On an 81-degree day in Thousand Oaks, Calif., the sun beats down on a field of grass. As two dozen women’s soccer players pass and chase a ball, several entourages – coaches, team personnel, media members – stand at varying distances from the action, drinking water that warms from the moment you tilt the bottle to the instant that the drops hit your tongue.
In the distance, an enclosure is rimmed with pink and black logos proclaiming the name of the team. This is the training ground of Angel City FC, a franchise in the midst of its fourth season in the National Women’s Soccer League.
On one hand, there is nothing unusual about this scene. Coaches and players seem focused on a variety of mini-games and simulations, and a horde of soccer balls ensures that even a stray kick doesn’t disrupt the action for too long. Half the team wears blue pinnies, presumably denoting their status as reserves.
But upon closing one’s eyes, a few surprising details start to emerge. Unlike many soccer practices, the calls and shouts from the players are not pierced by the harsh calls of a handheld whistle. And even when straining one’s ears, noticeably absent are the cacophonic demands that are often hurled by coaches.
As the players break to head to the weight room, the staff starts to rearrange the field so that it can be mowed. Errant balls need to be retrieved; nets need to be removed.
Two coaches head onto the field to pick up one of the goals. One, wearing a pink collared shirt with “SL” emblazoned on his shoulder, hoists the front while his colleague grabs the back. After the field is cleared, the staff huddles around him as he dispenses instructions. “SL,” seemingly, is the leader of the pack. But he appears to be going out of his way to avoid being identified as such.
In January, Mark Parsons was named Angel City’s sporting director. The club had dismissed its second head coach in two years, and identifying a replacement was his top task. However, Parsons insisted that he would take his time with the search for a permanent manager, and within a week of his own hiring, he brought in NWSL veteran Sam Laity to serve as the interim head coach.
Parsons emphasizes that turning to Laity was a no-brainer for him.
“Who knows the league, [and] who knows the demands and the standards of being successful in this league?” Parsons explains in describing his criteria for an interim coach. “Who’s going to be able to come in and be – and I kept saying this to Sam over and over again – just be yourself, be authentic, bring who you are and your qualities? Who can do that? And, yeah, there’s only one answer. And that was Sam.”
Upon meeting Laity, it quickly becomes clear that being authentically himself means focusing on the details of the job rather than its trappings. The head coach’s office is sparsely furnished and decorated, with three chairs and a desk serving as the main attractions. Laity claims he hasn’t even graced the space in the last five weeks.
Although he has been a head coach before, serving as the Houston Dash’s helmsman in 2023, Laity developed his NWSL coaching chops during a decade with the Seattle Reign, where he served as an assistant from the league’s opening season in 2013 through 2022. Part of his stint included working with players in the Reign’s academy system – girls who demonstrated the promise to develop into professional players down the line. Laity describes how part of his job description was scouting that young talent.
“I always considered that to be a big part of what my role was, to identify the players that had potential and then put them in the environment to see how they handled it,” he recalls. “The very best players [in those] age groups are not always stretched as much and challenged as much, so putting them in that environment, you want to see how they act from a psychological perspective. Are they overwhelmed, or is it just normal for them?”
The knowledge of how to work with both novice and experienced professionals is a key requirement for anyone stepping into the leadership of Angel City. The roster features American national team standouts Christen Press, 36, and Sydney Leroux, 35. Ali Riley, who is out with a long-term injury, is 37. But the squad also features six players aged 20 or younger, with South Korea international Casey Phair clocking in at just 17.
Parsons sees this as another reason why Laity is the perfect fit.
“We’ve got very experienced players that are still desperate to win an NWSL championship, and we’ve got really young players who are just starting their career, and then we have everything in between. So, the complexity to communicate, to someone over 30, who has been and seen and done it all, and to a young kid who when they finish training are doing TikTok – who has the ability to be able to work with that type of spectrum?”
Laity is navigating that complexity with some success. Heading into the Memorial Day weekend slate of matches, Angel City (4-3-2) sits in seventh in the league table but is just three points back of second-place San Diego.
After a middling 2024 season that featured a -13 goal difference and led to the firing of coach Becki Tweed, Laity has ACFC’s offense humming, with significant contributions from some of its least experienced players. Riley Tiernan, who joined the team as a trialist in March, is second in the NWSL with five goals scored. Kennedy Fuller, 18 and in just her second season, has three assists – tied for best in the league. And with the team attacking in a 4-3-3 formation, franchise forward Alyssa Thompson seems more dangerous than ever, hitting the back of the net four times and adding two helpers in just eight games. Overall, Angel City is scoring 1.67 goals per game, which is up 50% from last year.
Laity attributes the offensive output to focusing on talent over credentials.
“The team has to be built around its best players,” Laity proclaims. “When you’ve got players that are very attack-minded, it makes sense to get them in the game as often as possible, because you’ve got a much better chance of winning games and being successful if those players are in the game a lot.”
Parsons backs Laity’s approach, even though it can mean having difficult conversations with veterans on the team.
“In the preseason, [Laity] was making some very brave, bold choices where I was like, yeah, it’s going to be challenging to manage. But he was following the principle of the biggest driver of culture is to reward players who are training and performing and behaving the way that we feel will be a championship-winning team.”
If Angel City wins a championship this season or in the years ahead, it won’t be with Laity steering the ship. At the start of June, Alexander Straus, fresh off his third consecutive Bundesliga title with FC Bayern Women, will be taking over as the permanent head coach. Laity will stay on as the top assistant.
This transition is not unfamiliar for the Plymouth, England, native. During the 2021 season, Laity served as the Reign’s interim coach for six games, winning four of those contests, before handing the team over to Laura Harvey. Stepping into the shadows after standing in the spotlight must present some challenges, but Laity seems unencumbered by such worries.
“When Alex comes in, irrespective of what I've done now and how I operate daily, my first question will be, what do you want, and what do you need from me?” Laity forecasts. “And then that will be my job.”
In his four months guiding Angel City, Laity seems to have won the trust of his players. Defender M.A. Vignola credits him for establishing a strong foundation that Straus and the team can build upon.
“The difference with [Laity] coming in with the other coaches that we had is that he saw the players that we have and knew already the identity that he wanted us to be,” she elaborates. “He just came in, owned it, and we believed in him and made it happen on the field.”
The NWSL, like many professional leagues, has no shortage of interim coaches. Tenure is not guaranteed, which can mean a lot of upheaval for players and technical staff alike. Laity is no stranger to this, having been let go in Houston before completing his inaugural season. But coming into this short-term role with ACFC, he had one simple goal: leave it better than you found it.
“The most important thing that I’ve probably done since I’ve been here was just changed the energy a little bit. Energy never goes away – it just transforms,” he philosophizes. “The energy’s there. It’s either positive or negative; it’s never neutral. So I’ve always tried to lead from a position of positivity.”
On May 24, Laity will guide Angel City against Racing Louisville in his final match as interim head coach. While he is unwilling to reflect on his own legacy, the man who hired him has no such restraint.
“He walked into an incredibly difficult, complex situation on short notice,” Parsons says. “Right now, I'd say it looks like he’s crushed it and it’s been easy and plain sailing. Absolutely, if we review it day by day, it’s been so difficult and complex and challenging for any person. And Sam, by being diligent and being thorough and being a caring person like he is, I think that he’s made a complex, hard, difficult situation look easy.”
Just as easy as carrying a goal off the grass in the blistering Southern California heat, leaving the field tidier than he found it.