Preseason training camp is now underway for Angel City and the team has already made solid moves in preparation for the 2025 season.
In 2024, Angel City finished 12th in the 14-team table with a 7-13-6 (W-L-D) record and only 24 points. With a new sporting director, state-of-the-art performance center and Aussie signee, the team is looking to bounce back after having the worst season in their short franchise history. Here’s a breakdown of the steps ACFC has taken to change the club’s trajectory:
1. Hiring Mark Parsons
This month, veteran head coach Mark Parsons was appointed as the team’s new sporting director. While Parsons has coached the Washington Spirit and the Netherlands women’s national team, arguably his most successful stint were the six years in Portland as the Thorns’ head coach.
Parsons led the Portland Thorns to six trophies, including two NWSL Shields, awarded to the best regular-season team, and the 2017 NWSL championship. He recruited great players in his time with Portland, including US women’s national team mainstays Sophia Smith and Lindsey Horan.
As a sporting director, Angel City announced that his role is to “oversee all soccer operations, including the technical staff, the scouting and analytics department, sports medical, performance, nutrition and player care.”
Parsons has created a dominant team before. Let’s see if he can do it again. As a head coach, you are expected to win. But Parsons is now in a position where he doesn’t have the pressure to execute on the pitch, he just needs to put together the best-fit roster and staff.
“My focus is to foster a culture of excellence, development, and togetherness that elevates ACFC to new heights, with the goal of bringing championships home to the city of Los Angeles,” Parsons said.
2. Giving players and staff a permanent facility
Since the team’s first season in 2022, Angel City had used the California Lutheran University campus to practice and employed temporary trailers as locker rooms and a tent as a weight room.
Quickly after the 2024 season ended, the team announced they would relocate to a nine-acre performance facility at CLU where the Los Angeles Rams practiced prior to their move to a facility in Woodland Hills.
The facility went through a multi-million-dollar remodeling and is now a part of the largest training ground in the NWSL. It consists of “a 5,400-square-foot gym, three locker rooms, a film room, a medical treatment and hydrotherapy area and a children’s playroom,” per the Los Angeles Times, along with one-and-a-half full-sized pitches — a major upgrade from the trailers and tent used before.
“It was very clear that we needed to invest in football operations here and support the leadership and support the players and making sure they had all the resources they needed to build a winning culture,” ACFC controlling owner Willow Bay said at the unveiling of the record-setting facility.
Parsons took great pride in the new addition as well.
“I don’t know how you’re going to want to leave,” Parsons said. “I’m excited to be a part of an organization that cares that much. But I’m also excited that my skill set just got a bit easier, because everyone’s going to want to be here.”
3. Signing a veteran Aussie
Angel City lost five players at the end of last season, including goalkeeper Didi Haračić. Haračić was the all-time leader in saves and shutouts for Angel City, so when she signed with rivals San Diego Wave as a free agent this month, that was a huge blow to the club.
But Angel City wasted no time bolstering the roster. The day after the Wave signed Haračić, Angel City signed Australian defender Alanna Kennedy, who had been playing for Manchester City in the Women’s Super League (WSL) in England for the past four seasons.
The last time Kennedy played in the NWSL, she won a championship with the Western New York Flash in 2016. Angel City’s choice to add another composed vet to the roster after extending the contracts of forwards Christen Press and Sydney Leroux was smart, ensuring the team still has experienced leadership on the pitch.
But… ACFC still doesn’t have a head coach
Following a disappointing season, Becki Tweed was removed from Angel City’s head coach position last year. Just last week, Sam Laity was named the new interim head coach. Laity was an assistant head coach for the Seattle Reign from 2013 to 2022. He was hired to be the head coach for Houston Dash for the 2022-2023 season but was fired before the end of the season after the team started 4-6-8.
Safe to say, Laity is probably not who Parsons wants to occupy the head coach position for too long.
While Parsons has not hinted at possible new coaches yet, he did say that while finding a coach in the next few weeks would be wonderful, “time in getting it done is not the priority. Getting the right person is,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
While a decision has not been made on a head coach, it is clear that Angel City is all business this season.
Angel City will face the San Diego Wave at BMO Stadium in their first game of the season on March 16.