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KC Current

Angel City at KC Current, Match Preview

Published

4 weeks ago

on

Thad Bell

Friday night the Kansas City Current will welcome Angel City FC to CPKC Stadium for the final match before a six-week international break. And in many ways, it is a soccer game like any of the twelve that have preceded it this season. One team will win, or it could end tied (though KC has yet to draw any matches this year), and the points earned or dropped in this match will help or hurt each team’s standing.

However, sometimes events like this feel like more than just a game. This Thursday is Juneteenth and the Current are celebrating the holiday during their match Friday. Just like last weekend’s Pride Night, the significance of Juneteenth will likely be felt by many of the players, staff, and fans at this game.

A year ago, the Current commemorated Juneteenth by wearing special warmup tops.

It is also not insignificant that the team lining up against KC this week is the one that hails from Los Angeles. They sported their own special warmups last time out to stand in solidarity with groups of marginalized individuals, especially those in southern California.

There are an increasing number of forces that function to divide people, but sports can still be a unifier. Each fan that attends or tunes in to this game will likely have a rooting interest, but beyond that, hopefully each fan will appreciate the skill on display by some of the world’s best athletes and can walk away feeling lifted up by her/his/their connection to The Beautiful Game.

ACFC enters this match on a bit of a slide. They have gone four matches without a win (three losses and a draw) and have slipped to 10th place in the league standings.

Week 12 brought some changes to the standings, where is your team at?! 🤫 @carmax.com | #RoadToTheShield

— NWSL (@nwslsoccer.com) 2025-06-16T15:46:34.401Z

Their 15 points are exactly half of Kansas City’s 30. They were thought to be one of the stronger sides in the league and began the season undefeated through four matches. But they’ve only won twice in the next eight, most recently beating the last place Utah Royals back on May 9th.

Led by star rookie Riley Tiernan and the Thompson sisters, Alyssa and Gisele, along with veterans like Christen Press and Sydney Leroux, Angel City have managed to score 20 goals through 12 games. However, they have also conceded 23 times in that same span, leading to a -3 goal differential. (By comparison, KC has scored 28, allowed 10, and has a +18 goal differential.) Needless to say, this wasn’t the way the team hoped the front half of the season would play out. Back in December, Angel City fired former head coach Becki Tweed and has played much of this season with an interim coach, Sam Laity. On June 1, former Bayern Munich coach Alexander Straus took over the reins but has stumbled out of the gate, with a loss and a draw during his first two games in charge.

The Angelinos travel to the Midwest to face the hottest team in the league. The Current have already achieved two winning streaks of five matches in a season that is only twelve games old. In one of the best seasons in league history, Orlando finished 2024 with 60 points. Not even halfway through the season, KC is already on 30 this year. With even one goal on Friday, the Current will be on pace to break their own goal scoring record from last season of 57. (For the curious, the Current have never been shutout at CPKC Stadium.)

In ESPN’s weekly NWSL rankings, they wrote about first place KC, “When the Kansas City Current are firing on all cylinders, there’s no stopping them.” That tends to be especially true during the first halves of matches this season, during which 20 of their 28 goals have been scored. Last time out, they scored thrice within the first 19 minutes. Two weeks ago, they had a brace within the game’s first 11 minutes.

That frenetic pace out of the gate has proven unsustainable, though, and in many matches this season, the Current have allowed the opposition to creep closer late. That hasn’t hurt them too often, but of the ten goals KC has conceded, all but one have been in the second half. In fact, 40% of the goals KC has allowed have come in the 88th minute or later. Again, this pattern really only hurt the team in North Carolina, when the Courage scored three second half goals, including in the 90th and 92nd minutes to steal the victory from KC.

Additionally, a majority of the goals the Teal have given up have come via set pieces. Coach Andonovski is well aware of both of these tendencies and promises the team is working to shore up the defense late and on corner kicks, etc. In a glass half full take, he said that learning to defend set pieces is something they should be able to fix; that it would be harder to fix leaking goals from the run of play. (He suggested they’ve only allowed three run-of-play goals.)

What this all means is that the Current’s most recent result, a 4-2 win over Racing Louisville, has the look of a “typical” KC fixture. Michelle Cooper and Temwa Chawinga forced an own goal in the 2nd minute, Hailie Mace fed Cooper for a goal in the 15th minute, Vanessa DiBernardo assisted Bia Zaneratto in the 19th minute. Louisville then, eventually, cut the deficit to one in the 88th minute when an unforced error gifted Racing a corner kick that they promptly headed home. This led to a nervy few minutes before Chawinga put the game to bed in the 95th minute, and all of KC could breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate along with the team.

Will this be similar to how Friday’s game unfolds? Who knows…but–don’t be surprised if the Current snag an early lead and then Angel City makes it closer than necessary late (off a set piece).

WHEN: Friday, June 20 at 7:00 PM (Central Time)

WHERE: CPKC Stadium, Kansas City, MO

HOW TO WATCH: Prime Video

Record:

KC Current: 10-0-2 (30 points, 1st place)

Angel City FC: 4-3-5 (15 points, 10th place)

Last Match:

KC Current: 4-2 home win versus Racing Louisville

Angel City FC: 1-2 home loss to North Carolina Courage

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