Angel City FC eyes trend reversal against Chicago

Angel City Football Club has nine games remaining in its inaugural season.

Heading into this final stretch, things haven’t gone smoothly for the firstyear club.

Angel City has had late leads, only to lose them in three of its past four NWSL games. That’s a possible nine points that could have put the club near the top of the NWSL standings, instead of being outside the playoff picture.

The top six teams at the end of season qualify for the NWSL playoffs.

Angel City (5-5-3, 18 points) enters the weekend in seventh place, facing a big challenge today at Banc of California Stadium against the Chicago Red Stars (6-5-3, 23 points) at 5 p.m. (CBSSN).

“I think losing out on points in late stages of the games has been a painful learning process for the group,” Angel City coach

Freya Coombe said. “We are aware that we could have achieved more points, but it is something that we are continuing to work on to improve in the last part of the season.”

Against the Portland Thorns on July 1, Angel City allowed the tying goal in the sixth minute of stoppage time and had to settle for a 1-1 draw. Later in the month (July 30), Angel City had a 2-0 lead at halftime, only to see OL Reign score three times in the second half to earn the win.

Last week, a 2-1 lead in the 90th minute turned into a 2-2 draw following a stoppage time own goal.

Making it even more frustrating for Angel City is that two of those games were at home.

Midfielder Savannah McCaskill is hopeful things will go smoothly at home against the Red Stars.

“Being the only team we haven’t faced yet, that is going to come with new challenges, but it is also exciting to play someone we haven’t seen yet,” she said.

“They don’t know our tendencies other than watching, just like we have to figure out theirs as well. It will be an interesting game.

“It is one of our last few home games, so it is really important that we go in and take care of business and give our supporters something to be proud of and a performance to be proud of.”

The next league home game for Angel City after today will come Sept. 21 against the Washington Spirit.

“This is a good opportunity to take points off of this team,” McCaskill said. “It is important that when you are facing a team, figuring out their identity, you need to establish yourself. This is a good opportunity for us to take advantage of that at home.”

Angel City has been a bit shorthanded the past two games with forwards Claire Emslie (leg) and Sydney Leroux (illness) sidelined, along with defender Vanessa Gilles (hip).