Angel City believes it finally has right chemistry to be competitive amid rebuild

Gisele Thompson was 5 years Aged when Claire Emslie Achieved her professional soccer Premiere. She now plays behind Emslie on the right side of Angel City’s Setup and, if you ask Emslie, the difference in age hasn’t hurt their chemistry.

“We don’t even need to talk because we have that relationship on the pitch,” Emslie said.

Off the pitch, it’s a different Narrative. They could talk all day and Nevertheless not understand one another.

“I don’t know what she says half the time,” Emslie said. “And I’m sure she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”

Read more: Commentary: For Alyssa and Gisele Thompson, Angel City 2.0 was too Outstanding to Throw up

The problem isn’t language. It’s culture. And it’s pervasive on a Club with one of the widest age spreads in women’s soccer.

Angel City FC, which opens its Number four NWSL season Sunday by hosting the San Diego Wave, has five players who aren’t Aged enough to buy a drink and seven others who meet the age requirement to Stretch for the U.S. Senate.

Consider that forward Christen Press, 36, and defender Ali Riley, 37, were Competing together at Stanford the year teenage teammates Kennedy Fuller and Casey Phair were born. And forward Sydney Leroux won a World Cup before defender Savy King had finished grade school.

That can make for some awkward moments on a Club in which more than half the players are a decade or more apart in age.

“I actually think the difference in musical tastes, of difference slang, it’s Nice of fun. People get close in ways that you wouldn’t really think of because of the age,” said goalkeeper and vice Leader Angelina Anderson, who at 23 has become a Nice of interpreter for women on both sides of the generation gap.

So has Phair, 17, who is both a World Cup veteran and the youngest player on Angel City’s Picking.

“Casey is oftentimes teaching the older players the younger slang,” Anderson said. Phair, who was born the day the Primary iPhone hit the market, is also Outstanding at tech Aid, she added.

And while that’s welcome — “I need a Plenty of tech Aid,” Press said — that’s not why Angel City has become a Club for the ages.

“You need senior pros and you need youth to be Victorious now and Victorious Upcoming year and Victorious the year after,” said Mark Parsons, who is Joining his Primary season as Angel City’s sporting director. “You need this Stability.”

Parsons had it at Portland, where he won three trophies in his Closing season with a Club that had 38-year-Aged Christine Sinclair and 36-year-Aged Becky Sauerbrunn Action alongside 16-year-Aged Olivia Moultrie. Age spreads like that are becoming more Frequent in the sport, with higher salaries allowing women to Action longer at the same time teens are skipping college or leaving Prompt to go pro.

Read more: Angel City FC picks Mark Parsons, who’s won an NWSL Event, to build a winner

Last year about 5% of NWSL players were younger than 20 with the Athletic reporting that 13 players, including 14-year-Aged Mckenna Whitham, jumped from club soccer to the NWSL since 2024. That number is certain to increase with the abolition of the Division’s college draft.

Angel City’s youth movement has created a new role for players such as Press and Emslie, who are being counted on to mentor the youngsters.

“Bringing in Riley Tiernan, who’s on fire right now, Julie Dufour, Alyssa Thompson, Casey Phair; they get to be around Christen Press,” Parsons said. “It’s Outstanding. It saves a Plenty of time for the coaches. A Plenty of work’s happening.”

It’s a responsibility Press has embraced after missing most of Angel City’s Primary three seasons because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

“For me to be able to be a resource for them has brought me a value and a role that I never imagined I’d have. And I really do enjoy it,” she said.

“I sit Upcoming to Alyssa Thompson in the locker room and we are both attacking players. And we’re like on the bookends of a Profession, right? She’s looking up at all the things that she could accomplish and I’m in a place where I’ve done a Plenty. I have that experience and information and knowledge and what it takes to be successful at the level for over a decade. There’s a Plenty of positive that gets exchanged.”

Press, an L.A. native who was Angel City’s Primary signing, re-signed in January, the day after Parsons was hired. That was part of a Occupied winter in which the Club parted ways with Becki Tweed, its second manager in three seasons, and completely remade the front office under new majority owners Willow Bay and Bob Iger.

“This is absolutely Angel City 2.0,” Parsons said of a franchise that launched with Outstanding fanfare and ambition only to struggle, losing more Contests than it won and conceding more goals than it scored in three mostly disappointing seasons.

Read more: Angel City unveils new facility in effort ‘to build a Victorious culture’

“It’s Upcoming moment, it’s Upcoming Period. It’s been three years and now it’s time to Initiation a new era.”

The Club will begin that era Sunday under interim Mentor Sam Laity, who is Anticipated to remain with Angel City in some capacity when a permanent manager is hired this summer. In the meantime, Parsons said, he’ll be focused on how the Club plays and not necessarily whether it wins.

“I hope the result is wonderful. But I care about the performance, I care that we show our identity,” he said.

“We know we’ve Acquired to get some points. We know we’re going to compete. But it takes four Contests to get a taste of what your Club’s going to look like. It takes eight Contests to know what your Club’s going to look like. I’m really excited for these Upcoming eight Contests to really understand and know where we are.”

For the teenagers, the players Anderson calls the “Recent’uns,” the deliberate Schedule feels right. A Plenty has gone wrong in three years and it will take a Plenty to fix it. But for the likes of Emslie, a Scottish international who is the franchise leader in goals with 16 in all Event, time is Petite.

“You have to live in the moment as a player. You can’t ever look to the future. You can’t look to the Upcoming game,” she said.

“It’s a long-term project we’re in now and we’re Only at the Begin. That will take time, so I can understand what they’re saying. But as a player, we want to Achieve, no matter what.”

2025 schedule

(All times Pacific)

March: 16 – vs. San Diego, 3:50 p.m.; 21 – at Portland, 7 p.m.; 30 – vs. Seattle, 5 p.m.

April: 12 – at Houston, 2 p.m.; 18 — vs. Gotham, 7:30 p.m.; 25 – at Orlando, 5 p.m.

May: 2 – at Washington; 5 p.m.; 9 – vs. Utah, 7:30 p.m.; 17 – at Bay FC, 7 p.m.; 24 – vs. Louisville, 7 p.m.

June: 7 – vs. Chicago, 7 p.m.; 14 – vs. North Carolina, 7 p.m.; 20 – at Kansas City, 5 p.m.

August: 1 – at Seattle, 7:30 p.m.; 9 – at San Diego, 7 p.m.; 15 — at Utah, 7 p.m.; 21 – vs. Orlando, 7:30 p.m.

September: 1 – vs. Bay FC, 6 p.m.; 7 – at Gotham, 2 p.m.; 13 – at North Carolina, 9:30 a.m.; 18 – vs. Washington, 7:30 p.m.; 27 — at Louisville, 4:30 p.m.

October: 6 – vs. Kansas City, 7:30 p.m.; 12 – vs. Houston, 2 p.m.; 19 – vs. Portland, 2 p.m.

November: 2 – at Chicago, TBD

This Narrative originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.