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.

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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