SAN JOSE — Holding up a new, white uniform with shades of gray throughout, Bay FC co-founders Brandi Chastain, Aly Wagner, Danielle Slaton and Leslie Osborne felt like they finally reached the finish line of building their new club.
With their first-ever kit revealed in a conference room of San Jose’s DoubleTree Hotel, the soccer legends realized they had done it, they had completed the checklist of starting an expansion franchise in the National Women’s Soccer League that will begin play in March.
“I just think about what’s going to happen in those jerseys and the life these players are going to breathe into them, the things we’re going to see them do and celebrate with them,” Slaton said. “That’s what gives me goosebumps.”
A chance to see the roster together for the first time, the Bay FC co-owners hosted a media event on Monday afternoon less than two months before they’re to kick off their inaugural season at PayPal Park.
The big question: how does this club, one of two expansion teams along with the Utah Royals, expect to compete in a league that has 12 returning teams and has historically been difficult for expansion teams?
For inspiration, Bay FC is looking at the San Diego Wave, which entered the NWSL as an expansion franchise in 2022 and immediately made a run. The Wave finished third (10-6-6) in its inaugural season and made it all the way to the league semifinals, then won the NWSL Shield with the league’s best regular season record in 2023.
“It was awesome to see San Diego’s success as an expansion team and I’m hoping and foreseeing that’ll be the same for us,” said Alex Loera, the club’s first acquisition who could quarterback the attack from a holding midfield role.
A standout at Santa Clara who won a national title with the Broncos in 2020, Loera expects to fit Bay FC’s possession-based style perfectly as a prolific long-range passer who is comfortable playing any position.
But because Bay FC has needed to build much of its roster through the college draft and the expansion draft, many of the players available to them are on the younger side.
General manager Lucy Rushton tried to counteract the youth by adding several veterans through trades and free agency.
“Getting a player like Alex Loera is a really important piece because she’s got both; she’s really young (24) but has experience in the league,” Rushton said. “For us to get a player like that early, that was a person we could build the team around.”
Rushton then built a back line that will center around 31-year-old Emily Menges, a two-time NWSL Champion and NWSL Shield winner in 10 seasons in the league with Thorns FC.
Getting traded was “very bizarre,” Menges said. “Someone told me when I got picked up by Bay FC that it’s good, I was too comfortable in Portland. I actually think that’s true. This will challenge me in different ways.”
Menges and veteran Caprice Dydasco, a 31-year-old who is one of the most experienced defenders in the NWSL, expect to create a solid back line for coach Albertin Montoya.
Montoya, the longtime Mountain View Los Altos coach who also coached FC Gold Pride, a women’s professional club in the Bay Area that lasted only one season in 2009, said he’s already seen “incredible energy” during optional workouts.
Loera noted, “We had optional training and almost everybody showed up. The culture and the chemistry, you can already feel it. It’s truly going to be an incredible season.”
The club is hoping to get immediate impacts from Savvy King, the No. 2 overall draft pick out of the University of North Carolina, and Maya Doms, a five-year player at Stanford.
And with the international window now open, Rushton expects to add several “big names” to the roster in the next week or two.
“I’m excited that there’s youth on our roster,” said Wagner, a San Jose native and two-time gold medalist while playing for the United States Women’s National Team. “One of the things we set out to do when we first started this club was to be a place of development and opportunity. And I think you’re seeing that reflected in the roster. Yes we have incredible experience with some of the NWSL veterans, but for the most part we’ve got young, hungry talent. That’s where things get exciting.”
The team will travel to Santa Barbara on Tuesday to begin its preseason preparation before it plays in the Coachella Valley Invitational exhibition tournament starting on Feb. 7.
Tickets are on sale for the regular season, which begins in March. The schedule is expected to be released as soon as this week.
