It is rare to see new teams in sports make a major impact in their respective leagues, but Angel City FC was able to do so within just four games in its first NWSL regular season. Having just lost one game, the soccer club is making history. On Tuesday, the club announced a two-year partnership with Mexico’s Liga MX club Tigres Femenil, marking the first-ever cross-border relationship between clubs in North America’s two most prominent women’s soccer leagues.
“We are thrilled to enter into this two-year partnership with Tigres and host the team in Los Angeles for our first-ever international friendly match,” said Angel City President and Co-founder Julie Uhrman. “Angel City has always set our sights toward becoming part of the international soccer community to collaborate with and shine a light on the power of women’s soccer and women’s sports overall. This partnership with Tigres is an important milestone in our club’s history, and we are excited to engage with our fans and community, as well as in Mexico and beyond.”
The Liga MX and NWSL sides will link up for a two-year contract that will have them clash in two friendly games – one at Banc of California Stadium on August 10 and the other at the Estadio Universitario in Monterrey, Mexico, 2023. The clubs will also cooperate for other endeavors, engaging ideas on the best practices in the sport and issues of business and social responsibility. The partnership will also focus on community-impact events featuring fans, civic organizations, and soccer clubs in the two cities.
“For us, it is an honor to make this alliance with Angel City FC, a young franchise with a huge push with which we have found similar objectives in the search to continue promoting women’s football to another level,” added Mauricio Culebro, President of Tigres. “We want to turn Tigres Femenil into one of the most renowned teams at an international level, and this type of alliance allows us to get closer to that goal.”
Although they are taking a huge step, Angel City isn’t the first club to play a Mexican side, as the Houston Dash played exhibition matches in 2019 and 2021. However, the Southern Californian team is the first to make the game the center of a more significant undertaking with other public events.
