Match Preview: Angel City at North Carolina Courage | 10.12.24

Saturday, October 12, at 4:30 p.m. Pacific, Angel City is on the road against the North Carolina Courage. The match will stream live on ION. An English-language radio broadcast will be available on iHeart.

Matchup

Angel City’s last game was a 1–0 win on the road against Seattle Reign FC on Friday, October 4. Defender M.A. Vignola scored the game’s single goal in the 34th minute.

North Carolina’s most recent result was a 2–1 win at home against the San Diego Wave on Saturday, October 5. Forwards Manaka Matsukubo and Aline Gomes both scored for the Courage.

Angel City last faced North Carolina at home on April 21, a meeting that ended in a 2–1 win. ACFC is 3–1–1 (W–L–D) all-time against the Courage.

North Carolina are currently in fifth place in the league with a 12–9–2 record; Angel City have a 7–12–4 record but sit in 11th place with 22 points due to a three-point deduction the club received for a salary cap infraction.

ACFC are still in the playoff race and cannot be eliminated with a win in North Carolina. A draw or a loss could knock them out of contention, depending on how Portland, Bay, and Louisville—all ahead of LA in the standings—fare this weekend.

Scouting Report

Since these two teams last met, there’s been one important change for North Carolina: forward Kerolin, the team’s leading scorer and league MVP in 2023, has returned following an ACL tear she suffered late last season. The Brazil international has one goal in her 128 minutes back on the pitch, having scored in her team’s 3–1 win against Chicago on September 29.

In Kerolin’s absence, the Courage hadn’t been leaning heavily on any single player production-wise, but have nonetheless found plenty of ways to score; forward Ashley Sanchez is the team’s top scorer, with five on the season, but an impressive 17 different players have gotten on the board, with ten of them having notched just a single goal. 

Sanchez has also shown her value as a creator, having assisted on four of North Carolina’s goals as well as tallying 37 chances created, the ninth-most league-wide.

For the Record Books

With her assist on M.A. Vignola’s goal last week, forward Alyssa Thompson jumped four players to move into second place in the league for most assists on the season, with seven. Only Washington’s Croix Bethune, who recorded 10 before she was ruled out for the rest of the season due to injury, has more; 10 also happens to be a tie for the all-time single-season record, set by Portland’s Tobin Heath in 2016.

On the opposite end of the pitch, defender Madison Curry leads the team in tackles by a wide margin, with 42. That puts her in a three-way tie with Houston’s Sophie Schmidt and North Carolina’s Narumi Miura for third-most tackles in the league. The Courage have one other player, Ryan Williams, in the top three for tackles, with 50 on the season.