Becki Tweed stepped in as interim coach last season and led Angel City Football Club to a playoff berth, the first in the team’s brief history.
Her first full season will end Friday night as Angel City visits the Portland Thorns. It has been one of learning.
“I honestly think I have to spend some more time and use this offseason to really reflect,” she said Thursday. “The things the spring to mind are this league is about detail, about discipline and it’s about the one percent moments.
“When I look reflect back and I’ve already started the deep dive into the goals that we conceded and the goals that we scored and why that’s happening and when they’re happening. Those things are really, really important and I think being able to build those things into training and being able to make training harder than the game is something that’s really important. I think as a coach, you strive to put on training sessions that you walk away from and everybody says training was so great and actually when you get to the game, that isn’t what the game looks like.”
Angel City (7-12-6, 24 points) will miss out on the playoffs for the second of their three seasons. There could be a roster overhaul coming with nine players becoming unrestricted free agents after this season, including Christen Press, Claire Emslie and starting goalkeeper DiDi Haracic.
Forward Messiah Bright, who arrived in an offseason trade with the Orlando Pride, sees a bright future.
“This was definitely a growth season, not only for myself, but for my teammates as well,” she said. “I think that every team has their hiccups and we are a really young group. It wasn’t the season that we were looking forward to, but that just comes with the growth of things.
“We’re just super excited to still be a unit and go through the phase of playing for each other, knowing and learning ourselves and who we are as far as our identity. We’ll be ready to come back stronger next season.”
This will be first offseason under control of new majority owners Willow Bay and Bob Iger. There is no college draft to build out a roster this season and president Julie Uhrman and general manager Angela Hucles Mangano are currently suspended by the NWSL due to the salary cap violation.
Tweed has pointed to the success and development of the Pride as a target. Orlando won the NWSL Shield as the top team in the regular season after missing the playoffs the past three seasons.
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“When I think about the second half of last year, we got into the playoffs and we put ourselves in a brilliant position, but we just got by every game,” Tweed said. “It was how do we win the game, how do we get the three points and how do we survive and for this club to build a style and identity that sustainable for the future? You do have to focus on yourself and your identity.
“There are going to be times that the identity and style are really hard to play against another team, but you have to stay true to it and find solutions as a coaching staff and as players, without coming away from your identity too much.”
ANGEL CITY FC at PORTLAND THORNS
When: Friday, 7 p.m.
Where: Providence Park, Portland, Ore.
How to watch: Prime Video