After months of waiting, the moment finally came for Angel City FC to really put together its roster.
On Thursday, NWSL held its expansion draft for the two new franchises Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC. It was a very eventful day for both franchises, as aside from making their picks, both teams made plenty of trades to continue filling out their rosters.
Angel City had the first pick in the expansion draft, Angel City selected midfielder Dani Weatherholt from OL Reign. Weatherholt made 48 appearances for the then-Tacoma-based franchise over the last two seasons, coming in mostly as a substitute. Before then, Weatherholt had been drafted by the Orlando Pride in the fourth round of the 2016 college draft and made 74 appearances over five seasons.
With their second pick, Angel City selected Claire Emslie, a midfielder whose playing rights are currently held by Orlando Pride. Emslie was originally signed by the Pride in 2019 after having played with Manchester City in the FA WSL, where she scored eight goals in 31 appearances. Emslie did not come to Orlando until the summer of that season due to her national team commitments to Scotland, who was making its first appearance in the Women’s World Cup. Emslie made 11 appearances for the Pride in 2019, then in 2020 left Orlando to return to the FA WSL with Everton, though Orlando still held her playing rights.
Angel City’s next pick might perhaps be the best player of their selections, as they used that pick on forward Jasmyne Spencer. A versatile player capable of playing as both a striker or a midfielder, Spencer has played for three different teams in NWSL, the most recent being the Houston Dash, where she made 18 appearances, starting nine of them. Before then, Spencer had played for four different NWSL teams, the Washington Spirit (2013), the Western New York Flash (2014-2015), The Pride (2016-2017) and the Reign (2018-2021). With its final pick, Angel City selected defender Paige Nielsen from the reigning champion Washington Spirit. Nielsen started her career with the Reign, then continued her career overseas, playing for clubs in Cyprus, South Korea and Australia before returning stateside in Washington D.C., where she finally started to establish herself in the Spirit rotation, making 38 appearances for the Spirit.
Shortly after Angel City and San Diego Wave made their picks, both teams made some key trades. Angel City acquired the sixth pick in this Saturday’s college draft to the Dash in exchange for a second round pick (No. 26 overall) and $125,000 allocation money. San Diego made the bigger headlines as far as trades, first by trading Kristie Mewis, who they had selected with its first pick in the expansion draft, to NJ/NY Gotham FC in exchange for $200,000 in general allocation money, then acquiring Christen Westphal and Amirah Ali from the Portland Thorns in exchange for $50,000 in allocation money. San Diego also finalized its week-long rumored trade for superstar forward Alex Morgan, who was acquired from Orlando in exchange for the rights to Angharad James and $275,000 in allocation money.
Angel City had been filling out its roster prior to the expansion draft. Last week, Angel City acquired the rights to four players, forwards Simone Charley and Tyler Lussi from the Thorns, keeper Dijana “DiDi” Haračić, from Gotham and midfielder Cari Roccaro from North Carolina Courage. Charley officially signed with Angel City on Tuesday. All three teams received a combination of draft picks and allocation money from Angel City, but all three teams got roster protection from Angel City FC. Angel City also signed a pair of former Tennessee Volunteers, defender Mary Alice Vignola and midfielder Katie Cousins. Both had starred for the University of Tennessee before playing in Iceland for Thróttur Reykjavík.
Angel City FC
