This Monday, June 5, at 7:00 p.m., Angel City hosts the Chicago Red Stars for the first time in 2023. The game will be broadcast locally on Bally Sports SoCal, as well as streaming live in the US on Paramount+ and internationally at NWSLSoccer.com. English- and Spanish-language radio broadcasts will be available at iHeart and KWKW, respectively. For more information on broadcasts, click here.
You can buy tickets to the game here.
This will be Angel City's third all-time meeting with the Red Stars. Last season the two teams split the results of their two matches, with LA winning 1–0 at home in August on the strength of a Savannah McCaskill goal, and Chicago coming away with a 2–0 win in the final game of the season.
Chicago are currently in 12th place in the NWSL, with a 2–6–1 (W–L–D) record. Last week, they broke a four-game losing streak across all competitions with a 1–0 win over the Orlando Pride. Forward Yuki Nagasato scored the lone goal in that game in the 22nd minute, assisted by defender Casey Krueger.
ACFC are in 10th place with a 2–4–3 record. Their most recent regular-season game was a disappointing 4–1 loss away at Seattle last weekend. Midweek in the Challenge Cup, they nearly played the Portland Thorns to a 2–2 draw, only to concede a goal late in stoppage time to come up empty-handed in the Rose City.
Chicago took a blow early in the season with the loss of forward Mallory Swanson to a knee injury sustained in a US Women’s National Team game. Swanson was the Red Stars' leading scorer last year, tying with North Carolina's Diana Ordoñez for fourth-most goals in the league, with 11 in the regular season. In Swanson's absence, Chicago's attack has relied on a range of scoring threats, with Nagasato, Penelope Hocking, and Ella Stevens all tied for the top scoring spot with three goals apiece.
The Red Stars, long a perennially strong team in the NWSL, underwent a number of key personnel changes this offseason. Danny Colaprico and Vanessa DiBernardo, the longtime anchors of Chicago's midfield, both departed, DiBernardo for Kansas City and Colaprico for San Diego. Forward Rachel Hill also left for the Wave.
But Chicago has also made some additions to their roster, including Jamaican international Cheyna Matthews from Racing Louisville, a forward, and German forward Sandra Starke, who is on a short-term loan from VfL Wolfsburg until mid-June. The team also added a name that will be familiar to Angel City fans, midfielder Cari Roccaro, who played in LA for the club's inaugural season.
Perhaps the most decorated member of the Red Stars roster is keeper Alyssa Naeher, the longtime starter for the USWNT, who recently broke the NWSL record for most career saves.
Angel City has a number of players with roots in Chicago: forward Katie Johnson, midfielder Julie Ertz, midfielder Savannah McCaskill, and defender Sarah Gorden—as well as forward Christen Press, who is recovering from injury. Chicago sent Gorden, a longtime staple of their defense, to Angel City ahead of the 2022 expansion draft, but she sustained an injury in preseason and was out for the year. In 2023, she is one of two ACFC players who have played every minute so far, with the other being keeper DiDi Haračić.
Now that she's back on the field, Gorden says she's looking forward to facing her old team. 'I circled this game on my calendar two years ago,' she said. 'I am so excited to be facing my former team. I still have close friends there, but it brings an extra added layer of emotional excitement and energy to the game. I can’t wait.”
Gorden didn't just play for the Red Stars—she also lived in Chicagoland her whole life until her move to Angel City, having grown up in Elk Grove Village and attended college at DePaul.
'It definitely has a different feeling for me than other players,' she continued. 'I was born and raised there, I went to college there. That is my city. I talk about being from Chicago all the time. It is really important to me. I always feel like I have something to prove, but a game like this even more so. It makes me feel like a rookie. Like I have to go out there and prove myself.”