Angel City name Tweed as permanent manager

Angel City FC named Becki Tweed to be the club’s manager on Thursday, removing the interim tag that had accompanied her since she took over for the fired Freya Coombe last June.

Angel City had a record of 2-6-3 when Tweed took over. But under the Englishwoman’s leadership, ACFC rallied to post an 8-2-5 record in all competitions, making an improbable run to the NWSL playoffs, where the team was eliminated 1-0 by OL Reign.

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“I’m obviously excited and proud,” Tweed told ESPN in an exclusive interview.

“I think we went through a lot last season as a group, and just really excited to just keep moving forward. I think when we look around the group, and where we are, we feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business. Obviously losing in the playoffs was devastating, but the feeling of we know where we got to, and we know where we can continue to push on, is really, really exciting.”

A native of Bristol, England, Tweed played professionally for Bristol City and Millwall. In the U.S., she played in the lower tier Women’s Premier Soccer League with the Jersey Blues and Millburn Magic.

Tweed had previously been an assistant at the collegiate level with Monmouth University, in the professional ranks with NY/NJ Gotham FC, and the youth international level with the U.S. under-20 women’s national team. Her only time as a head coach prior to Angel City was a one-game stint as interim manager with Gotham.

But once Tweed was given the keys to Angel City, she adapted to the manager’s role quickly.

She said that the key to Angel City’s turnaround was creating a more competitive environment within the group, where every player felt like they had an opportunity to get playing time. That attitude aided the team’s preparation, and fostered an attitude that was “bigger than the 11 that are named to start the game.”

“Once we got that buy-in, and once we got that belief, every week, there was somebody that scored the winning goal or a different player of the match,” she said. “That brought the group together, and people celebrated each other’s successes whilst becoming each other’s biggest competitors.”

Tactically, Tweed opted to keep things simple, emphasizing wing play and getting balanced goalscoring from the likes of Savannah McCaskill, Alyssa Thompson and Clair Emslie while Sarah Gorden and Paige Nielsen kept things tight in the back.

“You can talk all the tactics you want in the world, but until you get the ugly things right, and until you do the graft and the nitty gritty things that sometimes people don’t see, you don’t make any luck for yourself,” Tweed said. “I think that’s where within our structure defensively, we just talked about details and owning the details and committing to the ugly and doing the ugly really well.”

In terms of the team’s attack, Tweed said, “We don’t mind being predictable, but we’ve got to be really good at it because if you’re predictable, but you’re really good, you’re still hard to defend.”

Angel City do have some work to do in the offseason. The team has eight players eligible for free agency, including Gorden. But Tweed feels that the team has established a foundation, and with a full preseason, there will be time to expand the team’s attacking repertoire.

Given the star-studded ownership group led by team president Julie Uhrman — a group that includes Mia Hamm, Natalie Portman, America Ferrera, Abby Wambach and Serena Williams — Tweed figures to get plenty of support.

“It’s just refining some of the details,” she said. “I think we have to become more tactically flexible and we have to ask questions of other teams a little bit more. But not from beyond what our identity is. I think it’s having two or three ways of playing, but that all ultimately relates back to who we are as a team, just different spaces to expose.”