NWSL’s Angel City fires coach Freya Coombe midway through 2nd season

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Angel City FC has fired coach Freya Coombe halfway through the NWSL expansion franchise’s second season.

Assistant coach Becki Tweed will serve as Angel City’s interim head coach, the team announced Thursday.

Angel City is at the bottom of the NWSL standings at 2-6-3 with a six-match winless streak across all competitions. Angel City lost to Washington 2-1 last Saturday, remaining winless since May 7.

“Freya assumed the role of leading an expansion club with some of the most ambitious goals in all of sports and embraced this immense responsibility head on with strength, patience, and humility,” Angel City general manager Angela Hucles Mangano said in a statement. “She established a strong culture and work ethic that helped build the foundation on which we will grow.”

Coombe was hired in 2021 as the first coach for Angel City, the high-profile new team based in Los Angeles and boasting an ownership group including actors Natalie Portman and Eva Longoria along with Serena Williams and her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. HBO aired a three-part documentary series last month about the founding of the team, which plays in Los Angeles FC’s BMO Stadium just outside downtown.

But Angel City has yet to add a winning culture to its pedigree: The club finished 8-9-5 in its inaugural 2022 season, missing the NWSL playoffs in eighth place.

Coombe was the coach of NJ/NY Gotham FC from September 2019 until she left for the job at Angel City in August 2021. The England native went 10-15-8 with Angel City.

Tweed, who is also from England, was hired as an assistant in January after spending the previous two seasons as an assistant NJ/NY Gotham. She is also an assistant for the U.S. under-20 women’s national team.

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