Angel City's first assistant coach, Melissa Phillips, joined the team a few weeks ago, having just come from a head coaching job with the London City Lionesses of the of the Women's Championship, the second tier of English football. Phillips led the team to a second-place finish in the 2021–2022 season, and at the time of her departure, the club was sitting atop the table.
We spoke with Phillips last week about her coaching philosophy and what she hopes to contribute at Angel City.
Angelcity.com: First things first: how has the first week of training been?
Melissa Phillips: The first week of training has been great. The players have come in excited and ready to go and it's been a fun first few days. As with anything, it's just figuring out organizational processes, and a lot of observing, listening, and understanding for me in terms of where I can best impact the team. It's been a whirlwind, obviously, leaving [London City] mid-season and coming in to start a fresh season halfway across the world. But such is the game and the life of a coach.
For me, there's nothing like diving straight into the deep end. It's a really fantastic group that we have—both staff and players—very driven, very aligned in our ambition for the season. Now it's just putting in the hard work every single day. We have an incredible platform and I'm looking forward to growing alongside the team.
AC: What about Angel City made it worthwhile to move halfway around the world?
MP: Well, I'm a California native, born and raised in in the States. I spent the first five years of my coaching career at Cal State Bakersfield as the head coach, and then went up to University of San Francisco for a year, then out to Penn. For me, the most important things are to share ambition and share values with an organization, and I really feel strongly about Angel City's mission and what they're trying to do culturally for the women's game.
There's a fantastic group of leaders within the organization, from the ownership down to Angela as the general manager, Freya as head coach, all of the support staff, the technical staff. It's a really incredible group of people, and that's what's most important: working with professionals who care about the players that we serve and providing them with the best possible environment to be successful. That came through quite clearly from the inception of the club and the brand off the pitch.
Now you can tell there's a real push with the on-pitch product and moving that forward alongside the brand. The potential for this club is limitless, and I just couldn't wait to be a part of the organization. It was an opportunity that I really couldn't say no to.
AC: For folks who might not be familiar with what different members of a coaching staff do, what is your job description?
MP: To summarize, it's to support the head coach and to support the team. Having head coaching experience myself, I understand the weight of the decisions that come day to day that will fall on Freya's shoulders. The more that myself, Becky, Eleri, and Dan can take some of that weight off and allow her to to narrow her focus to the most important aspects—and we take care of all the logistical details and organization of the team—the smoother things will go. When you've got a really high-performing staff, you allow the head coach to lead the team naturally, and that bodes well for success.
On a day-to-day basis, Freya's asked me to be in charge of the out-of-possession game strategy setup and really involved in the team culture, driving standards across both staff and players. Then there's going to be various bits and pieces, from administrative duties to player development and all that.
AC: When you say you're in charge of the out-of-possession phase of the game, does that mean you're building the strategy itself, or just working with the team to implement it?
MP: Freya's organized a lot of conversations amongst the staff over the last couple of months, in preparation for the season, about our game strategy. She has an idea of what she wants the game to look like in terms of, do we want to be a high-pressing team or an in-possession team, and what does that look like? Then we've collaborated as a staff to collectively define the descriptions of that out-of-possession template. So we've all really come together. We all see the game in a very similar lens and have all different skill sets and experiences to be able to implement that vision.
On the day to day, it's us formulating a plan, making sure that Freya is happy with that plan, and then we can go implement it and help the players execute it. It is some game strategy stuff and working with other coaches on opposition analysis, to prepare both in and out of possession. I'll be involved in the possession side too, but that's where Freya is going to take a little bit more of the lead.
AC: What do you think your strengths are as a coach?
MP: I think my biggest strength is creating an environment of care, where players know that you're willing to do whatever it takes for them to be successful. You get to know them at the core of who they are, how they want to be communicated with, what motivates them—really understand them—to get the best out of them. Once you've developed that trust and care, you can challenge them outside of their comfort zone and push them, because they know they're in an environment where the team and coaches support them and care for them.
I'm a firm believer that this isn't just a soccer business, it's a people business, and that people who feel cared for will thrive within an environment.
AC: Let's talk a little about your previous job. You arrived in London to join the LCL staff just before the UK locked down in March 2020. What was that like?
MP: The original plan was to get there, and there would have been about six weeks left of that first season. I came in as the assistant coach. Instead, I got there and about two days later, before I even met the team, everything was locked down—and it was a pretty significant lockdown in England for a six-week span.
The silver lining was that instead of just getting straight out onto the pitch, I spent that six weeks getting to know the people, what their frustrations were, what they felt the limitations were that we could solve within the club. As with anything in year one, there's going to be expectations and reality, and if they don't meet, there's room for improvement and areas for growth. So that's what I spent the first, say, five months doing: assessing and figuring out where I could impact the most. And it was with creating that environment for the players where they could really thrive and develop.
I spent a lot of time on Zoom and phone calls getting to know them, and then we started to create an outline: what were the core values that were going to define us as a group? That time really allowed us to set our off-pitch culture, which then translated onto the pitch as well, when we started talking about our attacking and defending identity, and how these values of discipline and work ethic would fall into the on-pitch identity as well.
I took over as head coach five games into the next season. I think we had only taken one point out of our first five games, so not a great start. Then we went and beat the league leaders, Leicester City, 4–1, and went on a seven-game unbeaten run where we had six clean sheets, and we never looked back.
AC: What are you most proud of having accomplished with London City?
MP: That's a great question. I think what I'm most proud of is that we developed such an incredible resilience over time at London City. We were very particular about our recruitment and about it being character-first, and we brought in a talented group of people. We brought in players who had maybe dropped down from the Women's Super League [the top flight of women's soccer in England], but were incredibly driven. Humble, hungry, hard-working people was our motto.
I had full confidence in every single player and staff member in that organization that we could respond to whatever was put in front of us. That resilience was developed through time, and I think our success was defined by our team's ability to navigate adversity better than other teams. That's something I'm proud of, because it really speaks to me as a coach and the care that I have for people and being able to navigate the journey. We said to our girls on day one that it's not a straight line—there's peaks and valleys, and we're going to have to support each other.
I firmly believe that any individual or team's ability to succeed is their ability to respond to things that don't go their way. That probably holds true for me departing in the timing that I did: sitting mid-season, top of the table, in a promotion push. I'm very confident that those players and staff will be able to navigate the next steps, because we have such strong processes and culture in place.
AC: To get back to Angel City, what are the most important things for the team to accomplish during preseason?
MP: I think it's incredibly important that we build on our identity from year one. We've got some very ambitious goals for the season, and that starts in preseason with developing who we are and what is our fallback plan when things don't go well. That's through establishing relationships, establishing good communication channels, understanding people and player preferences, and making sure there's clarity of roles with the on-pitch vision so that the girls can go out and execute to the best of their ability.
AC: You've mentioned resilience a few times—the importance of knowing how to bounce back when things don't go well. That was a theme in our conversation with Ali Riley last week, as well.
MP: That's something that I looked at a lot in throughout my own interview process. Last year in the regular season, Angel City played 13 one-goal games, one-goal decisions, and then there were five draws. That means the team is in every game. It means the talent and the work ethic is there. From there, it's about how you can tackle what we call the big five moments: the first five and last five of a half. Can you be masters in those moments to manage the game and see it out?
Sometimes that takes maturity of a squad. Even though this is year two, we're still very much in the forming stage. You always look at year one, and it's never a wash. There's always things that you can take from year one and bring into year two, that now you know how to navigate better, because you've been there before.
There's a lot of that in the squad, with returning players in abundance. They certainly have developed that resilience. That comes through in conversations that I've had with Ali and others. They had to navigate a lot and their response had to be very good. They might have given away the late goal and dropped points, but then they always bounced back, and that's the most important thing. The result never defines you; it's how you respond to the result that defines your path from there. That's going to be a really important theme throughout preseason and the season, because it's very much an exciting group with an abundance of talent that I'm confident can achieve our goals.
AC: Last question. You grew up in California. Any plans to join Freya for a surf session?
MP: I wish I knew how to surf! I think I could maybe get up and fall down about 100 times out there. I do love to longboard and skateboard, so I've got those California roots in me.
