Angel City FC resumes its season Sunday at home against the Portland Thorns, returning from an extended international break with a chance to steady a strong start. The match is the first of three straight games at BMO Stadium and begins a heavy stretch that will shape the club’s next month.
Angel City started the week in fourth place in the NWSL with nine points from four games, matching the point total it had through the same number of matches in the inaugural 2022 season. The club won its first three games before falling 2-1 to the Orlando Pride on April 3, its first loss of the year. Ary Borges said the group feels like the season is about to begin for real now, with a run of seven games before the World Cup break and five of those at home.
Coach Alex Straus said the team saw both promising stretches and sloppy ones in the early run and warned against getting carried away after wins or losses. He said Angel City needs to stay on its path, keep working on what needs work and treat this as a new beginning and the next chapter in the club’s history. Sunday’s game against Portland is the first test in that next chapter, and it arrives at a time when the schedule leaves little room to reset.
The return of Jun Endo could give Angel City another option. Endo came back last season and made six appearances after missing the 2024 season with an ACL injury, but she has not made her season debut this year after a setback in training camp. Straus said she will probably be in the roster for Sunday and ready to play. Carly Leroux remains farther away; she has not appeared since the final game of the 2024 season and is on the season-ending list. Claire Emslie has also recently returned to training after giving birth to a baby boy last December.
For Angel City, the immediate question is not whether the opening three wins were real. It is whether those points can hold up once the schedule turns thicker, the home games pile up and the roster starts to fill back in.