Angel City’s Katie Johnson looks forward to ‘special opportunity’ in NWSL during World Cup

For two glorious weeks, Katie Johnson was the record holder for latest goal scored in an NWSL regular season game. In a literal last-minute corner kick against the Orlando Pride, Johnson rose out of a scrum and headed a glancing ball near-post off of teammate Claire Emslie’s delivery, securing a 2-1 win for Angel City FC in the tenth minute of stoppage time.

Thirteen days later, Gotham FC forward Lynn Williams broke that record with a 90+17 minutes goal (also against Orlando), the abundant added time was thanks to a prolonged VAR decision, perhaps a consequence of its introduction to NWSL this season. Johnson hadn’t even had time to learn she’d set a record and then lost it in two weeks. Still, she was sanguine about the effects of VAR making games longer and longer.

“[VAR] is going to change the game and it’s going to make the rhythm of the game different,” she told The Athletic in Los Angeles after a sunny spring practice. “I think once we kind of figure that out, and maybe not let it affect us as much, it’ll help us stay more in rhythm and have more consistency.”

Johnson is aware that with the Women’s World Cup this summer and international players on the roster like Jun Endo and perhaps Alyssa Thompson out for weeks, that leaves a pretty big goalscoring gap on the roster, one which she could be called upon to help fill — especially with her recent run of from.

“I think I’m just taking that as a really special opportunity and do the best I can until they can come back and help the team,” she said. “And I mean, if the roles were reversed it would be the same.”

Consistency has been a recurring problem for Angel City since their inception, and one which will be made harder by this summer’s tournament. They swing for the fences, like the three goals in one half they lit up against the Kansas City Current, and then they slip up and lose hold of the game or accumulate enough little errors that one bites them back. They had to white-knuckle the second half of that Current game to hang on to a 3-2 win.

Still, Johnson is looking good for Angel City so far this season. And as we saw from last season’s incredibly tight playoff race, Johnson being able to find a groove with ACFC could be the difference between one point or three, above or below the playoff line. As of their first seven games, she’s second overall on the team in shots (9), and leading them in shots on goal (5). Johnson is averaging a SOG every 65 minutes, compared to Thompson, who’s averaging a SOG every 123 minutes, or Endo at 173 minutes. It speaks a bit to how Angel City has been playing Johnson, alternating between starting her and subbing her in — with only two full 90 minutes so far.

“I actually don’t feel a ton of pressure,” she said. “I just feel like I’m able to express myself on the field. And I think when I’m able to do that, I have less of a weight on my shoulders… I definitely feel like everyone on this team has the ability to score and create chances.”

She’s certainly part of an attacking complement that can score and assist with flair. Between Johnson, Endo, Thompson, Emslie, Savannah McCaskill, and relatively new additions Scarlett Camberos and Julie Ertz, Angel City is a team that can punch hard at goal. It’s when other teams punch back that they’re still struggling to adjust.

“Obviously, winning feels better than goals,” Johnson acknowledged. “But also, individual accomplishment myself feels really good. And it obviously gives me confidence going into the next match.”

It also helps having a good friend around. Johnson reunited with former teammate McCaskill when Angel City signed Johnson out of free agency in 2023. She was at Sky Blue FC during McCaskill’s rookie year in 2018. They played together again for two years with the Chicago Red Stars from 2019 to 2021, where they were roommates. They’re road roommates too this year. Johnson said McCaskill is ideal on the road because she’s in bed early, up early and quiet.

“We had a good balance (in Chicago). I cleaned and she would make me coffee in the morning,” Johnson said. “We’re both soccer junkies; we watch soccer all the time. And I think we just have a really simple connection that’s kind of unspoken.”

Both of Johnson’s goals so far this season have come from near-post touches on set pieces, one of them delivered by McCaskill. But the two also have an on-field connection in open play in the way that they’re able to work their runs off of each other, often looking to underlap and attack the box.

But there’s more to Johnson’s confidence than pure performance. Like a lot of prosfessionals in NWSL, Johnson, now 28, has had to go through an evolution in how she takes care of herself both mentally and physically. She’s paying more attention to little details in her nutrition, committing to pregame routines that she didn’t do as a rookie. “I have to go on my walk, I have to do my stretching yoga,” she said.

And after watching her boyfriend, also an athlete, benefit from talking to a sports therapist, Johnson got one too. With the therapist and her support network, Johnson has found additional help in maintaining positivity and consistency and accepting some of the uncertainty that comes with fighting for minutes. Though, there are hints that managing negativity is a work in progress.

“You could always flip it and say that there’s people who don’t believe in me either,” she said when asked about fans coming to expect her to score. “There’s always going to be a different opinion. And I try to take both and tune them out and try to focus on myself and believe in myself.”

Angel City is a good environment for her too, a place where Johnson said she feels “really comfortable.”

“The team is such great supporters of each other and I’ve always felt very (supported) in this environment,” she said.

Johnson has grown a lot from the rookie who was drafted by the OL Reign in 2017 and was just excited to be playing with Megan Rapinoe and Jess Fishlock.

“I was so young,” she said. “Now I feel like I’ve picked up little things from players along the journey and tried to add it to myself, and I think I’ve grown more off the field than on the field.”

Part of the journey has also been her highs and lows with the Mexican national team, for whom she currently has 23 caps and eight goals. However, she wasn’t called up last July for Mexico’s CONCACAF qualifying campaign for the World Cup. Mexico lost all three games, ended up last in their group, did not qualify for the 2023 tournament and head coach Monica Vergara has since been fired.

“I think that being in the last (Mexico) camp, I kind of realized what I want and how I can be the best player, and I think that not being there, it’s probably the best thing for me,” Johnson said, calling it a bit of a culture mismatch. “There’s a lot of rules and things that they have a way of going about it, which is fine. I just don’t think I fit that mold.”

She remained vague but polite about the push-pull of being rostered.

“Wherever I want to be, if it’s with the national team, if it’s here, I want to bring my best self forward,” she said. “Whether that’s on the field and being the best player off the field, feeling like I’m free to express myself, and I didn’t really feel like I was having that opportunity (with Mexico). I think in the past when I was younger, I’d be like, ‘Okay, it’s okay, I’ll just keep playing, because that’s maybe what other people expect out of me’. But now I think as I get older, I’m like, I want to do this because this makes me feel fulfilled. And I didn’t feel that way.”

She’s focused herself on growing at Angel City and enjoying living at home, where she gets to see her family every day, including her parents, sister and nephew — Johnson, again, called it “comforting.” She likes the homeyness of it all. They have dinner together often. Pizza night is called “Johnson’s perfect pizza,” which she used to only get as a going away dinner.

Her comfort in sense of self became apparent as Johnson grew animated as soon as food entered the discussion. “I’m a foodie,” she said without hesitation. Besides her mother’s veggie pizza with caramelized onions, she reminisced fondly about a place in Chicago called Ranalli’s, where they had a spicy honey drizzle on pepperoni, and she’s got a list of places in LA to visit, including one close to home called Zelo that does specialty pizza.

But the one food item Johnson said that anyone who comes to LA needs to hit is a breakfast burrito.

“I feel like California, Southern California in particular, has the best breakfast burritos,” she said. “I’m gonna go with, if you’re in the 626, you’re gonna get a Lucky Boy burrito. And then if you’re near the beach, you’re gonna go to Phanny’s.” Her order is a classic, rattled off with confidence: bacon, egg, cheese, potatoes, and salsa.

“I think I can be my best self here,” Johnson said, and that, too, sounded confident. 

(Photo: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)