Thursday, September 18, at 7:30 p.m., Angel City FC hosts the Washington Spirit at BMO Stadium. The game will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network and regionally on FanDuel Sports Network. Radio broadcasts in English and Spanish will be available on iHeart and KFWB, respectively. Tickets are available here.
Match Up
Angel City’s last regular-season game was a 1–2 loss on the road to at North Carolina on September 13. Forwards Manaka Matsukubo and Brianna Pinto secured the win for the Courage, with ACFC forward Sveindís Jónsdóttir notching the consolation goal for the visitors.
Washington’s last game was a 0–0 draw away at Kansas City.
ACFC’s last matchup against Washington was a 4–3 home win on May 2. They are 3–4–0 (W–L–D) all-time against the Spirit.
Angel City are in 11th place with a 6–9–5 record. Washington are in second at 10–4–6.
Scouting Report
The Spirit’s 2025 campaign encountered an unexpected curveball shortly before the summer break, when the club parted ways with head coach Jonatan Giráldez on June 2. Giráldez was at the helm when the team reached the 2024 championship match against Orlando, and this was planned to be his first full season, as he had joined mid-season last year.
In his place, assistant Adrián González stepped in—the second time González has served as the team’s head coach, as he was brought in as interim head coach to start 2024, before Giráldez’s arrival.
Based on results, the change seems to have had little effect on Washington’s fortunes. The team is undefeated in the last eight matches—their last loss was the second game under González—though they’ve also won just three of those. Of the Spirit’s five draws in that span, three were scoreless; interestingly, they drew both first-place Kansas City and second-to-last-place Chicago in the space of three weeks.
In Angel City’s last meeting with Washington, forward Gift Monday caused problems, scoring the team’s second goal in the 40th minute. The Nigeria international has continued to impress in her first season with the Spirit, recording five goals and two assists to help make up for the absence of forward Trinity Rodman, who she spent much of the season recovering from injury.
Multitool Midfielder, Part 2
Last week, Angel City acquired midfielder Nealy Martin in a trade with NJ/NY Gotham FC. Martin is a defensive mid who played an important role in Gotham’s 2023 NWSL Championship win.
The 27-year-old took a winding road to Gotham, initially going undrafted after graduating from the University of Alabama in 2019 and earning a contract with Racing Louisville at open tryouts. After earning inconsistent appearances in her second season with the team, Racing waved Martin at the end of 2022, and she was picked up by Gotham in the offseason.
In 2023, Martin was a regular starter after the first four games of the season, importantly starting and playing nearly every minute of all three playoff games (she was subbed out in the 89th minute in the first round and during extra time in the second) en route to her team’s championship win over Seattle. Gotham had the third-best defensive record in the league that year, conceding just 24 goals on the season.
Perhaps most memorably, in that 2023 championship game, Martin was forced to step in as goalkeeper when goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn was awarded a red card and Gotham had no subs remaining. That was Martin’s second experience as an emergency keeper: her junior year at Alabama, she spent 48 seconds between the pipes, saving a free kick, while the team’s backup keeper got ready to sub on following a red card to the starter.
