Watching USWNT vs. Netherlands with USWNT legends

This is ‘Watching With…’. Our soccer staff sits down with past players, coaches, fans and other people involved in soccer to watch and discuss a Women’s World Cup match together.

For the USWNT’s second game of the 2023 World Cup, The Athletic attended a watch party hosted by Peacock in West Hollywood, alongside former U.S. internationals Lauren Cheney Holiday, Sydney Leroux, Ashlyn Harris, Michelle Akers and Linda Gancitano, Akers’ teammate in 1985, when the USWNT first began to play international matches.

Gracias Madre, a vegan Mexican restaurant, is not your typical location to host a World Cup watch party. Among the top 10 restaurants in Los Angeles for celebrity sightings, according to Westside Los Angeles, it attracts an eclectic mix of visitors, including Selena Gomez, Amy Adams and Natalie Portman, part-owner of Angel City, who hosted an event at Gracias Madre for the premiere of their HBO documentary.

Televisions were set up for the event inside the building – a former antique emporium with whitewashed brick, high ceilings and exposed wooden beams. They were also dotted around the patio, shaded by mature olive trees. 

Servers offered empanadas, burgers and alcoholic drinks to those invited, but before this Athletic writer could begin to make a dent on…