Angel City FC 'mentality' a talking point following late loss at home

First-minute and last-minute goals send Angel City FC to 3rd defeat in last 4 matches.

(Photo credit: Jon Endow-Imagn Images)

LOS ANGELES -- It was only his second match on the sideline for Angel City FC, but Alex Straus has already put his foot down.

“I’m not here to coach. Let’s make that really, really clear,” Straus said after his squad fell 2-1 on a 95th-minute goal from North Carolina Courage substitute Brianna Pinto.

But it wasn’t the last-second defeat that vexed him. Rather, it was the first-minute goal his team gave up, falling behind just 40 seconds into Saturday’s match in front of a raucous home crowd.

“People switching on from the start, I’m not that coach. I’ve tried to give them solutions, I’ve tried to help them build an identity,” Straus told reporters. “The other things, why we’ve let in a goal after 10 seconds today, we need to take responsibility for and we need to be accountable for. From there on, I might be wrong, but for the next 25-30 minutes, we were really good. We scored a fantastic goal again.”

The equalizer came in the 11th minute, a header from forward Riley Tiernan that slotted home to send the masses into bedlam. It was Tiernan’s team-leading 7th goal.

Straus—who has come over to Angel City FC after spending the last few seasons with Frauen-Bundesliga powerhouse Bayern Munich, a side that won three straight league titles with him at the helm—is certainly an intense manager, one who commands the room when speaking. That was apparent after Saturday’s loss.

“I’m a big, big believer in habits. At the moment, we have too many bad habits,” the 49-year-old Norwegian said. “It’s a big, big job that we need to do already in July.”

The defeat places Angel City FC in a tie for 8th in the NWSL standings, but the tiebreakers drop them to 10th, out of a potential playoff spot.