California Rivalry Game Ends in a Tie

Thursday’s match between Angel City FC and the San Diego Wave ended in a 0-0 tie after going back and forth all night.

Thursday’s match between Angel City FC and the San Diego Wave ended in a 0-0 tie after going back and forth all night.

This was the first meeting of the season for these two teams, both entering the match with three wins. The match lasted nearly 105 minutes, with much of the chaos coming in the nine minutes of stoppage time at the end of the match.

Elizabeth Agazaryan/Undrafted

“You’ve seen us crumble in past weeks in those nine minutes,” Angel City Head Coach Becki Tweed said about the tie.

“Today I felt like everybody was tuned in. We were together. The clean sheet is a huge positive and it’s something we’ve been talking about for a long time.”

After an offense-heavy game, the big star of the match was Angel City’s goalkeeper DiDi Haračić, who made five saves throughout the night, with a double save coming seconds before the match ended.

“It’s a matter of how we can make a chaotic moment so calm, and that’s something we train on,” Haračić shared about the last few moments of the game. “It’s just going through my routines, my rituals, my habits. The goal is to keep it out of the back of the net at the end of the day.”

Elizabeth Agazaryan/Undrafted

Haračić’s game allowed Angel City to stay in it after having a rough start defensively. San Diego Wave Head Coach Casey Stoney felt that the team improved from previous matches, especially in the first half when they were creating opportunities in the attacking third.

Stoney went on to share that as a team they have to

“…make the goalkeepers make saves. The goalkeeper was the player of the match, granted, but we gotta do better in those moments.”

Both teams feel that they should have earned more than just the one point given for a tie after the grit and effort they put into the match. “Can’t often say many nil-nil games are good, but I think it was a good game,” Tweed commented.

Angel City has an away game on June 8th against Gotham FC. San Diego looks forward to hosting the Orlando Pride on June 7th.