Angela: Hey, everyone.
Welcome to Casual FC, an Angel City
match preview and footy therapy
podcast featuring only one podcast
certified footy therapist tonight.
I'm your host, Angela Morales, and
my co-host Mario has gone missing.
Just kidding.
Uh, he and his family went to Disney
for the weekend and for his son's
birthday, and he had no recovery
day and had to go back to work, and
they're prepping for the first day of
school tomorrow, which is Wednesday.
So I'm solo tonight.
Um, this is our match preview of our
match against the Washington Spirit
coming up on Sunday, August 17th at BMO.
Kickoff is at 6:00 PM Pacific.
The game will be streaming on ESPN and
obviously on iHeart with Isaac and Tracy.
It's also the special theme
night pa- ticket pack thing
for Disney Princess Night.
So if you're dressing up, will you
please hit us up and let us know?
Because, one, I wanna see you as a
princess, two, this is gonna be insane,
three, it's gonna be adorable, so why not?
the special ticket giveaway, if you have
not already purchased it, if you're a
season ticket holder, log in through
the link they sent you in the email to
get your little backpack keychain guy.
It's a mystery as to which one you're
gonna get, so it's gonna be, wild
trade times in the concourse, just
like it was after the pin giveaway
with, the different pl- player pins.
So good luck.
Have fun.
There will be pre-game stuff.
We will post it as it gets posted by
the team and by the supporter groups.
Make sure to pre-hydrate.
So, like, Friday, Saturday, drink
some electrolytes, drink some water.
The humidity and the heat are
gonna take a lot out of all of us.
But yeah, wear sunscreen,
all that good things per us'.
And, uh, let's get into it.
so we're gonna start off with a little bit
of a match recap of last weekend's match
against, uh, the Seattle Reign, which was
the primetime NWSL After Dark situation.
We drew 2-2, held eighth place due
to our goal differential, so all
these goals that we're racking up
are super helping us right now.
We still have two games in hand.
Our draws the last two games and
the loss against Racing are kind of,
like, making us look shakier than we
are because we're holding onto eighth
place by, like, the skin of our teeth.
There's a big, huge gap between seventh
place and eighth place point-wise, and we
are currently now tied with Seattle for
eighth place, but technically we hold it
due to our plus seven goal differential.
So yay for goals.
Let's score more of those than
the other team, and then we start
winning again, and it'll be great.
Theâ¦
This game kind of exposed our youth
and our lack of depth due to injury,
which if this continues, which
obviously, you can't just provide
experience to people, it is going to
be a common theme through the rest of
the season because injuries happen.
We've had an SCI hit the team
mid-season with Jun being out, and
it's just kind of funky right now.
So things are gonna be weird.
Lineups are gonna be changing.
Folks are gonna be coming in and
out as knocks are accumulated.
We just hope we have less of them
than other teams at this point.
Um- Fantastic, fantastic goal
by Giselle with an assist from
Ary to, like, kick off scoring.
We go up 1-0, held it for a while,
and then in the second half, bang,
bang, Seattle goes up 2-1 after a
quick goal by Sally Manty and then a
little whap from Mia Fishel, which is
so annoying because I love Big Fish.
She is so fun to watch.
Like I said last week, she was one of the
few people to hold the scoring title and
then also the first non-Mexican player
to win the scoring title in La Liga MX.
So it's bonkers, guys.
Like, she is who she is,
and this is expected of her.
I just wish it hadn't been against
our team because she assisted on the
first goal, scored the second goal,
which was her first assist in the NWSL
and her first goal in the run of play,
or second goal in the run of play.
So it's complicated, my feelings
on the score of the game.
But after subs were made in the
second half, roughly around the 63rd
minute, we saw Evelyn Shores come
in after being out for a week or two
due to injury, but so did Prisca.
She subbed in for Claire.
So this is the most amount that
Prisca w- has been able to play
for Angel City up to this point.
She came in and did what
we hoped she was gonna do.
I joked that before, you know, in the last
episode that every Zambian player has,
in my opinion, the absolute right to come
back to whatever team they're on, whatever
league they're in, and raise hell.
'Cause if it were me, I would be pissed
that my team did not qualify to go to
the knockout rounds in WAFCON for a
reason I don't understand because what
happened is there was a three-way tie
between Zambia, Malawi, and Nigeria
Instead of taking into account goal
differential and everything in the four
teams, 'cause Egypt was in their group as
well, because there was a three-way tie,
those games against Egypt no longer count.
Have big feelings about it because when
your goal differential's plus eight,
maybe just go off that, but whatever.
I'm just grateful that Malawi
is still in it because Nigeria
got knocked out already.
So the 10-time champs are no long- are
not going to be the 11-time champs.
Malawi is raising hell,
and I'm so happy for them.
The game they played against Ghana to
advance was so stressful, but so good.
I'm so happy for the Chunga sisters.
we ended up, like I said, we
ended up tying with Seattle
and held our eighth place.
So because we were the last game
of the week, we kind of knew what
was gonna happen standings wise.
But to give you a little
perspective of what happened, the
Courage beat Denver two-nothing.
Racing beat Orlando three to one.
They were sitting a lot of their
international players who had just
come back, so that makes sense.
Gotham beat San Diego one nothing.
The Courage, come the weekend game,
beat the Spirit four to three.
and then there was a draw between
Kansas City and Houston, one one.
Ali Riley was at that game.
It was very cute.
She had a Paige Nielsen
jersey on, which I love.
Just still don't love that
it's in Houston, but whatevs.
We love you, Paige.
Then Denver beat Utah two to one.
Portland and Boston played.
Portland went up three to
one, ended up scoring again.
Petra Jordan had a braceâ¦
No, ha- hat trick.
she scored so many goals.
And then Portland pulled out fourâ¦
A four-three win over the
Legacy, which was a bonkers game.
We had friends at the game.
We had people live posting
in the, in the Discord.
It was a damn good time.
The Stars and Bay FC, essentially,
as someone in the Discord said,
just looked at each other.
It was a zero-zero tie.
Both teams had goals, called back.
It was, uh, s- the most stressful draw
I've seen in a while with no score, and
then our game to cap off the weekend.
So games are weird.
Weather's been crazy.
Uh, here's hoping nobody got
hurt in the tornado, say in
Indiana, because it was bonkers.
So to move into this upcoming
weekend, there's a lot of games
that mean a lot of things.
So standings are starting to stretch
out, and the top eight teams are starting
to stretch away from the bottom eight.
We are in the cusp of losing
our spot, keeping our spot,
so we need to keep winning.
We need to keep the other teams losing.
Like, we need to make sure that we're
playing the best soccer that we can
right now because of the fact that as
we get deeper into the season, like
I said earlier, injuries come up.
teams start to really fit in
and figure their system out.
What does that even mean for us?
Because at this point in the season,
nobody really knows what's going on.
we'reâ¦
Our bench is really light.
We don't know if there's other team or
other players coming in, and the hard
part with that is it's easy to assume
that there were probably deals in the
making, and when the coaching change
occurred If I'm a player that was signing
a team, or signing to a team with a
specific coach and part of the reason
I was going was because of the coach,
when a coach leaves, so do I, and I
look for opportunities elsewhere because
that becomes an unreliable situation.
And that's fine, but it sucks when
it's my team, and that's kind of
where I stand on the situation.
I think this season got derailed by injury
and then decisions were made due to the,
results of said injuries, like the get,
end game results and the repercussions of
what happens when people get injured, and
that's a bummer because I think the season
would've gone a little bit differently
otherwise, signings-wise, all of that.
But all that to say, there's
still a lot to look forward to.
There's still a lot of really good
soccer that's gonna be played, and
I get to talk about how interesting
the Washington Spirit and Angel City
matchup this weekend is gonna be.
So I mentioned it a little bit earlier
as well, there's a lot of players coming
back from WAFCON, a lot of Spirit players.
I think they had the most.
They had, like, six or seven players
in the tournament slowly coming back,
and a few of the Nigerian players will
be back, and I'm nervous because if I'm
Nigeria, the same thing I said about,
Zambia last week, I'm saying about
Nigeria this week, I'm pissed that we
lost and I'm pissed and I'm gonna take
it out on everybody else because that's
what you do when you're mad in sports is
that you take it out on your opponent.
So when you have players coming back
that are honestly like not necessarily
looking for revenge or vengeance, but
needing to take that frustration of
not advancing out on another, on like
another team, like you don't advance to
the next round, you're going to be upset.
I am a very, very competitive person.
I don't really talk about it as much
as I would like to, partially because
it's crazy and I understand the driving
force behind becoming an athlete and
becoming an elite athlete because I like
winning, but I like making other people
lose more, which is scary sometimes, and
that's what drives me after a, a loss
or a setback or something like that.
It's like, "Ugh, they shouldn't have won.
I shouldn'tâ¦
I should have won, so next
game, how do I prevent that?
Like, how do I prevent losing again?
how do I win?"
and I think that's gonna be a lot
of what's happening with Spirit
players that are coming back from the
tournament, as well as other players
across the league, but specifically
because the Spirit have so many
international players, we're gonna be
seeing that a lot the next couple weeks.
the Spirit are a really, really good team.
They play hard.
They're a physical team.
They're an experienced team, and
it's a team that knows how to win.
They're always big contenders.
We joke about the Michelle Kang,
like unlimited bankroll, but with
investment comes opportunity.
There is a different level of
good that can come out of a team.
And it means that you're given
better options, better opportunities
because players are willing to go.
Like, we joke that Gotham has
unlimited bankroll, but it's also
because players want to play with
this team, with that front office
because of how things are run.
And when that's attractive, you're going
to get higher quality players always,
always, always, regardless of sport.
My biggest critique of the Spirit
as a whole isn't that I think
they're a great team or not, or
specific players or whatever.
It's that they play emotional soccer
and not "Oh, they're so dramatic,"
or that kind of thing, but they play
with so much emotion that sometimes
it's a hindrance when they're trying
to win in critical moments because
other teams get more clinical.
And I said this during the finals
last year when they met with Gotham.
Gotham plays with emotion, and yet
they're very clinical, but theyâ¦
It's not that it's without
passion or without a drive.
They lock in and they channel
that emotion, whereas Spirit have
historically played loudly emotional.
Like, you see players get frustrated.
You see them, not acting out because
I don't, I don't mean it negatively
because I don't think it is a negative.
It's just how you channel it.
It's veryâ¦
There's like a flamboyance almost and, and
a outward expression of their emotions.
They don't keep it as contained,
which again, it's not a bad thing.
It's just different.
And I think that's where they are
taken advantage of by teams that
can, like, lock in and get more
clinical because of the fact that
you can then play into the emotions.
Like a, a key example of this
is when U-- Team USA, women's
national team, is playing Brazil.
Everything is going off the rails.
There's a million cards.
There's red cards.
There's like a fight after the game.
It was bonkers.
But it's the worst call ever, but
Sonnett kind of like bumps into
one of the Brazilian players.
I don't remember if it was Bia or someone
else, but like, they just kind of go bonk.
It's nothing serious.
They're, like, standing, and Sonnett just
kind of goes, "Uh," like takes a knee
like, "Oh, no," and gets the card called
on the Brazilian player because she's
playing to what the refs are calling.
And do I agree with it?
Not necessarily, but I understand
the strategy behind it, and
it's that kind of thing.
You're watching a team get so in their
heads and so frustrated with the situation
that the emotions are just pouring
out, and the other team says, "Oh, bet.
I'll play into that."
And then they get another yellow.
They get a red card.
Like, it adds up to that, and it builds
and builds until it kind of blows
up in the team's face and backfires,
and that is like what happened in
the finals in San Jose last year.
And with the Spirit, I'm always curious
which version of them is gonna come out.
With that said, there are
fantastic players on this team.
There are so many to talk about.
Itâ¦
I had to ask friends, like,
"Who do I talk about?"
'Cause Trin is obviously the answer.
Hal is always an answer for me
because I love Hal Hershfelt.
But I wanted to talk about players
that don't necessarily get the
attention that I think they deserve.
The first one is Rebeca Bernal who
is is a player, from Mexico, plays
for the national team there, has
65 caps for Mexico, has scored, I
think, six or seven goals for the
national team at the senior level.
For the Spirit, she wears number four.
She's a defensive midfielder,
sometimes the center back, kind
of depending on what's going on.
But prior to coming to the league
in last season, she played in
Monterrey from 2017 to 2025, so
eight seasons' worth of soccer, and
she scored 66 goals across 274 caps.
She's the kind of defender that I love to
hate when they're not on my team because
she scores when you don't expect it.
She's somebody who is very
aware of where the ball is.
She is incredibly precise.
She's so fun to watch because she just is,
like, a steady defender and then all of a
sudden it's like bam, she scores on you,
which is fantastic, but not when they're
against your team, as here we are per us'.
Um, the other player is
Sofia Cantore from Italy.
She's number seven.
She's a forward.
Prior to coming to the NWSL and
becoming the very first Italian
player in the league, she played for
Juventus from, again, 2017 to 2025.
So we have, like, eight-year stints
with our prior clubs coming into
the Spirit who are on an upswing.
she had been loaned out her
last couple seasons there.
She had injuries.
Like, there was just, like, funky
stuff where just moving around,
so she was looking to move.
Um, but she scored 22 goals for
Juventus before leaving the team and
before breaking a bone in her leg.
Like, a whole bunch of stuff
happened there, but she had a
prolific career to say the least.
In 12 appearances last season to
now, she scored four goals for
the Spirit and they're not just
like, "Oh yeah, she scored."
It's a banger every damn time
and it's to win the game.
Like, she's a game winner.
She knows when to show up in big moments.
And now, like I said, she's the
first Italian player in the league.
She's on a three-year contract
and I don't want her to score.
I don't want her to score against us
because obviously, but I don't want to
see another banger scored against my
team because it just is not my favorite.
for the Italian national team, she got
called up to the U17, U19, and then
this, her senior call-up was in 2020.
She has 37 caps overall, five goals,
and her last big major call-up was
for the Euros last year in 2025.
She's so fun to watch.
She is always a threat when she's on the
ball, so she's gonna give our defense a
run for their money, and I'm just really
curious how this is gonna go because we
match up really well against the Spirit.
To jump ahead a little bit, I know we
normally feature the history between
the teams kind of towards the end, but
More and more this season I feel like
I just keep saying like, "Oh, our, our
records against them are, like, fine."
It doesn't necessarily feel like it
emotionally, but we have three wins,
a draw, and four losses against the
Spirit, which has been the same record
or very similar with five or six other
teams coming into our games against them.
So we don't have necessarily the
best record against them, but
it's definitely not the worst.
I'd rather be a 500 club against a team
than forever losing against a specific
team for no real understood reason.
but yeah, I'm just really concerned
mostly for the health of our team.
I want our players to be healthy.
I think everybody does.
I wish we could put some people on, like,
a fast-forward, but that's not realistic.
So it'll be really curious to see,
one, our lineup coming into this week,
and two, how this team adjusts to the
health, the audacity, and the energy
that the Spirit have because they,
like I said, they play hard, they play
fast, they play fun-to-watch soccer.
And, like, so does Angel City,
but some of those fun-to-watch
players are hurt at the moment.
But you know who isn't?
And you know who I haven't talked
about too much this episode yet?
My girl Prisca.
I know everybody's probably so tired of
me talking about how much I love Prisca,
but here we are, and she just came back
from a fantastic appearance at WAFCON.
She scored in our last game.
Why not?
Why not talk about the Prisca
Chilufya, our Zambian Copper
Queen, who is just so freaking fun.
She has, probably top 10
best smile in the league.
She's so kind.
She's so lovely.
she's number 24.
She's a forward.
In my opinion, in many people's
opinions, if we rewind to our footy
therapy concept, more Prisca is the
general vibe, I think from everyone.
Like, we've been itching.
We get these little glimpse at
like the 83rd minute, 85th minute.
That's not enough time for us to enjoy how
good Prisca is, and it's been really nice.
Like, even in his haiku, Ethan said,
"Giselle Bergen, while Prisca needs more
minutes, team needs more synchrones,"
which yeah, Prisca needs more minutes.
She came in in the 63rd minute last
game and was explosive, exactly
what we needed in that moment.
Very curious to see if she
gets to start this week.
But everyone, loves Prisca,
duh, but I would love to see her
get more than 20, 25 minutes.
We saw her playing
60-some minutes at WAFCON.
Granted, like, travel time,
you kinda gotta work up to
it, but more of that, please.
More of that.
overall, footie therapy was mostly how
much we love Prisca and then handshake
gate, which if you know, you know.
I don't think it's worth rehashing,
but maybe just high five next time.
But back to Prisca and
how wonderful she is.
So for those of you who don't know,
before she came into the NWSL, she
played for a Zambian team, like, in
their league in Zambia, the Red Arrows.
She played there for a few seasons.
She was loaned/signed/traded, it's kind
of unclear based on the information I
could see or I could find, to a team in
Kazakhstan, where she played with Racheal
Kundananji, who I also love, love, love.
But she played there, uh, with two
different teams before returning
to the Red Arrows, where upon her
return, had 10 goals in 16 games.
So given the opportunity, she is a
scoring machine, so we should give her
more opportunities to score more goals
because we need that in order to win.
After her time with the Red Arrows,
she jumped to Türkiye, where she
played for, a season, and then from
there signed with FC Juárez in 2023.
So she literally was Africa, Kazakhstan,
Turkey, Mexico, Orlando, where she
signed in 2024 and signed a three-year
contract, where then we traded
for her last season to come to LA.
So wild road to get her to us, but
hopefully, hopefully, hopefully
she stays here for a long time.
We collectively all love her, and I'm so
excited to see her play more valuable,
good minutes and to get a better feel
for the league because as we've said for
years on this show, you can always get
better at training, but you don't getâ¦
If you don't, if you're not getting
in-game minutes, it's a weird kind
of like, "Okay, well, I know how to
play soccer, but can I play against
other people besides my team?"
So fingers crossed for more
Prisca minutes in game.
She, like, obviously she was at WAFCON.
She's been in the national team
conversation for Zambia for a few years.
it's been a bumpy road due to massive,
massive, sexist bullshit that happens
in certain other countries, with bigger
organizations like the Olympics and
FIFA- There are, quote-unquote, "gender
elig- eligibility rules" that are based
in, gene testing and hormone levels, but
both of those tests are based in racism
and Eurocentric body standards, which
that is a whole different episode, a
whole reason for my rant last season.
I can talk about them at length because
it also greatly impacts track and field
athletes who I love and who have been
subjected to this for years and years
and years, and I think it is incredibly,
incredibly awful because not only does
it hamper a specific person, it hampers
teams, it hampers the development and
support of the game, and it makes this
whole weird thing because, thisâ¦
The, the reasons that different women
are kept out of international tournaments
is because of antiquated information,
sexist rules, weird gender testing that
doesn't actually prove anything other
than, like, oh, you might have a slightly
different genetic makeup because there
are dozens of different XY combinations
that can occur that are wildly normal,
but people don't really wanna admit that.
So that's another conversation for, uh,
not right now because it's complicated and
nuanced, and I don't think a lot of people
have it in good faith, unfortunately.
I think a lot of people use these
conversations to ostracize people
when it's not necessary and really
dumb because it's not that serious.
So yeah, I think Prisca deserves
more time on the national team and in
big tournaments, but unfortunately,
we are living in a version of a
world that's not allowing that, and
it's terrible because she's not the
only player that this is impacting.
So yeah, I love my girl
Prisca down, obviously.
like I said, she scored for us last
week, played the highest amount of
minutes she has for us in Juárez,
when she was playing there, she had
14 goals and she scored three goals
so far in the NWSL, two with Orlando
and her first one with us last week.
Nope, second one with us last week,
so she has four goals in the NWSL.
I need to update everything.
But overall, I'm super pumped for this
weekend, super excited to see everybody.
I have a surprise for somebody that
I'm very excited about because it's
trading cards and it's always fun
to give people little surprises
when they show up at games.
So I hope to see you at BMO on Sunday.
yeah, hit me up if you'll want to
say hi, if you need podcast stickers.
I still have San Andreas Cup stickers.
I have all the things, so let me know
and I'll likely see you either pre-game
or halftime when if I get press access.
So we'll see you then.
If you've made it this far, do
us a favor and subscribe to the
show wherever you are listening.
You can check out casualfc.com
for all the podcast links, all the
social media links, everything.
We're also on YouTube.
That's on there too.
So come find us wherever you got us.
Join the Discord.
We've had a couple new people find us
through me jumping into people's comments
on threads and be like, "Yo, come hang."
It's a good time, so welcome to the club.
Tell your friends.
We just wanna have a good time
and talk about women's footy.
So yeah, we're here for everybody.
The best ways to support the pod are to
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The more engagement, the better.
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And my favorite, favorite thing
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need it, always, always, always.
So tell a friend about the pod.
Tell them to tell a friend.
Keep going.
And yeah, have a good one everybody.
See you Sunday.
Bye.