dangerous spots, regardless of outcome.
xPass - Does the player exceed passing expectations?
Pass Attempts - Simple volume metric.
Attacking Third Tackles - How successful is the player’s high pressing? Answering both do they press and do they win when they do.

Kennedy Fuller has made major strides in her sophomore season. She played in all 26 games, with 21 starts. That gave her 1,850 minutes and 79.1% of all available minutes, both of which were 4th most on the team. It’s incredible that she’s playing this large a role at 18 years old. I made the comparison to Olivia Moultrie last year, and Moultrie played 281 fewer minutes in her Age 18 season, which was her fourth as a professional.

Shooting

Because it appears that the CAMs at Angel City are more of a second striker, I will begin with Shots and Goal Scoring. Fuller also improved dramatically here, going from 1 Goal in 2024 to 4 Goals in 2025, which was 3rd on the team. Neither her Shot volume (1.80 per 90, 33rd percentile) or accuracy (18.9% On Target, 26th percentile) are particularly good, but Fuller made the most of chances. Her npxG per Shot was 0.12 (60th percentile), and not far off Emeri Adames in 2nd place with 0.14 (Nérilia Mondésir leads this category with 0.23, but only took 5 shots). Fuller’s npxG was 4.4 (66th percentile), so she actually did underperform slightly. While I think that Fuller needs to take more shots, and be more clinical with them, it’s very encouraging that she’s getting into such good areas to shoot, especially for such a young player.

Those two Great chances in the graphic above are both from rebounds or deflections, but this is not to say that that these are bad plays by Fuller. In both cases she’s arriving in the box and positions herself well to be in space. Of her other two goals, both from poor chances, the one against Portland is slightly lucky, as Mackenzie Arnold really should have picked up the shot sooner. The other one, from outside the box against Gotham, is perhaps lucky in that it gets through the crowd. But in both of these, Fuller shows really great technique. The half volley against Gotham is probably the goal that really stands out, but in the goal against Portland, she rolls Sam Coffey (!) and her momentum is pulling her back when she shoots. On both of these, it would be easy to send the shot high over the bar, but Fuller shows both excellent concentration and mechanics to keep the shot low and with enough power to get past the keeper.

I see this Shot Chart as quite promising, and I think that Fuller can both replicate this success and build from it. Her positioning should give her more opportunities for easy finishes like her Great chances here. ASA gives her a little lower xG than FB Ref did, but of her Good and Average chances combined, they gave her a total xG of 2.0, but she didn’t convert any of them. I’d expect positive regression to the mean on these shots, and even if there was negative regression on her Poor chances, that should still give Fuller a net positive on her Goals. If she can also increase her volume of Shots as well, that seems like scoring 6 or 7 Goals should be comfortably within reach for Fuller in 2026.

The concern about reaching that mark is in her accuracy. As I said earlier, her 18.9% Shot On Target percentage was in the 26th percentile of CAMs. ASA has what they call xPlace, which calculates the difference between a shot’s pre-shot xG and post-shot xG. For example, a shot taken from a decent position, say 0.2 xG, but is put into the top corner and has a 0.85 post-shot xG, would garner +0.65 xPlace. Fuller’s xPlace was -1.07 (13th percentile). ASA’s xG was already lower than FB Ref’s at 3.72, but adding in that xPlace, the model is only expecting Fuller to score 2.65 goals, which makes her 4 Goals a significant over achievement. A big drop off in her xPlace is going to come from the 29 Shots that were off target, because the psxG on those is going to be 0. Those two longer range goals show that Fuller has the technique and skill to keep a shot low, hard, and on frame. That’s what I think she needs to do more often. With more Shots on Target, her xPlace will also go up, and I think that both of these are necessary to hit the 6 or 7 Goals I mentioned earlier. For context, Olivia Moultrie led my group of CAMs in Goals in 2025, but she had 1 from a Penalty Kick and 2 from Free Kicks, so Fuller scoring 6 or 7 would be extremely good.

The final word is the Shooting g+ score, which was +0.03 (53rd percentile). This feels about right to me. All the missed shots will count against her, but she was getting into positions, and getting shots off. There is real room for improvement, but Fuller is already a legitimate goal threat.

Playmaking

Fuller’s 3 Assists were second on the team, behind Gisele Thompson, and her 7 G + A were third on the team, behind Alyssa Thompson and Riley Tiernan. Her 3 Assists actually tied for the lead in my group of CAMs (which is, perhaps, an indication that my understanding of the No 10 is outdated, and it is no longer a creator role, although just one year ago, Croix Bethune had 10 Assists in only 17 games).

Much of the underlying stats suggest that Fuller overachieved at an unsustainable rate. For starters, if we look at her Assists per 90, she drops to 4th, behind Endo, Rose Lavelle, and Gia Corely. Endo’s mark is skewed by her lack of minutes, but the other two players could be argued to be more impactful for playmaking. Fuller’s xA was 0.12 per 90 (53rd percentile, 2.5 total), while her xAG was 0.13 (which as a lower percentile at 33rd). Key Passes (1.70, 53rd percentile) and SCAs (2.82, 23rd percentile) are also average to below average. I think that it’s also worth mentioning that Moultrie only finished with 1 Assist, despite leading the entire league in Key Passes with 55 and was second in xA. This was really exceedingly bad finishing by the Portland forwards, to collectively miss 54 of the 55 shots that they were set up for. If Wilson and Weaver were in that team, I think that Moultrie is easily atop the Assist leaderboard.

We also need to look at the actual Assists from Fuller. As can be seen in the plot above, two of them actually came from inside her own half. One was a ball played into space against San Diego that Alyssa Thompson ran onto, and the other was a long ball to Tiernan. The third was also to Alyssa Thompson against Seattle. All three were very well weighted passes, but also all three required a lot of work from the forwards after they received the pass. Tiernan’s goal especially, required her to beat a defender before taking a shot from a really bad angle that Anna Moorhouse really shouldn’t have let in at her near post.

It’s also clear from the Key Passes plot that a large portion of the her KPs came from set pieces. I don’t have numbers on Key Passes from Live vs Dead Balls, but I do have numbers from SCAs on this. Fuller had 1.41 Live Ball SCAs and 0.87 Dead Ball SCAs. That ratio of 30.99% of her SCAs coming from Dead Balls is the second highest among CAMs. And since her Total SCAs (2.82) is only in the 26th percentile, it’s no surprise that her Live Ball SCAs (1.41) is in the 13th percentile. The ability to create from open play is more valuable to me, but I wouldn’t discount the value of set pieces. In this case, though, the expectation is that Emslie will resume set piece duties when she returns from maternity leave, so Fuller likely will not be getting many dead ball opportunities in 2026. If Fuller were to not have any Dead Ball SCAs, her Total SCAs would be second-to-last in the group. There would be an argument that were Fuller to have a similar contribution in 2026, without the set pieces, she would have 0 Assists.

Passing

Much of Fuller’s Passing numbers are similar to her Playmaking (all per 90). She has 28.16 Pass Attempts (40th percentile), and a 69.8% Pass Completion Percentage (46th percentile). Progressive Passes (4.22) were in the 60th percentile, while both Passes into the Final Third (1.99, 33rd percentile), and Passes into the Penalty Area (0.78, 26th percentile) were both well below average.

Fuller’s Passing Chart is kind of all over the pitch, which is due to her position being moved around a few times during the season. Taking away her kick-offs, though, and there is something of a lack of passes from the center channel. The stat that really stands out, though, is Fuller’s xPass Score. She had a +8.64, which was 86th percentile, and her per 100 score of +1.5 was also 86th percentile. Her Passing g+ score was a -0.13 (33rd percentile).

My takeaway from all of that is actually the same as my observations: Fuller has exceptional technique, and is an extremely technically gifted player. As I said, on her three Assists, all were perfectly placed, and perfectly weighted. But I think that she needs to be receiving the ball in better positions and looking more often for those dangerous passes. Part of that is coaching, and also we do need to remember that she was only 18 last year. I think that Fuller has the ability to be a dangerous passer, and that may require a different role. As with so many things, the formation that Straus plays this season will be crucial. I do really like the idea of going to a 4-3-3, with Borges playing an out-and-out defensive role, and Sugita and Fuller playing as No 8s. Whether she is playing a deeper role, or remains as more of a No 10, I think that creating more chances for her teammates is the next big step that Fuller needs to take.

Possession

Playing as more of a second striker, Fuller has similar number of Total Touches (40.8 per 90, 40th percentile) to players like Bia Zanaretto and Rachel Kundananji. This may be the biggest distinction between Fuller and more classic No 10s, as Lavelle and Moultrie both average around 51 Touches. She had 6.1% of her team’s Touches (53rd percentile). I think that the relatively low numbers of the rest of these categories stems from this lower number of Touches. Fuller’s Carries (17.33, 13th percentile), Progressive Carries (1.3, 20th percentile), Attempted Take-Ons (1.89, 20th percentile), and Progressive Passes Received (3.83, 20th percentile) and all in the bottom quartile. That last one is maybe what stands out to me the most. As I said earlier, I think that Fuller often stretched to the point of isolating herself. If there is not space in behind, and the chance of a through ball or over the top, then Fuller is only taking space away from herself by positioning herself close to the centerbacks. Finding spots where she can receive passes, and especially progressive passes, would positively impact every other part of her game. Her Receiving g+ score was -0.35 (33rd percentile).

Regarding her Carries, I think that Fuller would sometimes hang onto the ball too long, I wouldn’t characterize Fuller as slow, but she’s also not Alyssa Thompson fast, and she can get caught from behind. That said, I think that we do see some good work from Fuller, and her higher percentile rank of Progressive Carries to Total Carries, reflects that postivity. She was successful 59% of the time on her Take-Ons, but her Dribbling g+ score was -0.31 (20th percentile). Again, with Fuller’s technical skill, I think that she has really good close control. Her improvement needs to come in her decision making on when to go, where to go, and when to release.

Defensive Contribution

Fuller does well in the defensive categories, finishing above average in Tackles (1.80, 66th percentile), Blocks (1.70, 93rd percentile), and Interceptions (0.63, 60th percentile). Her Tackles + Interceptios (2.43) is 73rd percentile. Aerial Duels are interesting, as Fuller only posted a 35.35% win rate, which seems quite low, but is still in the 53rd percentile of CAMs. There is only one player that has a Win Percentage over 50% in this group, which does make some sense. A player with high attacking skill plus height and strength will probably be playing striker instead. I singled out Tackles in the Attacking Third in the radar plot to identify players that both press high and win the ball. Fuller (0.24) is in the 33rd percentile in this stat.

Fuller has a lot of Recoveries, as can be seen above, and a surprising number of Blocks in the opposition half. These represent the highest and third highest contributors to her defensive g+ totals. If Fuller could turn a little bit more of those Blocks into winning posession for her team, that would make a huge difference. Her Interrupting g+ was +0.27, the highest mark among CAMs.

Fuller had 17 Fouls Committed, compared to 29 Fouls Drawn. Her +12 Differential was the highest on the team, and her Fouls Drawn was second highest behind Tiernan. She only had 1 Yellow Card.

Conclusion

Fuller was called into February training camp with the U-20 USWNT. She has been involved with Youth National Teams for a number of years now, and I think it’s just a matter of time until she gets the call-up to the Senior team. My prediction would be after the 2027 World Cup, when new players are evaluated for the next cycle. It’s also of note, though, because there is a U-20 World Cup this year, meaning that it is highly likely that Fuller will miss all of September this season, or 6 games.

There are 10 other professional players on the U-20 Team, but I think that Fuller has the largest role on her club team of all of them. I would have liked to see her brought along more slowly, but she is showing good progress through two seasons. I think that Fuller is still probably a year or two away from really getting into the top tier. I viewed Fuller as overachieving her predicted assists, so with continued developement in her playmaking, I still see her as a 2 or 3 Assist player this year. As I said before, I think she’ll hit 6 or 7 Goals, though. That would put her at 8 to 10 G + A, but I’m going to say only 6 or 7 G + A accounting for the month that she’ll miss with U-20s.

Fuller has impressed with really strong technical skills. Her positioning and decision making need improvement, in my opinion, but we’ve already seen strong positive growth in those areas, and I’d expect more of the same in 2026. Her total g+ was -0.53 (33rd percentile), and while there a number of young players in this group, I think that it does speak well of Fuller that she is holding her own as an 18 year old. Fuller is part of a young core that I expect to really hit their stride in 2027.

Note: For Niehues and Endo, I will not do a statistical breakdown, as their sample sizes are too small. As can be seen in Niehues radar plot, she was the leader among CAMs in Shots and npxG per 90. Her npxG was highly skewed by her goal against the Houston Dash, when she rounded Abby Smith and had an empty net to shoot into. That shot had an xG of 0.8, accounting for over a third of her season’s total of 2.2 xG. Because single incidents like this can have such a major impact, any deductions could also be skewed. The radar plots are included as a reference.

Niehues played in 14 games, with 4 starts, for 482 minutes. That constituted 20.6% of Angel City’s minutes. She had 2 Goals (tied for 4th on the team) and 0 Assists.

My feelings on Niehues was that she was consistently good, but not great, in any facet of her game. Her athleticism is good, but she doesn’t have the strength to bully defenders, or the speed to make a defense reevaluate it’s tactics. As was seen on that goal against Houston, if she gets the ball completely in the open, she has the speed to take it to goal, but I don’t think she has the speed to run away from defenders if they’re already with her. Her dribbling and close control also looked good, although we never really saw her slaloming through a defense on her own. I would not rank her technical skills as highly as Fuller’s, but again not bad.

Shooting is her weakest category, in my opinion, although still not bad, I think. Her Shot on Target Percentage (26.3%, and being simple division is less skewed by her sample size) is not great, and actually only ranks 13th just on Angel City. But getting 8 of 19 shots from either Good or Average positions is somewhat promising, and her 3.55 Shots per 90 was the best mark on Angel City.

In this case, I think that being good is actually a detriment to Niehues. A young player like Niehues that shows flashes of greatness in some areas, but weaknesses in others can improve by working on those weaknesses. But I think that it’s harder, and much more rare, to see a player’s skills go from solidly good to elite. She is only 21, though, and this was her first season on a new team, in a new league.

I think this is also exacerbated by her playing as a CAM. That’s kind of the one position where you want and expect a player to come up with a moment of magic, and see or do something that nobody else on the field does. If Niehues were to convert to a box-to-box midfielder, I think that I would be more optimistic about her potential.

There are other reasons to believe that we’ll see Niehues rise to a higher tier in 2026. Her Total g+ was 0.55, tied for third among CAMs with Jaedyn Shaw. I believe this was heavily skewed by that one goal against Houston, but she does have positive marks in Dribbling, Passing, Receiving, and Shooting. Also, looking at Team Success, Niehues was on the Field for 10 Goals For and 7 Goals Against, giving her +0.56 per 90, which was the best on Angel City. Comparing the Team Success when she On the Field, vs Off the Field, she had a +1.19 per 90, second on the team behind Riley Tiernan. My prediction is that she will still have a bench role in 2026, but we’ll be watching to see if she can earn more minutes and show some positive growth.

We again see skewing in this radar plot, and ironically, for the exact same play. Endo leads Attacking midfielders in xAG, but it was that pass to Niehues that ended up being fired into an open goal that is the difference maker, as that one pass accounted for two-thirds of her xAG.

Endo played in 10 games for 444 minutes, with 6 starts. Her 59 Minutes per Start average was the lowest amount on Angel City. Endo, of course, was coming back from an ACL injury that required multiple surgeries, and a lot of this was just about getting her back into playing again. She finished with 0 Goals and 1 Assist (but what an assist, my choice for assist of the year).

I think of Endo as a winger, where she has spent most of her career, but I’ve always wanted to see her as a CAM. But that’s with the caveat that it would be more in the way that I described at the start: finding pockets of space between the lines and pulling the strings in the final third. I think that she needs to be close to teammates, as she is often looking to play quick, 1-2 passes. She also as the control and dribbling ability to operate in congested space. Indeed, I do not think there is a better player on Angel City in that regard. This didn’t really work out, though, with Endo having fairly limited influence. She averaged 4.4% of her team’s Total Touches (13th percentile of CAMs). I think that Endo is a player that really has to be involved to make the impact necessary.

I would go as far as to say that Endo is one of the most talented players on Angel City’s squad, but somehow it just hasn’t come together. She had a Goal and an Assist in Angel City’s first ever game, but then only got 2 additional Assists for the rest of the season. In her second season, Endo had 3 Goals and 2 Assists, but the World Cup seemed to have a major impact on her, which is understandable. I don’t know how anyone can go through something as intense as a World Cup, and then immediately go back to playing as normal, week in and week out. She did have two of her Goals after the break, but only started 1 of the 7 games after the break. 2024 was completely lost to the injury and then in 2025 she only came back into the team in August.

Endo has never been the type to try and stretch a defense by running in behind. She seems to prefer to drop deeper to receive the pass, and then try to beat defenders on the dribble. I would say that her best athletic ability is her balance, which is a major asset in her dribbling skill. I think that her vision and understanding of the game are also incredibly good, but too often it seems like her teammates aren’t quite on the same page and don’t make the necessary complimentary play. If Straus and Angel City can find the right ingredients, namely putting Endo in a spot where she receives a lot of the ball and has teammates around her who will play the 1 touch return passes that she is looking for. If that can happen, I think that Endo can easily be a 10 Goal Contribution player. If that doesn’t happen, I think that Endo and Angel City should both move on. It pains me to say that, but Endo is that good a talent that she shouldn’t be playing in a system that doesn’t make the most of her ability. Her contract runs through 2027, so this summer would likely be the time to get the highest possible transfer fee for her. I certainly want to see Endo achieve her potential with Angel City, but she’ll be turning 26 this year, and it is time for her to consistently be the player we all thought she could be, whether in LA or somewhere else.

Central Attacking Midfielders 2025