On March 17th Angel City took on Bay FC at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles. The first soccer match of the season was played before a sold-out crowd. I have attended Angel City games before but nothing compares to this experience. I spent the match in the media box with other press people carefully watching and taking notes during the game. Angel City is currently ranked 9th in the National Women's Soccer League. This was Bay FC's first game as a new expansion team in the league. Their coach Albertin Montoya went with a 4-3-3-4 formation as did Rebecca Tweed with Angel City. Bay FC's tough defense and strong goalkeeping kept Angel City from scoring a goal. Their goalkeeper Lysianne Proulx #44 did an incredible job of keeping the ball out of the net. Angel City took 18 shots on goal, and Proulx blocked 5 shots while 13 missed their target. Bay FC took only 8 shots on goal but 1 scored the point. Striker Asisat Oshoala #8 scored in the 17th minute with a right-footed shot from the center of the box to the top right corner with an assist from Tess Boade #12. It became the first goal in history for Bay FC. Even though Angel City controlled ball possession 60% of the time, they were still unable to score. Meggie Dougherty Howard #8 took 5 shots, the most for Angel City player in the game. Kennedy Fuller #17 also took 3, while Alyssa Thompson #21, Sydney Leroux #2, and Claire Emslie #10 had 2 shots on goal. For Bay FC Joelle Anderson #18 and Deyna Castellanos #10 took 2 shots while Kayla Sharples #27, Scarlett Camberos #11, and Asisat Oshoala #8 each had one shot on goal. The crowd loudly cheered for hometown favorite forward #21 Alyssa Thompson. Alyssa signed with Angel City straight out of high school at Harvard-Westlake. In 2023, she was part of a three-team trade that made her the most expensive player in league history, at only 18 years old.
The 92-minute game, two additional ones were added to the clock, saw Angel City have 470 passes in total including 19 crosses and 12 corners while Bay FC had 333 passes with 11 crosses and 4 corners. Both teams had similar passing accuracy. Also, a yellow card was given to Alex Loara #22 for a tackle foul on Dougherty.
Angel City had many opportunities to score but was unable to score against Bay FC's strong defense in this nail-biting match. Bay FC wins their inaugural game 1-0 thanks to Proulx's strong performance and Oshoala's early goal. After the game, I attended a press conference with Angel City. I was excited to meet the players and ask them questions about themselves and the match. Unfortunately, because they lost their first game of the season everyone was a bit sad so I chose not to ask them anything and instead just enjoyed being there, It was one of the coolest things I've ever done.
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