Expand<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nLOS ANGELES \u2014 The wild \u201cNWSL After Dark\u201d moments didn\u2019t have anything on Angel City FC before sunset in Saturday\u2019s meeting with the Utah Royals.<\/p>\n
In one of the wildest and chaotic games in its short history, Angel City (3-3, 11 points) ended up on the wrong end of two video review decisions, both would have given the club a penalty attempt, saw a player sent off with a red card, and in the end, it all added up to a third consecutive defeat.<\/p>\n
Utah Royals\u2019 Clo\u00e9 Lacasse\u2019s first-half goal stood up as the difference-maker, handing Angel City a 1-0 defeat at BMO Stadium. The win was the fourth consecutive for the Royals (4-2-1, 13 points).<\/p>\n
The game took a turn in the first half, even after Utah\u2019s opening goal. Angel City midfielder Maiara Niehues was issued a red card for violent conduct after a swing of her elbow toward a Utah player, just before halftime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happens probably two meters in front of me,\u201d Angel City coach Alex Straus said of Niehues\u2019 incident. \u201cSo I have the best view in our stadium. \u2026 I\u2019m not going to say anything more about it. It changed the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second half, with 10 players, Angel City went into a \u201ctactics-free zone\u201d early, pushing from all angles. The first video review decision came in the 65th minute. Ary Borges attempted to play a ball inside the penalty area, but she collided with a Utah defender. Referee Lauren Aldrich was called over the video review, and after a long review, it was determined that Borges had initiated the foul.<\/p>\n
Later, Prisca Chilufya was knocked down at the edge of the penalty area by another Utah defender and Aldrich didn\u2019t hesitate in pointing to the penalty spot. However, after another trip to the video monitor, she ruled that Kate Del Fava didn\u2019t commit a foul.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we come out in the first half like we did in the second, we win that game,\u201d Angel City defender Emily Sams said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that we can learn from that we don\u2019t have to wait until we\u2019re without a player.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goals that we\u2019re conceding, we\u2019re doing it ourselves. I think that\u2019s a big talking point. We haven\u2019t had a game where a team has really broken us down and obviously outplayed us, so I think we just really need to continue to be switched on in our moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The end result for the lengthy video reviews was an 11-minute second-half stoppage time period.<\/p>\n
It was all looking smooth for Angel City before the international break. Angel City won its first three games of the season, suffering its first loss before the break against the Orlando Pride.<\/p>\n
The lone loss, probably should have been at least a draw, but the Orlando Pride scored in the eighth minute of stoppage time.<\/p>\n
Since returning from the break, Angel City has suffered losses to the Portland Thorns and now the Royals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said the same thing when we were winning three games (in a row) and everybody lost their mind and said how great we were,\u201d Straus said. \u201cWe tried to keep everybody down, grounded. \u2026 We\u2019re not terrible now. \u2026 We should have won (tonight), we should have won against Portland (last Sunday), if you look at all the stats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a big problem with Angel City last year and it\u2019s a big problem the year before and the year before is to make these games draws or make these games three points.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angel City will conclude its string of three consecutive home games Saturday against San Diego Wave FC. After Saturday, Angel city will have four games remaining before the NWSL pauses for the FIFA World Cup, returning in early July.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.dailynews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angel City FC forward Sveind\u00eds J\u00f3nsd\u00f3ttir (32) chases the ball against Utah Royals defender Kate del Fava during the first half of an NWSL match at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, on Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Raul Romero Jr., Contributing Photographer) Angel City FC midfielder Evelyn Shores (15) moves the ball against the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2400570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[468704,22443,21848],"class_list":["post-2400569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-angel-city-football-club","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Angel-City-Football-defeated-by-Utah-Royals-for-third-consecutive-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2400569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2400571,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400569\/revisions\/2400571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2400570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2400569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2400569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2400569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}