With almost two months of training in the books, Angel City's preseason preparations took a new shape this week as the team's focus turned to tonight's friendly against Club América.
The team has played three scrimmages already—against California Lutheran University, USC, and the Inter Miami academy—but this will be their first test against another professional team that's in the middle of their own season.
Where the focus in previous games was on assessing and learning, the goal for tonight is simple: win.
'It doesn't feel like going into a preseason game,' said Assistant Coach Becki Tweed after training Tuesday. 'I think obviously playing in the stadium and having the fans out there for the first time this year, that makes a big difference, too. It feels like a game for sure.'
The team has treated the week since returning from Florida more or less like a typical regular-season game week. It's a chance for the group to get a feel for 'a cycle that looks like the season. So what does game day minus four, three, two, look like?' she explained. 'We got back on Wednesday and had a couple of days off Thursday and Friday, and came back in on Saturday to prepare for the Club América game.'
The Florida camp was a great opportunity, Tweed said, for the group to put their heads together and take a deep look at how their preparation for the season is progressing. 'There were no moments to hide while we were in camp,' she said. 'You got to speak about it. You got to think about what went wrong, what went right, what was great this week.'
'Then when you come back, you can review it and think about it,' she continued. 'Now there's a chance to implement that into this week and how we're going to look for the rest of the season.'
In contrast with the early weeks of preseason, where the focus was on broad questions of team identity, now that the group has some game experience under their belts, they're able to drill down to things like specific game situations and set pieces. 'This week has been more about, 'okay, we've gone through those [game] moments, how do we now continue to push on the details?'' Tweed said.
At this point, the coaching staff is focused on assessing the gap between the way they want the team to play and how they've looked in scrimmages so far. 'We're really using film to dig into, 'do we look like what we want to be?''
In the broadest terms, defining a style of play involves deciding what the team will look like in possession and out of possession. For Angel City, said Tweed, the goal in possession is to be 'comfortable on the ball, and to really value the ball and enjoy possession.' They also aim to be effective at what she calls 'simple problem solving'—playing out of pressure and breaking defensive lines using effective movement and passing.
'Out of possession,' she continued, 'we want to be relentless, gritty, hard working. It's a game that we want to make enjoyable, but enjoyable is when you get to those pieces that are hard to solve and you feel like there's a resolution that you can come up with.'
Tonight's game is the team's first chance to prepare for a specific opponent ahead of time. 'Now we have an opposition,' said Tweed. 'How do we continue to be us, but take on board what the opposition is going to look like? This week's really the first week that hasn't been all about us. It's been about, how can we grow as who we are, but really look towards how we're going to win this game.'
That involves looking at the scouting report and asking, 'what do the other team look like, what are they going to give us and, how are we going to break that down?' she explained. 'What are they going to cause us problems with, and how are we going to stop that?'
'Ultimately, winning is is why we're all here, right?' Tweed concluded. 'It's important. Everything we do in training, everything we do, has to have a winner somewhere—the daily environment is competitive. But now, it's about how we can focus as a group together to win.'
