Angel City is on the road against the Chicago Red Stars on Sunday, October 2, at 3:00 p.m. PST, in the last game of the regular season. The match will be broadcast locally on Bally Sports SoCal and stream live on Paramount+, with an English-language radio broadcast available on iHeart.
ACFC's last result was a 1–3 loss at home against Racing Louisville FC. Midfielder Savannah McCaskill scored in that match, with forward Kirsten Davis, midfielder Alex Chidiac, and forward Emina Ekic scoring for Louisville.
With the loss, Angel City's record dropped to 8–8–5. With 29 points, the team is two points out of playoff position—and with the 0–0 draw between North Carolina and San Diego in their match on Friday, September 30, Angel City is de facto eliminated from contention (a win in Chicago would still mean they tied North Carolina on points with a win, but the goal-differential tiebreaker would mean they would need 15 goals to pull ahead).
Regardless of whether their playoff hopes are still alive on Sunday, 'we're still going to approach a game in the same way,' said Head Coach Freya Coombe. 'We're playing to win. We want to finish the season with as many points as we can, as many wins as we can. So we're going to look to focus on how we're going to play against Chicago and making sure that we're going in with that competitive mindset regardless of what happens on Friday.'
Chicago is in seventh place, one point ahead of ACFC, with an 8–7–6 record. With the draw in San Diego, the Red Stars could still move into sixth place with a win against Angel City.
The Red Stars' most recent result was a 0–3 loss in Portland last weekend. That game saw two Chicago starters, center back Zoe Morse and right back Bianca St-Georges, get sent off, meaning they will sit out on Sunday.
Chicago will have to adjust to make up for the absence of two starting defenders, but defender Ali Riley underscores the difficulty of trying to guess what that adjustment will look like. 'Obviously, we can look at their their formation, how they usually play,' she said. 'But in this league, it is the wild, wild west. You don't know [how] teams are going to adjust week to week.'
When Angel City hosted Chicago in August, they won 1–0 on the strength of a goal by McCaskill. The Red Stars were missing their leading scorer, Mallory Pugh, for that match. Pugh has had a standout season, notching 10 goals and six assists—good for fifth- and second-most in the league, respectively, in those stats.
'They didn't have Mal [Pugh] playing in that game,' said Riley. 'And we were a little bit different back then. I think in this league, you do analysis on another team, you can look at your previous fixture, but we have to focus on ourselves and what we want to improve from our last game.'
If Angel City were to win and eliminate Chicago, it would be the first time the Red Stars have missed the playoffs in the existence of the NWSL. They made it to the championship match two seasons in a row, in 2021 and 2019 (no playoffs were held in 2020), losing to Washington and North Carolina, respectively.
