Bay FC women’s soccer team prepares for inaugural home opener in San Jose

It’s happening, that moment the Bay Area has been collectively anticipating: the inaugural home game for Bay FC, the Bay Area women’s professional soccer team.

“I’m so excited — I can’t wait to see all those fans in the crowd. I know it’s going to be an amazing atmosphere, and I know the (team’s) stoked to get out there and represent the Bay,” says Bay FC midfielder Joelle Anderson, who grew up in San Jose.

Bay FC’s game against the Houston Dash will get underway under the bright lights of PayPal Park at 7 p.m. Saturday with over 18,000 fans — a sellout crowd — in (or out of) their seats as the team takes the field.

“There seems to be this energy, this buzz, about this team,” acknowledges Bay FC head coach Albertin Montoya, a Major League Soccer veteran who played on the San Jose Clash (now Earthquakes).

Bay FC is part of the National Women’s Soccer League, which held its inaugural season in 2013.

With Bay FC joining the NWSL as the 14th team in the league, which itself is now in its 12th season, NWSL has surpassed the duration and total team numbers of its predecessors, Women’s Professional Soccer (2009-2012, seven teams — down to six in 2012 — four seasons) and the Women’s United Soccer Association (2001-2003, eight teams, three seasons).

The numbers are indicative of things going well for the NWSL — and for Bay FC, as their PayPal Park sellout is unprecedented for a Bay Area women’s professional team.

“The fact that we’ll be at PayPal in front of a sold-out crowd this weekend, that says it all,” said Montoya. “That’s just something that we haven’t experienced here in the Bay Area.”

And Montoya would know, as he served as the head coach of the Women’s Professional Soccer Bay Area team FC Gold Pride from 2009 until 2012, when the WPS league folded.

He notes that even during his head-coaching heyday of the Pride — whose roster included Brazilian phenom Marta and Canada’s national team’s Christine Sinclair — attendance at their game was nowhere close to what will be this Saturday.

“Even when the Pride won a championship, when we were in the finals, I think we had maybe 4,000, 5,000 in the stands,” said Montoya. “I’m not even sure it was 5,000, and this is now a home opener in front of 18,000 fans. … The media that’s come out and just the energy behind it is something I’ve never experienced at the pro- level, even when I was in DC last year.”

Prior to coming onboard as Bay FC’s lead coach, Montoya was an interim coach for the NWSL’s Washington, D.C.-based team, the Washington Spirit, in 2022.

“They have a huge following, but this has exceeded all of our expectations,” he says of Bay FC.

Bay FC was founded in 2023 by former U.S. Women’s National Team players Brandi Chastain, Leslie Osborne, Danielle Slaton and Aly Wagner and is backed by the investment group Sixth Street. The Bay FC’s governing board members include Wagner, Sixth Street CEO Alan Waxman, tech executive Sheryl Sandberg and former Golden State Warriors president Rick Welts.