Saturday, May 17, at 7:00 p.m. Pacific, Angel City Football Club is on the road against NorCal rival Bay FC. The game will stream live on ION, with an English-language radio broadcast on iHeart. Angel City will host a watch party at Watch Me! Sports Bar in Long Beach.
Matchup
Angel City’s last game was a 2–0 win at home against Utah on the strength of goals by forwards Christen Press and Alyssa Thompson.
Bay FC lost 4–1 on the road last week to Kansas City, with Bay forward Penelope Hocking scoring the consolation goal.
ACFC last faced Bay on June 22, 2024, losing 0–1. They are 0–2–0 (W–L–D) all-time against the San Jose-based club, who joined the NWSL last season.
LA are currently in fifth place with a 4–2–2 record. Bay are in 12th at 2–4–2.
Scouting Report
Bay FC had a middling inaugural season, starting with a rocky first half where they earned nine losses and four wins. Their fortunes turned in the second half, as they went 7–5–1 between mid-June and the end of the regular season, enough to claim a seventh-place finish and a spot in the playoffs.
2025 is off to a somewhat better start, results-wise; at this point last season, they were 2–6–0, although the team has also scored just eight goals, compared with 13 at the eight-week mark last year.
Roster-wise, Head Coach Albertín Montoya made relatively few changes coming into 2025, with the biggest being the departure of midfielder Deyna Castellanos, a former FSU and Manchester City star who contributed two goals and an assist in her first NWSL season. One player brought in this past offseason was rookie forward Karlie Lema out of Cal, currently Bay’s co-leading scorer with two goals in six starts.
Nigerian international Asisat Oshoala led her team in scoring with eight goals last year, including one in the team’s first-ever game: their season opener against Angel City. However, Oshoala has played a smaller role this year, earning just three starts and six appearances.
One area where Bay have improved since last year is defense, having allowed 12 goals so far—a middle-of-the-pack defensive performance and a significant improvement over the 18 they had conceded at this point in 2024.
CP49
Forward Christen Press opened the scoring last week against Utah with her 49th career NWSL goal, bringing her to ninth place in the all-time top scorers list above ACFC teammate Sydney Leroux.
The goal, named NWSL Goal of the Week on Tuesday, was a CP23 classic: a quick sideways cut to create space, followed by a curling left-footed finish to the upper 90. It was also Press’s first ever at BMO Stadium, after the veteran was sidelined with an ACL tear for just over two years between 2022 and 2024.
Coming on the heels of her contribution to Riley Tiernan’s May 2 game-winner against Washington, last Friday’s game was the second week in a row Press had a game-changing impact off the bench. It’s a reminder that as much as ACFC’s young players—including Tiernan, the Thompson sisters, and Kennedy Fuller, among others—are making their mark, veteran players like Press and her former Chicago teammate, defender Sarah Gorden, are also key contributors to the team’s success.
