It has been a week since Angel City qualified for the NWSL playoffs. On Sunday, the team found out who and where it would be playing.
With a 4-1 victory over Boston Legacy, Angel City finished the regular season fifth in the standings and will travel to Kansas City on Saturday to meet the Current in its second-ever trip to the postseason. And it will enter the playoffs as the hottest team in the NWSL, riding a league-best 10-game unbeaten streak.
The goals Sunday came from Nealy Martin in the first half and Evelyn Shores, Sveindis Jonsdottir and Claire Emslie in the second. Boston’s only score came from Brazilian striker Amanda Gutierres just before intermission.
Angel City began the final game of the regular season with a chance to finish as high as third in the table, earning the right to open the playoffs at home. But to do that it, it needed a win and it needed the two teams directly ahead of it, Kansas City and Washington, to lose.
Neither the Current nor Spirit cooperated, leaving the standings mostly frozen where they were at the start of the week. Not that it really mattered, attacker Ally Sentnor said before the game.
“You have to beat the best to win a championship. You have to beat everyone, so doesn’t really matter who you play at the beginning,” she said. “Every team in the playoffs is a great team, so I think we are just focused on us and what we’re doing on the field and what we are going to produce on the field.
“We just take every game as it comes.”
Although Sunday’s match was a home game for Angel City (15-8-7), it wasn’t played at home. LAFC is the primary tenant at BMO Stadium and when MLS moved the team’s game with Minnesota United from Saturday to Sunday to avoid competing with USC’s football game at the Coliseum, Angel City was forced to relocate 12 miles down the freeway to Dignity Health Sports Park.
An enthusiastic crowd of approximately 15,000 followed the team to Carson for the “Decision Day” match.
But the move left Angel City playing a home game on the road in an effort to avoid the road and play at home in the playoffs. Not that the home-field advantage has meant much to the team this season: Angel City was 6-5-3 at BMO Stadium this season — the worst home record for an NWSL playoff team —- and 9-3-4 everywhere else.
However four of those five home losses came under former coach Alexander Straus. Interim manager Leif Smerud said this is a different Angel City team.
“We are good both home and away,” he said. “If I can choose, I would of course play at home in front of a fantastic crowd. And all the logistics would be a bit simpler as well.
“But that’s not up to me to decide and control.”
It’s unlikely Angel City would be playing anywhere in the postseason if not for the June coaching change that saw it replace Straus.
The team won just one of its final eight games under Straus and was 12th in the 16-team NWSL table at the time of the change. It has lost just twice in 19 games since, setting franchise records for wins (15), goals (54), points (52) and goal differential (a league-best plus-22).
Martin opened the scoring with the first goal of her six-year NWSL career in the 17th minute. Given tons of time and space just outside the penalty area, she settled a short pass from Sentnor, then patiently chipped forward a right-footed shot that Boston defender Deja Davis inadvertently headed into the net.
Boston (9-15-6) pulled that back in the 37th minute on a blistering right-footed strike from the edge of the box by Gutierres, her 11th goal of the season. That ended a 144-minute scoreless streak for Angel City keeper Angelina Anderson.
But Angel City went ahead to stay eight minutes into the second half when Shores headed in a long cross from Jonsdottir for her fourth goal of the season. Jonsdottir put the game away with her franchise-record 10th goal of the year on a breakaway in the 72nd minute and Emslie closed the scoring 12 minutes later with her first goal since September 2024. Taylor Suarez assisted on both goals.
NWSL playoff pairings Quarterfinals to be played Nov. 6-8
(seeding in parentheses)
(1) Gotham FC, 18-5-7 vs. (8) Seattle Reign, 14-11-5, Nov. 8
(2) San Diego Wave, 18-8-4 vs. (7) Utah Royals, 14-11-5, 14-8-8, Nov. 6
(3) Washington Spirit, 17-9-4 vs. (6) Portland Thorns, 14-8-8, TBA
(4) Kansas City Current, 16-9-5 vs. (5) Angel City, 15-8-7, TBA
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