Sports
Commentary: Can't even say her name? Angel City handled Alyssa Thompson transfer in odd way
It was a moment that should have been celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. What could prove to be the most expensive transfer in women’s soccer history — and already is the largest outgoing transfer in NWSL history — had sent Alyssa Thompson from Angel City and the NWSL to Chelsea of England’s Women’s Super League.
It was a monumental deal, one that could come to define Thompson’s career and help repair Angel City’s brand as a rich club that has mostly bumbled its way through its first four seasons.
It was a massive win for the player and both clubs.
Yet before the ink on the agreement had dried Angel City was already tarnishing what it should have been cheering. Coach Alexander Straus refused to even say Thompson’s name, opening a conference call with reporters Thursday by insisting he would not answer questions about “a certain player” or “a certain transfer.”
It was the second time in four days Straus refused to acknowledge his team’s best player.
Thompson, of course, has never been “a certain player” or “a certain transfer.” She’s a player Angel City moved heaven and earth to draft and sign in 2023, giving her a contract worth an estimated $1 million, then one of the richest in the NWSL. She’s a player who went on to become the club’s all-time leader in goals and rank sixth in appearances.
The least the coach could do is say her name.
Then three hours after that conference call, and about an hour after Thompson’s transfer became official, the club muddled things even further by reaching out to anyone who would listen to say it had done everything it could to keep Thompson, who had professed her desire to stay with Angel City when she signed a long-term contract extension just nine months earlier.
Thompson has the right to change her mind when a better opportunity comes along, of course, and Chelsea offered exactly that. Just 20, Thompson has already proven to be one of the most dynamic players in the world but she hasn’t come close to realizing her full potential and it’s unlikely she would have stayed in the NWSL.
The transfer was necessary for Thompson to find out how good she can be. And just as important is the fact that Thompson, who lived with her parents for the first year of her professional career, will now be on her own for the first time. How she adapts will no doubt have a major influence on her career as well.
But the club’s admission it did everything it could to keep her — a message aimed at fans angry at seeing the team’s best player go — simply confirmed what many in Thompson’s camp had thought since Chelsea first approached Angel City with a transfer offer last month: the club was more interested in blocking the deal than facilitating it.
“She wants to go to Chelsea and made it very clear,” a Thompson confidant said late in the process. “ACFC has to respect her.”
Angel City forward Alyssa Thompson competes against the San Diego Wave on March 16.
(Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)
For the club to suggest it had tried to hold up the transfer was the exact wrong message to send and one that — along with Straus’ lack of respect — won’t soon be forgotten by ambitious young players Angel City may approach in the future.
Thompson was one of eight players on the Angel City roster aged 20 or younger. Many, if not all, of those young women must be confident the club won’t stand in their way if they have a chance to move on and develop their talent on a bigger stage.
That’s the way soccer works. It’s why clubs allow players to leave in the middle of a season to play for their national teams despite the risk of injury. It’s unfortunate the transfer happened now, hampering Angel City’s final push for a playoff berth. But as long as the NWSL plays on a different calendar from the rest of the world, the transfer windows will always be awkward.
Yes, Angel City should — and it did — fight hard for every last penny in the transfer talks. The team recruited Thompson, signed her, paid her good money and gave her an opportunity and a platform to play both professionally and in a World Cup.
By all accounts, the team was masterful in its negotiations with Chelsea and it was rewarded with a record-breaking transfer fee. They deserve a huge pat on the back for that.
Just which records the deal broke depends on how you look at it. Multiple sources involved in the talks confirmed the transfer’s value at $1.65 million, which would make it the most expensive transfer in women’s soccer history.
Yet that’s not what Angel City deposited in the bank last week. Whether Chelsea will pay the full amount will be determined by non-disclosed escalators, mainly based on Thompson’s performance, that were included in the deal. For the time being, however, Angel City will have to get by with about half a million less, putting the initial value of the transfer somewhere between the nearly $1.1 million Chelsea paid the San Diego Wave last January for defender Naomi Girma and the $1.5 million the Orlando Pride paid Mexico’s Tigres for Lizbeth Ovalle last month.
Either way it’s the largest fee for an outgoing player in NWSL history and probably enough for Angel City to keep the lights on. So on Friday morning the club sent out a tepid three-paragraph statement announcing a transfer everyone else knew was done.
“We thank Alyssa for her contributions to Angel City and are grateful for the mark she has left on our team and the city of Los Angeles,” it read.
At least they said her name.
⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
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On Friday, Argentina looked to continue its quest for back-to-back World Cup titles, and to do it, they had to get through one of the darlings of this year’s tournament, Cape Verde.
The small island nation off the coast of West Africa came into the match as the No. 64-ranked team in the world, and they managed to hold Argentina — the No. 2 team behind France at the moment — scoreless for almost thirty minutes.
But in the 29th minute, Lionel Messi scored to give Argentina the lead.
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That was the 20th World Cup goal of his career, and it also made him the first player to score seven or more goals in multiple World Cups, having done it in Qatar as well.
It was also Messi’s eighth-straight World Cup match with a goal.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi scored in his eight-straight World Cup match and potted the 20th World Cup goal of his career. (Photo by Pablo Morano/BSR Agency/Getty Images))
Well, typically when Argentina takes the lead, they don’t cough it up, but early in the second half, Cape Verde’s Deroy Duarte pulled off a stunner and tied the game at 1-1.
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While there was some late pressure from Argentina, that included an always-dangerous Messi free kick from just outside the box that Cape Verde managed to stop.
And with that, it was off to extra time.
Cape Verde celebrates after scoring one of their two tying goals against Argentina. (Photo by Pablo Morano/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
However, it only took moments for Cape Verde to find themselves once again battling from behind.
Lisandro Martinez found the twine in the 92nd minute to give Argentina the lead.
It looked like that would be all she wrote… but Cape Verde had other plans.
They stuck with the defending World Cup champs, and in the 103rd minute, Sidny Lopes Cabral scored an unbelievable goal to tie the game again.
Coming into this game, Argentina had given up just two goals in their ten-match World Cup winning streak.
Cape Verde did that in one match.
Argentina’s Cristian Romero gets his head on what proved ot be the game-winning goal. (Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)
But in the 111th minute, Messi took an Argentina corner kick and put it in the perfect spot for Cristian Romero to head it to the back post and into the back of the net.
This was eventually updated to an own-goal, as it went off the Cape Verde defender’s arm, but it counts the same on the scoreboard.
Despite a late flurry of chances, Argentina held on to avoid what would have been potentially the biggest upset in World Cup history.
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What a match, and what a run Cape Verde had in the tournament.
Argentina will now have to recompose and get ready for a tough Round of 16 match against Egypt, which will take place on Tuesday in Atlanta.
Like a good striker, Folarin Balogun never loses sight of the goal. And the goal for the U.S. team in this summer’s World Cup hasn’t been just to win, which they’ve done, but to inspire.
And that’s how Balogun found himself on the field, shaking hands with Brazilian referee Raphael Claus, about 45 minutes after Claus gave him a controversial red card in Wednesday’s win over Bosnia-Herzegovina, a red card that will keep him out of Monday’s round-of-16 game with Belgium.
“Little kids are watching, and we have to show them the correct way to handle things, even when you think it’s unjust,” Balogun said Friday.
“It’s not an excuse to be disrespectful, to not do the right thing. I’m aware that the World Cup might be the first time a lot of American viewers are tuning in. So it’s important, whether things happen to you good or bad, just to continue to be yourself.”
That doesn’t mean Balogun didn’t think the red card was unjust. He does. And he definitely thinks something bad happened to him and his team since Balogun, the Americans’ leading scorer with three goals in as many games, will have to sit out the team’s most important game in a generation.
It’s just means that Balogun, who celebrated his 25th birthday Friday, is also mature enough to understand a game — even a World Cup elimination game — is just a game.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” he said before the team’s training session at the University of Washington. “There’s been lots of different emotions. I’ve been upset, I’ve been happy. But for me, it was just important to stay calm. I never want to react out of anger and out of emotion.”
Balogun, who had given his team a 1-0 lead in the waning seconds of the first half, collided with Tarik Muharemovic 16 minutes into the second half, and when the Bosnian defender planted his right leg below Balogun’s right foot, the American inadvertently stomped on his right ankle, twisting it awkwardly.
U.S. forward Folarin Balogun steps on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic’s foot and received a red card.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Both players went down and Claus did not signal a foul or pull card. But after the video assistant referee urged him to watch a replay, Claus walked away from the monitor and flashed the red card. That left the U.S. to finish Wednesday’s game with just 10 men and disqualified Balogun for Monday’s game. U.S. Soccer said Friday FIFA’s disciplinary committee did not add any games to Balogun’s suspension.
“There’s the scenarios that you simply can’t avoid,” he said, “and it has to be taken into context when it’s being reviewed. I felt it wasn’t on this occasion. There’s nowhere else to put your leg. It’s going to be unavoidable.
“I think a yellow card would have been fair. [But] it’s something that’s happened, so we have to move forward, and I have to accept it. The most important thing is just to focus on the bigger picture, which is Belgium.”
Replacing Balogun won’t be easy since he’s emerged as one of the team’s most effective and creative players, either scoring of setting up the go-ahead goal in all three of the U.S. wins.
“We’ve got guys that can fill in and have to be ready for the opportunity to step up,” midfielder Tyler Adams said. “When you miss a player like Balo, obviously things change a little bit. But we’ve been flexible. Guys have shown that they’re ready to play.”
The most likely replacements are Ricardo Pepi and Haji Wright. Pepi, who scored 16 goals for PSV in the Dutch Eredivisie this season, played 90 minutes in place of Balogun in the U.S. loss to Turkey in the final group-stage match. Wright, who had 17 goals for Coventry City in the English Championship, played in all four U.S. games in the 2022 World Cup, scoring once, but he has made just one appearance in this summer’s tournament.
“Balo is an important part of our team, and it’s a disappointing way for him to miss the next game,” said Wright, who grew up in Culver City and spent three years in the Galaxy academy. “But, I’ll always be ready and prepared for whatever comes.”
A victory over Belgium would send the U.S. to the quarterfinals of a World Cup for just the second time. It would also give it four wins in the tournament, double the number of victories in any previous World Cup and marking the first time the Americans have won twice in the knockout stages in the same tournament.
U.S. forward Ricardo Pepi pursues the ball during a World Cup match against Bosnia-Herzegovina at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara , Calif., on Wednesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
It’s a moment, Adams acknowledged Friday, many players have waited for their whole lives.
“You need to embrace the moment, that’s for sure,” he said. “To have the opportunity to play in a round-of-16 game — which, obviously, last World Cup we did, but it was the first knockout game, not the second — it’s exciting. It was nice to get a little bit of a taste of what it feels like to play with something a little bit more on the line in the last game. I think that’s good preparation.
“Advancing and taking this thing as far as we can is the most important thing. We have a good opportunity here to do so.”
Sports
Knicks champion says he hopes ‘truth comes out’ after leaving team for Eastern Conference rival
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The New York Knicks’ first championship team in 53 years is now starting to look a little bit different.
They were able to hang on to Jose Alvarado, but the first domino to fall was defensive big man Mitchell Robinson, who signed a three-year deal with the Boston Celtics.
Several of Robinson’s now-former teammates, including Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and OG Anunoby, commented on his farewell post on Instagram, but Robinson’s response to Anunoby was rather telling.
Mitchell Robinson is seen outside City Hall at the New York Knicks ticker-tape parade on June 18, 2026 in New York City. (XNY/Star Max/GC Images)
Anunoby commented with a sad emoji, and Robinson said he “tried” to get back with the Knicks, hinting the feeling was not mutual.
“I tried brother I didn’t want this to happen hopefully the truth comes out at some point. I’m gonna miss you big dawg! Keep being great,” Robinson replied.
Team owner James Dolan said almost immediately after the Knicks won the title that he had no interest in going into the NBA’s second apron of payroll, calling it “suicidal.”
Mitchell Robinson of the New York Knicks celebrates after winning the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs during Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals on June 13, 2026 at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas. (Jesse D. Garrabrant /NBAE via Getty Images)
KNICKS OWNER APPEARS TO TAKE SWIPE AT MAMDANI AT NBA CHAMPIONSHIP CELEBRATION, STIFFS PHOTO OP WITH HIM
That alone was enough to tell fans that a roster reconstruction was en route, especially with Brunson eventually set to make up for the massive pay cut he took to help the Knicks win it all.
Robinson grabbed the final offensive rebound off a missed free throw that all but clinched the Knicks’ title against the San Antonio Spurs last month.
Robinson saw both the good and the bad with the Knicks as a second-round draft pick in 2018; in his first season, they were 17-65.
Mitchell Robinson of the New York Knicks talks to the media after the game against the San Antonio Spurs during Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals on June 13, 2026 at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas. (Jacob Gonzalez/NBAE via Getty Images)
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But now, he will head to an apparent re-tooling Celtics team as a champion.
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