Angel City Co-founder Tired Of Waiting For Success: 'it's Time To Win'

When Julie Uhrman and a fledgling ownership group that would quickly turn to much than 100 announced plans to commencement a women’s shot nine successful nan summertime of 2020, nan extremity was to build thing unsocial and different.

And successful that she was wildly successful: 4 years aft its founding, Angel City became nan astir valuable squad successful nan history of women’s master sports while funneling millions of dollars to organization programs passim Southern California.

What nan squad hasn’t done is win. And that, Uhrman said, has to change.

“It’s clip to win,” said Uhrman, who this period is stepping down arsenic nan team’s main executive to return a caller domiciled arsenic main advisor. “We’re successful L.A. We unrecorded successful a metropolis of champions and we want to beryllium connected nan aforesaid mantle arsenic them. It’s a process but we person nan correct squad successful place, connected and disconnected nan pitch, to execute that.”

Angel City will kick disconnected its 5th season Sunday astatine BMO Stadium against nan Chicago Stars. Over its erstwhile 4 seasons, Angel City mislaid 12 much games than it won, vanished pinch a winning grounds only erstwhile and made conscionable 1 playoff appearance. And it has utilized 4 coaches, 3 sporting board and much than 70 players successful its hunt for success.

So this twelvemonth sporting head Mark Parsons and coach Alexander Straus decided to effort a caller approach.

“We needed to rip it up and commencement again,” Straus said.

As a result, much than half nan players connected nan opening time roster weren’t pinch Angel City astatine nan commencement of past season. And 9 women who started astatine slightest a half-dozen games past play aren’t location this year.

“This is Angel City 2.0,” Parsons said. “We’ve gone done a immense magnitude of unit change. We’ve gone done a immense magnitude of roster change. And January 2026 has go Year 1.

“Year 5 is Year 1 of building what we judge is simply a sporting statement that tin get to nan apical and enactment astatine nan top.”

That’s astir apt not what nan team’s long-suffering fans wanted to hear. They wanted to perceive that this is nan twelvemonth Angel City wins a trophy. But aft watching his squad decorativeness 11th successful nan 14-team NWSL successful 2025, Parsons said that’s not realistic.

“You don’t spell from 11th to being a top-four team. I deliberation you travel from 11th and you go a playoff squad ,” said Parsons who, arsenic a manager, took a Portland Thorns squad pinch a losing grounds to an NWSL Shield and a convention title successful his first 2 seasons. “Last twelvemonth was a reliable year. Now we’re successful a amended place. So we’re still connected nan journey.”

Angel City coach Alexander Straus watches complete a believe convention astatine nan team’s training installation successful Thousand Oaks successful February.

(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

So is nan league. With nan summation of description franchises successful Denver and Boston, nan NWSL entered its 14th play Friday pinch a grounds 16 teams, meaning each nine will play a grounds 30 games. The apical 8 finishers successful nan array will make nan playoffs.

For Angel City, nan makeover to 2.0 really launched astir six months earlier Parsons arrived erstwhile Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, dean of nan USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, became controlling owners of nan nine and committed $50 cardinal to improving it. Part of that finance paid for nan acquisition and renewal of a sprawling state-of-the-art training halfway astatine Cal Lutheran University and portion of it allowed Parsons to travel successful and tear things up.

When he took complete arsenic sporting head past winter, Parsons quickly group astir overhauling nan roster, leaving Angel City pinch 1 of nan youngest teams successful nan NWSL, averaging 25 years of age, this season. Two players are still successful their teens and 8 others person yet to move 23.

A twelvemonth ago, 8 players connected nan roster were 32 aliases older.

Among nan cardinal offseason additions are defender Emily Sams, an Olympic champion pinch nan U.S. nationalist team, and midfielder Ary Borges, a Brazilian international. They will subordinate a halfway that includes Japanese midfielder Hina Sugita and Zambian striker Prisca Chilufya, who joined nan squad astatine nan extremity of past season.

Of nan four, only Sugita, a two-time World Cup veteran, is older than 26.

“We’re getting person to competing for trophies,” Parsons said. “But making [the] playoffs correct now is simply a logical adjacent step. This twelvemonth is astir showing that we’re going successful nan correct direction. But we can’t jump from 11th to one. Those days are over.

“We person overachieved nan past 12 months successful building a sporting organization, staffing departments and [constructing a] roster. There’s going to beryllium ups and downs this year, for illustration location is each year.”

Goalkeeper Angelina Anderson, entering her 4th play pinch Angel City, making her 1 of nan team’s longest-tenured players, believes successful Parsons’ deliberate attack and is assured nan squad is astir to move nan corner.

“Having that methodical attack is really smart and it gives america benignant of an overview of like, we want to triumph nan championship, we consciousness for illustration we’re successful a really bully spot, but location are daily, monthly, season-long challenges that we’re going to person to flooded if that’s wherever we want to get to,” said Anderson, 1 of 3 squad captains. “It’s really a very smart measurement for each of america to negociate our expectations.”

Uhrman agrees excessively but being realistic is hard. When she helped motorboat Angel City, it was pinch nan imagination of building a winning squad and astir six years later, she’s still waiting for that imagination to beryllium released.

“Our aspiration is to triumph nan championship. Our extremity is to make nan playoffs,” she said. “And we consciousness very comfortable that we tin do that. It is simply a process. We’re realistic astir wherever we are successful nan process and what we request to do to create and grow.

“Believing successful nan truth that it’s a process is comforting because we are being realistic astir what we are. But that doesn’t alteration what we want to accomplish.”