Five Questions with Jasmyne Spencer

Jasmyne Spencer is one of the most experienced players on Angel City's roster, having been in the NWSL since its inception in 2013. She most recently played for Houston, but has also spent time in Seattle, Orlando, and Washington, not to mention stints in Sweden, Cyprus, and Australia. Spencer scored her first goal for Angel City against the Kansas City Current on September 1.

Your goal against the Current was from a spot you'd taken a few shots from in previous games. How did it feel for that to finally go in?

In the moment I'm not even sure I was as excited as I was afterwards because I was like, 'We need these points. This game has been crazy. Just go in the net.'

Then after the game, once we finally secured the win, a bunch of people, like Brit, Ang, who had stayed after training with me and worked on that shot repeatedly for, like, months, came over and were like, 'Yay, that's awesome!'

But yeah, I had noticed that all the chances I was getting were winding up in that area and I've like, hit the post, hit the crossbar, the keeper's made a crazy save. So I thought, if I'm going to score, it's going to be in this area, so let me just consistently give myself reps.

Having been in the league since 2013, you have a perspective not many other people do. How do you see the sport evolving as it continues to grow and become more mainstream? What's your dream scenario for the league five years from now?

I think by nature of being women athletes, we have not gotten the recognition or even the resources we deserve to perform at the best of our ability. So out of necessity, we've had to adopt this platform of being vocal and fighting for things that we deserve. But I hope and I do believe we'll get to a place where we can just play, and then people who are passionate about impacting change can then continue to use their platform.

I don't know if five years is ambitious, but I hope we get to an East and a West conference. I hope we've secured a really good broadcast deal that players can financially benefit from. I hope that we have really cool things like an All-Star Week, with an All-Star Game and fun challenges. I hope the championship weekend continues to grow into a big event.

What events would you like to see in an All-Star Week and where do you think you would shine?

Definitely a skill challenge. I think some sort of celebrity soccer tennis match would be hilarious. I feel like the average person doesn't have the greatest foot-eye coordination, but soccer tennis is pretty low-key, so anybody could give it a go. And then, obviously, an All-Star Game, where you get to blend some favorite players from different teams and play together.

My best event would probably be something like speed dribbling. Something agility-based, for sure.

Who's one teammate who you think is underhyped—where maybe you don't see people talking about them as much, but you watch them crush it every week in training?

I feel like our roster's built off of those players! Right now, I'd probably say Madison. I think it's really cool that she's grown into her own and become kind of the backbone of our midfield lately. It'll be really fun to just see how she continues to grow and evolve as a player. Keep your eyes on her for sure.

Here's a very LA question to wrap up: who was the first celebrity you encountered in the wild when you moved here?

It doesn't count as out in the wild, but Natalie Portman. I missed the first day because I got snowed in in New York. So I got here after that arrival day and my first interaction with pretty much everyone was at the very first day of training when she introduced the team. We had a really awkward pound/elbow tap/handshake, because it was still COVID times. I hope it was memorable, but it wasn't smooth.