Sunday March 15, 2026
By Laura Everett
The stories of professional women’s soccer in Boston are stories of starts and restarts, building and rebuilding.
Which is reasonable and consistent, as the inaugural home opener ended with an encouragingly strong Boston team losing to the reigning NWSL Champions Gotham FC 0-1, given that the Legacy has been together for only seven weeks.
The last time two Boston and New Jersey pro women’s soccer teams played was over seven years ago, also on Saturday, September 30, 2017. The Boston Breakers played Sky Blue FC at Harvard University’s Jordan Field, in front of 3,497 fans. The NJ-based (Jersey) Sky Blue FC won 4-3, on a Kelly O’Hara goal. It was the last game of the 2017 regular season, and Sam Kerr scored her 17th goal of the season, setting the then single season scoring record. (Temwa Chawinga of the Kansas City Current rebroke the record in 2024 with 20 goals in a single season).
(you can watch the highlights on YouTube)
The Breakers finished ninth out of ten teams in 2017.
The Boston Breakers folded in advance of the 2018 season, in February 2018. At the time, National Women’s Soccer League Managing Director Amanda Duffy said of Boston,
‘‘It’s a market that we believe in.”
For fans of women’s soccer in Boston, a relentless belief in the game kept hopes alive that one day, a team would return. A reboot? A resurrection?
A comprehensive analysis has yet to be fully written on why the Breakers never thrived in Boston. Many believe a lack of robust financial investment was at play. Others argue that Boston’s sexist media coverage helped doom the team. Breakers Head Coach Matt Beard passed away in 2025, and with him died part of the story. But for professional women’s soccer to flourish in Boston, many things would need to change.
It takes relentless dedication to build, and build again. Controlling owner Jennifer Epstein said as much in her pre-game comments about building a team from scratch:
“This is the first year in the NWSL we have two expansion teams launching without a draft. That might initially look like a challenge, but we turned that into an opportunity. That means every player on our roster made the choice to join our club. You know, that’s rare. That’s unique. They did that with a certain amount of risk, and certainly several unknowns. But they wanted to be here and be here for Boston. That is representative of the competitive spirit of Boston.”
Seven years later, and with over seven times the fans, a new Boston team emerged on another Saturday since Boston and New Jersey teams last played, as a pink wrap around banner circled the stadium, reading “Relentless from Day One.” Relentless to return again.
Boston women’s soccer supporters with long memories remember that “Relentless Raspberry” was one of the inaugural colors released when the team initially launched as BOS Nation in October 2024, along with Championship Green, Loyal Charcoal, Daring Pink, Rise Yellow, and Orange Press, among their disastrous “Too Many Balls” campaign, in a launch so messy it had to be rolled back.
To the credit of the team’s leaders, they finally heard community feedback. Relentless community feedback.
Wiser minds prevailed, and much was reworked and rebranded in the relentless push to bring Boston women’s football into being. But the relentlessness endured to get to 30,207 fans at an opening day match, a new record in the NWSL for an inaugural home opener. A final push to bring women’s football back to Boston.
For the past seven plus years, Boston has been without a professional women’s soccer team, despite our self-professed claim to be a title town. In the intervening years, the US Women’s National Team won another World Cup in 2019, and sued their own federation for equal pay, securing a collective bargaining agreement that stands through 2028. The National Women’s Soccer League passed its own ten year mark in 2022, ended the required college draft, finally enacted free agency, and the prior financial precarity of the league is mostly a thing of the past.
Mostly.
Some of the sexual abuse, verbal abuse, and racial abuse has been investigated within US Soccer and the NWSL, yet much of the corrective work to create healthy, anti-racist, fully inclusive and affirming work space remains, especially within youth soccer remains.
In the intervening years, Boston has had two professional women’s hockey teams: the Boston Pride (Premier Hockey Federation, 2015-2023) and the Boston Fleet (Professional Women’s Hockey League, 2023-present). The winning juggernaut of Boston’s Women’s Pro American tackle football, the four-time national championship Boston Renegade played in the Women’s Football Alliance from 2015-2025 before suspending operations in 2025. The professional Women’s Lacrosse League launched in 2024 with the Boston Guard winning the first national title in 2025.
Much has changed among women’s professional sports since the Breakers and Sky Blue last played.
We are not where we were seven years ago and that is good. Signs around the stadium read in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, saying “Welcome,” “Bem-vindo” and “Casa de Boston Legacy FC.”
In many ways, 30,207 fans is proof positive of that relentless drive.
Yet, in curious ways, the past remains oddly alive for Boston Legacy FC, though not so much the form of the Breakers, but among the nostalgic choices that will not serve the team in 2026 and beyond.
The pre-match activities began with the members of New Kids on the Block taking a 5-man kick into a goal. The five male singers of the 80’s boy band (average age 55.4yo, and one has a grandchild) then appeared again at half time to play some of their hits. This may be a wise strategy for those buying the tickets and driving to Gillette stadium, but missed the mark for a younger, more racially diverse fan base.
For a team that has had mediocre relationships at best and antagonistic at worst with Boston’s majority Black and Brown communities, the music of New Kids on the Block is a miss. A band that appeals to majority white, Gen X women, and has been accused of artistic theft from Black performers is a choice.
And yet, the overall feel of the stadium, the quality of play, the relentless push of the dedicated players generally led to a feel good attitude, even in the loss.
After the match, Goal Keeper Casey Murphy reflected, “this felt amazing. I was so excited all week. I was nervous but good nerves. This means a lot to this city. This is a city that wins a lot of titles…. I felt a lot of pride repping Boston.”
This match was historic in other ways, with a record number of yellow cards issued for a NWSL match, with four issued to Legacy and three to Gotham.
Even after Bianca St Georges was sent off with two yellows for an automatic red, Murphy felt the team was not done. “We were a man down and we still didn’t give up.”
There was indeed a relentless enthusiasm in the stadium among those present. The Boston Legacy Independent Supporters Group raised their first tifo announcing “Our legacy takes flight” to cheers of “Up The Swans!”
Legacy forward Aïssata Traoré had a number of extraordinary shots on goal. The crowd roared with acknowledgement with the entry of Amanda Gutierres. Legacy will need to do better in converting their corner chances. Yet this this team is solid; their drive to finish against the reigning champions impressive.
As always, there is work to be done. But the foundation is far more solid, the ground far more fertile, and yes, the expectations far higher for a professional women’s team of any sport.
Is it fair?
No.
Is it just?
No.
Is there a legacy to build?
Yes.
When you have the Bostonian audacity to name yourself a “Legacy” even before you play your first game?
Yes.
Perhaps Keeper Casey Murray said it best after the game:
“We’re going to do this. We’re going to get one more chance.Once that goal went in, we just dropped our shoulders and went for it. That’s all you can ask.”
That’s all you can ask of a new, relentless legacy.
Boston Women's Sports 
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