{"id":424860,"date":"2026-01-22T02:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T02:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/424860\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T02:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T02:13:09","slug":"bostons-new-womens-pro-soccer-team-opens-against-the-reigning-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/424860\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston\u2019s new women\u2019s pro soccer team opens against the reigning champions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any sports fan knows that Boston is widely considered one of the best \u2014 if not the best \u2014 sports cities in the country. 2026 is shaping up to be a big year, too, especially in the world of women\u2019s professional soccer. Boston Legacy FC will soon make its debut, opening at home against the defending NWSL champions, Gotham FC, at Gillette Stadium on March 14.<\/p>\n

Dom\u00e8 Guasch, Boston Legacy\u2019s general manager, joined GBH\u2019s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk more about the team and the upcoming season. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.<\/p>\n

Arun Rath: As I mentioned in the introduction, for your home opener, you\u2019re playing Gotham FC, the reigning champs. How do you prepare for your first game, taking on the champions?<\/p>\n

Dom\u00e8 Guasch: I mean, it couldn\u2019t be more exciting, right? It\u2019s not only the defending champions, but … the historic rivals for the Boston teams \u2014 it\u2019s always New York. I think we couldn\u2019t have asked for a more exciting team to play in our home opener.<\/p>\n

Obviously, it\u2019ll be extremely challenging. As you mentioned, they\u2019re the current champions, but at the same time, we know this is a very competitive league. Any team is a big challenge. This is going to be a huge show for our fans, and we cannot wait for it.<\/p>\n

Rath: You\u2019re going to be splitting home matches between Gillette Stadium and Centerville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket. Tell us about how you feel about playing in those venues.<\/p>\n

Guasch: I would say those two are both amazing venues for different reasons, right? We got Gillette, the biggest stadium in Boston, obviously, where the New England Revolution is playing, where the Patriots \u2014 who are also having an incredible season \u2014 are playing and filling it up every day. But it\u2019s also one of the capitals of the soccer world this upcoming summer with the men\u2019s World Cup being played there<\/a>. Obviously, it is an honor, and it is great for the team to be able to launch there and be able to play not only the home opener but a bunch of other games.<\/p>\n

And then, Centerville Bank is also a soccer purpose-built stadium that was inaugurated less than a year ago. It\u2019s a brand new stadium. It\u2019s a great venue. I\u2019ve been there a couple of times watching a game, and the atmosphere and the environment are great. I\u2019m sure players and fans are going to have a lot of fun down there as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Head Coach Filipa Pat\u00e3o and Dom\u00e8 Guasch<\/p>\n

\n Boston Legacy FC<\/p>\n

Rath: You\u2019re not totally new to Boston. Tell us a bit about when you first came to Boston and your connection to soccer locally.<\/p>\n

Guasch: Prior to moving here \u2014 and I did that over a year ago now \u2014 I had been here a few times. The very first time, if I remember correctly, was 2012. In the summer, I was working for FC Barcelona at the time in the academy, and we were organizing a summer camp in Concord. It was a group of us from Barcelona, a group of different coaches, and we came to organize that camp.<\/p>\n

I remember it was extremely hot during that time, but I already fell in love with the city. … It had a great feeling. I always, coming back here, knew that this was a place where I\u2019d like to live one day, and here I am. And so far, so good.<\/p>\n

Rath: We can\u2019t run through everybody, but tell us a little bit about the roster and the players you have heading into this season.<\/p>\n

Guasch: We had a very challenging job of putting together a whole roster for the most competitive league in the world with no expansion draft and no college draft, right? We basically had to go and convince free agents and trade players and put together a competitive roster. We put a lot of time into planning that, and a lot of strategy.<\/p>\n

For us, obviously, in a league that has limitations, because we have a salary cap and a transfer fee threshold, we need it to be very intentional with every piece and every player that we bring to the team. This is a sport where we play 11 v. 11, but ultimately, we have like 25, 26 players on the roster. All of them, I\u2019m sure, at some point will be on the field. As I mentioned before, every game is extremely competitive, and we\u2019re going to have players who will be overloaded sometimes. We\u2019ll have players who sometimes will be injured, unfortunately, but we know that will happen.<\/p>\n

We wanted to be competitive across the whole roster, and we aim to build a very balanced roster by combining not only players that could play in different positions and are specialists in those positions, but at the same time combining players with league experience and are a little bit more veteran, with younger players that have a ton of potential to grow, because that\u2019s one thing that we want to focus on \u2014 player growth. That\u2019s our number one goal because we know, hey, if players grow, the team will grow. And if the team grows, we\u2019re going to have higher chances of winning games, right?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve looked for the players that wanna come in with that mentality of improving every single day, and doing their best every single day, so the team every week can have better chances to be successful in the games.<\/p>\n

Rath: As you know, it\u2019s a big deal bringing women\u2019s professional soccer to Boston. For people who might be new to the sport or are looking in from the outside, give something to convey the excitement of this game. What\u2019s getting you excited as you get ready for this season?<\/p>\n

Guasch: I mean, this is the most competitive league in the whole world, right? This is a very, very global sport that\u2019s played everywhere, and the top talent around the world is here in this league. Again, it\u2019s not only national talent, but we have many players across four different continents that are going to be playing here against a lot of teams that have talent also from everywhere in the world.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s no better place to watch women\u2019s soccer than the United States \u2014 and obviously, Boston \u2014 in the upcoming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any sports fan knows that Boston is widely considered one of the best \u2014 if not the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-424860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}