West Coast Vibes: How Angel City, San Diego Wave and Bay FC made California the place to be in the NWSL

With three new teams, California is the place to be in the league - and it may produce the next great rivalry in U.S. women’s soccer

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  Welcome to Los Angeles

  Shayla Pham “very vividly” remembers the day that the news came. “It was near my birthday, so I remember being like, ‘What a fabulous birthday gift – my dreams are coming true’.” Ten years after both Los Angeles Sol and FC Gold Pride dissolved, a professional women’s soccer team was returning to California. Angel City FC was coming to LA.

  Born and raised just outside of the city, Pham had been a fan of the NWSL for several years but had always needed to make a significant journey if she wanted to watch a game in person, with the Portland Thorns, nearly 1,000 miles away, nearest by. That was all about to change – and she wanted to be involved.

  Perhaps one of the best ways to demonstrate the thirst for a women’s team in LA is in the fact that the supporters’ group Pham is involved with, Pandemonium, is one of six fan clubs for Angel City. It means BMO Stadium is one of the league’s most atmospheric grounds, adding to the attractive lore that surrounds a club that had a star-studded ownership group upon launch - and has since become the most valuable women's sport team in the world, featuring a name like Natalie Portman on its board.

  “Los Angeles is a melting pot – I like to say a charcuterie board of different cultures,” Pham tells INDIVISA. “We really do feel like our supporters’ section, La Fortaleza, is emulating that. What makes Los Angeles so great is the diversity in itself and when you come to one of the games and you're looking at the supporters’ section, it's truly a mix of everything and everybody. That’s one of the things that makes us so unique.”

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  Enter San Diego

  It's fair to say the announcement of Angel City drew a bit of envy across the state. California has a rich culture of youth and adult soccer, and while some outside of LA were still eager to make the in-state journey to watch an NWSL team, some were jealous that it wasn’t in their city. That was the case in San Diego, until it was announced that the expansion team for Sacramento was instead heading to southern California.

  Suddenly, those who had tickets for Angel City didn’t want them. They were all in on the San Diego Wave.

  “The news spread around the city real fast,” Tali Lerner, president of the San Diego Sirens supporters’ group, says. “Because I go to a lot of schools as a teacher, you could see the kids were talking about it, the adults were talking about it, it became very exciting, very quickly.”

  Lerner grew up in Israel, a country with historic soccer teams that had been established for decades before she was born. To be in San Diego, where she has lived for nine years, as a new team sprouted up was an interesting experience.

  “You could really see a purposeful design of what the story of this team is going to be, what our story as fans is going to be,” she recalls. “That was really, really fun to watch and be part of.”

  Do the Wave embody San Diego? Do they represent the city?

  “I think so, for sure,” Lerner replies. “Just the atmosphere, the joy, the fun. San Diego is really a city of happiness and inclusive community and a place where the feel is that. It translates into something that people want, a feeling of enjoying not just the fight of the football match but also a real investment into our happiness and joy.

  "So you see that in the stands, you see that in the colors, you see that in the involvement of the team, in the community life, you see that in how inclusive this community is around the Wave.”

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  'The Surfliner derby'

  With the two teams just a two-hour drive apart, or a little longer on the scenic Surfliner train, it was no surprise to see this fixture dubbed a derby before either had kicked a ball. Geography isn’t the only thing that played a part. There is also an existing rivalry between the two cities, be it from baseball or general life, with San Diego having “always been like the little brother to Los Angeles almost,” Pham notes. “There’s already an existing pride of which city you're coming from.”

  That’s certainly evident when she recalls her reaction to the news that the Wave would be joining the NWSL: “Ew, San Diego. We want to show them up.”

  However, she’s quick to point out that it did not feel like a rivalry immediately, as does Savannah McCaskill, who spent two years playing for Angel City before joining the Wave ahead of the 2024 season.

  “I feel like, personally, the rivalry was kind of put on us from a media standpoint,” she explains. “We had no real history against each other, we didn't know what to expect against each other, other than we were playing in a game against San Diego and we were being told that it was a rivalry game. That's kind of how the first two years went.”

  For Meggie Dougherty Howard, who joined the Wave for its second season and now represents Angel City, there was a sense of trying to “get the edge on the other team early on” in their respective NWSL journeys. M.A. Vignola of Angel City has a good relationship with Jaedyn Shaw, and recalls a few jokes shared between the two on national team camps about “who’s the best California team."

  But rivalries are built on history, not just geography, so it was always the case that any real tension between these two sides was only going to come over time. This fixture needs close results, meaningful encounters and other wrinkles in order to create a real rivalry.

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  The need for history

  Those elements are starting to trickle in. After 11 meetings, the head-to-head shows five wins for Angel City, three for San Diego and three ties, with no match decided by a margin greater than two goals. There have been some dramatic finales too - Claire Emslie's 81st minute winner for Angel City in the first league meeting, a couple of occasions of quick-fire doubles sealing victories for San Diego deep into the second half of tight matches, and Vignola’s 88th-minute winner minute in San Diego last summer - which she celebrated unlike any goal she’s ever scored.

  “The energy that we get from the fans just brings up the vibe even more,” Vignola says of the games against the Wave. “A lot of the fans are originally from California, or from LA, so they also have that kind of edge to them saying, 'Oh, we don't like San Diego people, you have to beat them!' So, we're kind of like, 'Oh, OK! What do you have against them?!' But it kind of brings that energy for us and I think that helps.”

  McCaskill was on the receiving end of that energy earlier this year, when she was booed upon her return to LA as a San Diego player.

  “That’s the piece that is like, ‘OK, this kind of feels like a rivalry’,” she says. “It’s cool to see the fans buy into it and have an extra motivation for coming out to the games, being extra loud, that kind of environment is so fun to play in.”

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  Rivalries take time

  However, players on both sides admit that when they get to stepping onto the pitch, it’s not about wanting to win more just because it’s LA or San Diego. And it’s a similar feeling among the fans.

  When the schedule comes out, Lerner says that she and many other San Diego fans will look for the games against the Seattle Reign first, “a team that we struggled to beat in our first two seasons, so it became something that was a big game for us”.

  Pham, meanwhile, says: “I do always want to beat San Diego but it's one of those things where a lot of my pride and my passion comes from how we show up in the stands.”

  The general feel is that there is extra energy and excitement when these two meet, but not yet in the intense manner of a true rivalry.

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  Representing the Bay area

  To a lesser extent, the same can be said now of meetings between LA or San Diego and Bay FC, which entered the NWSL in 2024 and is well-backed by the Bridge Brigade supporters’ group. That the collective has deep roots in local recreational leagues shows the love of the sport across California.

  “Soccer, specifically women's soccer, has always had a huge presence here,” Alishia Natiello, one of the co-presidents of the Bridge Brigade, explains. “Our founding four - Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, Danielle Slaton and Aly Wagner - all played at Santa Clara University, which is local.

  "We have Stanford University, which is also a huge powerhouse in college women's soccer, so it's always been a sport that people gravitate towards, both from watching and playing. To finally get that recognition with a pro team has been amazing.”

  The Bridge Brigade worked hard to ensure it entered the NWSL with strong support. The spoke with some of those involved with American Outlaws, the U.S. Soccer supporters’ group, and brought in Crystal Cuadra-Cutler, who has been involved in supporters’ culture for 10 years. Those efforts paid off, with Bay FC ranking in the top five for average attendances in the NWSL already, in its inaugural year.

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  NorCal vs SoCal

  Bay FC brings other interesting elements to the table that lay a foundation for a rivalry. Again, there are strong baseball connections, with the San Francisco Giants and the LA Dodgers having one of the sport’s biggest rivalries, and then there is the factor of Northern California vs Southern California.

  “This is a huge one,” Pickett, who grew up in SoCal, explains. “It goes down to development programmes where you have different regions in different states. So technically, SoCal and NorCal were separate and they competed against each other, and that would usually be the finals. We would get so intense and so competitive and want to win, to show that this is the better California side ... If you can create that rivalry and competition, the atmosphere is just unbelievable.”

  “It's definitely more recognizable for folks who are more of the casual sports or casual soccer fan, to just be like, 'Oh, hey, there's this big game coming up,' ” Natiello adds. “They might not feel the same way about other teams but if I say, 'Oh, we're playing a team in LA,', they're like, 'Oh, that means something.' That kind of automatically brings up that feeling of wanting to be victorious.”

  The Bay FC fans have already started having fun with these in-state games, too.

  “We want to have that moniker of 'we beat the California teams' and we actually gave ourselves that title of ‘The queens of California’ after we beat LA twice,” Natiello laughs. “We want the team to make their own rivals and naturally have those come up. But it is hard to not get into the 'beat LA' chants. Some are like, 'Yes, right away, they are our rivals' but it's nice that the play and the results went in our favor ... It's like, 'No, we're going to be competitive because these games were intense and it was difficult.' ”

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  California is the place to be

  With three relatively new teams, the feeling is one of excitement rather than rivalry - the kind that is making California the place to be in the NWSL.

  “I did hear some folks wondering if this will kind of cannibalize on itself, there being three teams in the same state. Will that divide up the fans or the support? And it has not,” Natiello says. “I think it's really exponentially grown it, which is great to see.”

  “It's cool because each team has its own approach and own style and the way that the clubs have been built is different,” Dougherty Howard, who has played for the Wave and is now at Angel City, notes. “It gives each club a unique identity. It's cool to see that difference with teams that actually have a lot in common. There's still those very big differences between them, which I think is cool for fans to get behind.”

  Those traveling to matches add to the impressive numbers in the stands.

  “I think a huge attraction is playing in front of great crowds. As a professional athlete, that's amazing,” McCaskill says. “Then with the success that most of the West Coast teams have had - look at Portland and Seattle, the Bay is doing really well this year, then LA and San Diego - we've all competed. I think that's also an attraction for players across the league and also for players in other countries.

  "They are looking at this and being like, ‘Wow, they're doing really well. That might be the place to be.' I think that's huge for our league and our teams, attracting the top talent in the world, not just in the country. How can we get the best players in this league? And attendance and competitiveness are two of the biggest things.”

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  Rivalry pending?

  Tailgates, more accessible away days and swelling support mean all three teams are benefitting from the presence of the others, and that much is clear from talking to fans and players. Yet there remains an undertone of competitiveness, the type that motivates both those on the pitch and those in the stands.

  “We definitely feed off each other and try to be the best and use that to motivate ourselves, to have a bigger event, to have more banners and more songs and more parties and to win more games, hopefully,” Lerner notes. “I think the banter in the U.S. between teams is still developing. It's something that I really like in the English football environments I'm in and I hope having three teams in California will make it even more enjoyable.”

  Among players, both Dougherty Howard and Vignola talk about wanting to help Angel City be the top team in California. There is certainly a rivalry building between Angel City and the San Diego Wave, with a flurry of close encounters building on pre-existing elements, and the ingredients are there for similar to happen with Bay FC.

  “I think [rivalries] just naturally develop,” Pickett says. “I think of the big Cascadia rivalry, Seattle and Portland, that just naturally occurs because that's a societal thing, it's like, 'Portland, Seattle, who's better?' Then that just happens naturally and they've fed into that and into the fans. Hopefully we also get momentum of that and can do the same.”

  For now, one sentiment is echoed: all want to be the top team in California. You can bet that the league’s next big rivalry will come out of the Golden State, and that just underscores why California is the place to be in the NWSL – and it’s only just the start.