City of Angels FC

Helping a community club with a cause compete on the same footing as the world’s most football famous teams.

Although the US has the world’s second largest soccer-playing population, its mens’ team consistently fails to compete on the world stage. This is often attributed to the ‘pay to play’ club soccer system, which sees young talent from working class backgrounds drop out of the game at an early age, while their counterparts around the world are learning the game in the academies of professional clubs.

City of Angels FC is a Los Angeles-based community soccer team setting out to change all that, using the support of global brands to fund top class coaching for underprivileged players and create a new pathway into the professional game.

Working with the club’s founder, I created a brand book and brand story that helped the club win an audience with adidas, Hewlett Packard and Manchester United (amongst others), as well as coverage in press outlets including The Guardian and a presence in the world’s most popular video game - EA Sports’ FIFA franchise.

It was measure of the project’s emotive draw that adidas agreed to support the club with a kit supply arrangement of the kind usually reserved for their top-tier clubs (think Arsenal, Manchester United, Juventus, Real Madrid and only a handful of others). Designed from scratch, the bespoke jersey featured a unique zig-zag design taken from the city flag of Los Angeles, shirt numbers in an original, Latin-inspired typeface, and sponsorship by the East LA institution Trejo’s Tacos (yes, that Danny Trejo).

Ultimately, our work with City of Angels led adidas to review their entire global soccer communities platform: More about the adidas Football Collective here.

Role: Creative lead, copywriter

Agency: Sunshine

Client: City of Angels FC