Alex Loera, the former captain for the Santa Clara University women’s soccer team that captured the NCAA College Cup championship in 2021, was acquired as Bay FC’s first player on Wednesday morning.

The 24-year-old central midfielder is coming off an exceptional season with the Kansas City Current, who made Loera the 26th overall pick in the 2021 draft, though she returned to Santa Clara for a final year of eligibility after the pandemic and did not begin her professional career until 2022.

It only took one season for the Current to lock Loera into a three-year contract extension.

But Bay FC general manager Lucy Rushton said she had circled Loera as a priority acquisition, and when the team had the chance to acquire her in exchange for $175,000 in allocation money and protection in the expansion draft, Rushton was thrilled to pull the trigger.

“We could not have found a better player and a better person to become the first player in this franchise’s history,” said Rushton. “On and off the field, Alex epitomizes what we stand for and what we want with Bay FC.”

Rushton said Loera is widely regarded as one of the best midfielders in the league. The club expects her to play a defensive central midfield role, where she can showcase her tenacity and aggression she developed as a central defender at Santa Clara.

Having transitioned back to central midfield, her original role before she became a defender at Santa Clara, Loera has transformed into a complete player, Rushton said.

“She has every asset to be a fantastic central midfielder in this league,” the GM said. “She breaks lines and creates chances… She has composure on the ball, a desire to be on the ball and a desire to help us control possession and dictate the game through possession.”

Since hiring longtime Mountain View Los Altos (MVLA) coach Albertin Montoya as the club’s inaugural head coach, Bay FC has been on a mission to inform the public of its attacking-minded brand of football it hopes to play in its first season at PayPal Park, to begin in 2024.

Rushton has been quick to pull off some trades with other clubs who are trying to avoid losing players in the expansion draft, which will take place on Dec. 15.

One of those teams was Orlando, which sent its first-round pick (No. 8 overall) in next year’s draft to Bay FC in exchange for protection from the expansion draft and $50,000 in allocation money.

Rushton said she’s trying to pull off as many of those trades as she can in order to make it less stressful for players on other teams who are left unprotected during a three-day window before Dec. 15.

For now, Loera is the club’s only player.

“It feels a little weird right now being the only person on the team,” she said. “But Lucy and her team and everyone involved has a great soccer IQ so I can trust they’ll have other players that will make this season go so well and smoothly.”

At Santa Clara, Loera was named the defensive player of the tournament during the Broncos’ run to a title in 2021.

“I have some pretty special ties to the Bay Area,” she said. “As soon as I heard Bay FC would be a team in the league I was so excited, I was like, ‘I’m going to end up back here at some point.’”

Loera said she’s trying to recruit some of her former Santa Clara teammates who are now playing professionally to come join her.

Bay FC will train on the campus of San Jose State University and play its home games at PayPal Park, the 18,000-seat home to the San Jose Earthquakes of MLS.

“It’s going to be electric when we play there,” Loera said. “I’m looking forward to overcoming whatever is thrown at us and trying to win a championship in that first year.”

The draft — convened virtually — will be held Dec. 15 as Bay FC and fellow expansion team Utah Royals FC will have their pick of current NWSL players from other teams, with restrictions. Bay FC will have the first pick, and both expansion teams will be able to add up to 12 players in the draft, as outlined in the rules released Wednesday by the NWSL.

Each of the league’s existing 12 teams will be allowed to protect nine players on their existing roster from being drafted by either of the new clubs. After a team has lost a player in the draft, it will be able to protect one additional player from its roster, and no team will lose more than two unprotected players.

Unsigned free agents — restricted or not — and players under the age of 18 are not within the pool of players eligible to be drafted.

The free agency negotiation window is already open, and Bay FC can begin signing free agents along with the 13 other clubs Nov. 20.

The 12 existing teams will be required to submit their list of protected players on Dec. 12, when a transaction moratorium across the league begins ahead of the draft.

CBS Sports Network will air the draft, with coverage beginning at 4 p.m.

The NWSL has not yet announced dates for the amateur draft and the start of the season. Bay FC will have the second selection in the first and third rounds of the four-round draft, which is likely to be held in January, and the first picks in the second and fourth rounds.

And on Wednesday morning, Montoya got his dream job: head coach of Bay FC, the new expansion team in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) that will begin play in the 2024 season at PayPal Park.

“It makes perfect sense for me,” Montoya told the Bay Area News Group this week. “I love this game, it’s all I’ve done all my life since I was 6 years old. It started here in the Bay Area… It’s one of the best places in the world for football. On the women’s side we have some of the best players ever to come out of Northern California. I have the opportunity to develop players and teach the game the way I love to play it.”

Montoya promised local fans that they’ll get an exciting, fast-paced and attacking-minded brand of football out of his squad.

“This is the only way I know how to play, whether it’s right or wrong,” he said. “So why not?”

Bay FC general manager Lucy Rushton, the former D.C. United GM who once became the second woman ever to lead an MLS front office, said she put together a long and exhausting search while looking for the team’s first head coach, but all the fingers kept pointing toward Montoya.

“I’ve been going to a lot of NWSL games and I cannot walk anywhere with Albertin without getting stopped,” she said. “It’s the most frustrating thing ever. Wherever I go – I go to KC, I go to Washington, Orlando, wherever, they’ll ask me, ‘Albertin lives in the Bay Area; do you know him?’

“This guy is going to sell the stadium out.”

Montoya’s journey was a tumultuous one. He arrived in Miami after his family escaped from Cuba in 1980, when he was just 5 years old. His family eventually settled in Mountain View, where his great grandfather had escaped to years earlier.

Under his family’s guidance, Albertin became a quick study on the pitch and eventually went on to star for the United States team that advanced to the quarterfinals in the U-17 World Cup in Italy.

He played for four years at Santa Clara before he was drafted by the Clash, now known as the Earthquakes, with the fourth overall pick in the 1997 MLS Draft.

Getting seriously hurt in his first game forced him to change career paths, though.

“My injury lasted three years,” he said. “I thought I’d go back and play. In the meantime, I started helping a local club, Mountain View Los Altos soccer club. I grew up playing there. My dad was coaching there. My dad asked me to help a U-10 team. I was thinking I would go back to MLS, but my injury was complicated. Three years later I needed another surgery.”

After retiring from his playing career he began coaching regularly at MVLA, now considered one of the top youth clubs in California. He took over a team of 8- and 9-year-old girls that he’d coach for the next 10 years.

One girl on that team was Margueritte Aozasa, who would later star at Santa Clara and coach at Stanford. Last year, she took over the UCLA women’s soccer program and led them to a national championship, becoming the first-ever woman of color and first-ever rookie coach to capture the title.

Aozasa remembers falling in love with the game because of Montoya.

“We had the best time ever,” said Aozasa, who is leading a Bruins team currently ranked No. 5 in the nation. “He would play against us all the time. We’d play 11-on-1. And sadly, he’d always win. And he’d just joke with us but also hold us accountable. We didn’t want to do anything wrong by him. I think it’s because we were truly enjoying ourselves. And he would be funny and joking and then OK, now it’s time to be serious. He coached us through that really well. We could go from crying with laughter to business with the snap of his fingers.”

Montoya coached her at MLVA through high school. His wife, Erin, also coached her.

At Aozasa’s high school graduation, the Montoyas were sitting in the front row with tears in their eyes.

“We grew up together,” Aozasa said. “We watched him grow up alongside us.”

Montoya has also been the co-head coach of the California Storm as part of the Women’s Premier Soccer League from 1999 to ‘06. He was the head coach of FC Gold Pride as part of Women’s Professional Soccer in 2009 and ‘10. And he was the head coach of the United States Women’s National Team U-17 club that won a CONCACAF title in 2012.

Most recently, the 48-year-old was the interim head coach for the NWSL’s Washington Spirit last year.

He said he still loves coaching the little ones, often going straight from a training session with professionals to coaching a team of 9-year-olds.

“You touch kids’ lives, that’s what’s so special,” he said. “You can have such a huge impact on their lives and it changes them if it’s done the right way. It can be done at every level. Even the pros still want to learn.”

Montoya hopes to find players with a high soccer IQ for Bay FC’s inaugural season.

Aozasa said she can’t wait to get to a game at PayPal Park.

“He brings so much life and energy and enjoyment to the game,” she said. “That’s what it’s all about.

“Even though I‘m more the mentee than the mentor, I’m so proud of him and excited for him. He’s such a talent. And truly has a gift for coaching. I believe he deserved this, and he deserves to be recognized as one of the best coaches in the country, if not in the world.”

Ertz, 31, had already hinted at her retirement at this summer’s World Cup after the United States fell to Sweden on penalties in the Round of 16, tearfully telling reporters it was likely her final match wearing the team crest. She made it official Thursday.

“I gave everything I had to the sport that I love,” she said in a statement announcing her retirement. “With that I can walk away with no regrets because while I gave soccer every ounce of myself, soccer gave me even more, and for that I’ll always be thankful.”

An Arizona native, Ertz went by her maiden name Julie Johnston when she starred at Santa Clara from 2010-2013, scoring 31 goals in 79 matches for the Broncos. She was Santa Clara’s leading goalscorer in two of her four years and had the most assists or tied for the most assists in three years.

She also met her husband, former Stanford football standout and current Arizona Cardinals tight end Zach Ertz, while she was in the Bay Area. Those local roots had led many to link Ertz to the National Women’s Soccer League’s new team Bay FC, which kicks off in San Jose next spring, as the club’s potential first big name signing.

That was never a guarantee, though, largely because it wasn’t even clear if Ertz would return to soccer in 2023 before she was named to this summer’s World Cup team. She nursed a knee injury before playing in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, helping the U.S. win a bronze medal, then took time off for the birth of her son last year.

But she appeared in a pair of exhibition matches against Ireland in April and signed a one-year deal with Angel City, the NWSL team in Los Angeles, to work her way back into game shape.

Known for her versatility, Ertz played a defensive midfield position for the 2019 World Cup championship team. She was a center back in the 2015 tournament, which the United States also won.

Ertz played at center back in this year’s tournament, filling in for injured veteran Becky Sauerbrunn.

“The future is in absolutely great hands,” Ertz told reporters at the World Cup after the earliest exit ever for the United States. “You know, sometimes you learn the most from your failures, which sucks. But it’s part of my career as well.”

She scored six goals in 95 games with the NWSL’s Chicago Red Stars from 2014-2021. She played in three games for Angel City this season with one goal.

While the retirement means Ertz won’t play for Bay FC and the club’s four owners who also all starred at Santa Clara, there remains a chance Ertz could join Bay FC in a different capacity — perhaps, even, as a part-owner herself.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

But as the offense struggles to score and the midfield struggles to possess the ball, one player has been vital, anchoring the American’s solid defensive performance: San Jose native Naomi Girma.

Girma has been a big part of the U.S. only allowing one goal through three matches in New Zealand, using her intelligence and quickness to anticipate opponents’ movements and cut off opportunities before they have gotten dangerous.

To those watching the women’s game closest, it’s pretty clear what path the 23-year-old Girma is heading on.

“Naomi Girma is going to be the best center back in the world,” Aly Wagner, Fox’s lead analyst at the Women’s World Cup, said before the tournament. “I think the potential is limitless for her.”

That potential has been building for a long time. Born in San Jose as the child of Ethiopian immigrants, Girma attended Pioneer High School and earned a scholarship to Stanford.

Once there, Girma was named a captain as a sophomore, earned Pac-12 Defender of the Year honors in 2019 and helped lead her team to that year’s national championship — which the Cardinal won at PayPal Park in her hometown, no less.

The following year, challenges hit: Competitive sports shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic and Girma tore her ACL in October 2020 in a training session. Girma recently wrote in The Players’ Tribune about the struggles she endured trying to rehabilitate during the pandemic and how teammate Katie Meyer helped Girma keep pushing through physical therapy.

The push worked. She once again earned Pac-12 Defender of the Year in 2021, even scoring four goals, and became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 National Women’s Soccer League Draft by the expansion club San Diego Wave.

In her first full professional season, Girma won NWSL Rookie of the Year and Defender of the Year, finishing in the top five of NWSL MVP voting and helping the Wave reach the playoffs in its first season of existence.

She also quickly earned her way into the national team conversation and made her debut on April 12, 2022 in a friendly against Uzbekistan. She has been in head coach Vlatko Andonovski’s starting lineup for almost every big match since.

“She reads the game so well and understands the game and seems like she’s always a step ahead of the game,” Andonovski said before the tournament. “That allows her to be successful in her actions.”

Her importance only grew larger once the Americans’ longtime center back mainstay, Becky Sauerbrunn, was left off the World Cup roster because of an injury. Girma has been paired with Santa Clara alum Julie Ertz through the group stage, though Ertz is typically a midfielder.

Sophia Smith has played alongside Girma for years, both on youth national teams growing up and then at Stanford. Now starting together at the World Cup, Girma’s ascension is less surprising to Smith, who calls Girma her best friend.

“I’m happy to see people finally realizing what I think a lot of us have known her whole career,” Smith said. “I think Naomi is amazing and I think she’s only going to continue to grow and get better and be a leader and I can’t wait to watch her do that.”

In the eyes of Fox’s lead play-by-play commentator and longtime women’s soccer broadcaster J.P. Dellacamera, Girma’s club coach in San Diego has helped accelerate her development.

“Casey Stoney played at the highest level for England at that position. There’s no question in my mind that she has been very helpful to Girma,” Dellacamera said. “I think that’s been a plus, and the fact that she’s been a regular for club and country now for two years, so her confidence is good.”

Beyond her confidence, the thing that continues to stand out to Wagner is the presence Girma brings to the back line. When things are going wrong — for San Diego and for the U.S. — it’s Girma who’s there to make them right.

“She has the physical tools, but at such a young age, she’s already one of the most mature and calm players on the field,” Wagner said. “I just think that the maturity that she has, her ability to read the game and make the right decision at the right time, is really remarkable for someone at such a young age.”

Girma’s future is secure thanks to the work she’s already done, but she is mainly focused on the present.

“This past year has been great, but it’s been building towards this summer,” Girma said. “I think now, it’s all eyes on New Zealand and Australia and going out and performing at the World Cup.”

Through the group stage, she’s done exactly that.

And she’ll need to keep performing in order for the USWNT to win its third consecutive World Cup.

PayPal Park in San Jose will be the initial home of Bay FC, the team announced on Friday.

While the team plans to build its own stadium at some point in the future, Bay FC CEO Brady Stewart told this news organization that the team signed an agreement to spend at least its first five years at PayPal Park.

“We’re incredibly excited,” Stewart said on Wednesday. “It’s great to know where our near-term home will be and we can’t wait to kick off our first season in PayPal Park.”

Built by the San Jose Earthquakes and opened in 2015, the 18,000-seat facility is the Bay Area’s only soccer-specific stadium, making it the expected first home of Bay FC since the first hint of an expansion team for the region. Earthquakes president Jared Shawlee told this news organization his team is thrilled to finally have the agreement secured, which comes 107 days after the National Women’s Soccer League awarded a team to the San Francisco Bay Area in early April.

“We’ve been working with the group and the people who started this going on almost three years now, and it was always my hope and aspiration that PayPal Park would be where the team would play,” Shawlee said on Wednesday. “I think in 2024, there’s going to be a lot of amazing soccer played at PayPal Park.”

Bay FC will spend at least $3 million to build its own 3,600-square-foot facility on the grounds of PayPal Park that will host the team’s locker room, office areas and other necessities. It will be built directly next to the building that houses Earthquakes’ current locker room.

PayPal Park recently hosted the U.S. women’s national team’s lone send-off match before the 2023 Women’s World Cup, as the U.S. beat Wales 2-0 in front of a sold-out crowd. Stewart said the atmosphere “gave me the chills,” and it also earned high praise from several USWNT players.

Sophia Smith, who plays for the Portland Thorns in the NWSL, is not a Bay Area native, but she expressed excitement over getting to be able to come back to the region that she called home for two years in future seasons.

“I’ve always known that women’s soccer was a big thing here and people just want a game to go to,” Smith said. “I’m excited for the new team to be here. They’re going to get a great crowd, people are going to show up and support them.”

San Jose mayor Matt Mahan told this news organization he’s “thrilled” that Bay FC will make its initial home in San Jose.

“This is just a really exciting announcement for our city and for the whole region,” Mahan said. “San Jose really is a soccer town, maybe more than people would realize. This is a town that loves soccer, that has been very loyal to the Quakes.”

The club also plans to build its own training facility in the future, and Stewart said an announcement on a temporary training home will be coming “shortly.” Santa Clara University is expected to host the team’s training.

Bay FC has stated its intent to represent the entire region with its team. While the initial season will be played in the South Bay, the team plans to play exhibition matches and hold team workouts around the Bay Area to allow more fans to connect to the team.

The club has had much of its branding and marketing based around San Francisco, particularly with the Golden Gate Bridge a part of its logo, and Bay FC also held its first public event at the Presidio.

San Francisco officials are interested in Bay FC building its permanent home in the city, and mayor London Breed recently hypothesized that the now-closed Westfield Mall could be turned into a soccer stadium. But Oakland and San Jose are also interested in that.

For at least the next few years, San Jose will be home to the region’s only major professional women’s sports team. Mahan hopes it’s the start of a longer relationship.

“We will do everything we can to facilitate their long-term stay if that ends up being their desire,” Mahan said. “Shorter term, our goal is to just be a great partner.”

Former top Golden State Warriors marketing executive Jen Millet will be the new soccer team’s chief operating officer on Monday, the team announced on Tuesday. Her first day with Bay FC was Monday.

Millet joins after spending most of six years with Golden State, working up to becoming the Warriors’ chief marketing officer before she left for Bay FC. While she acknowledged it was hard to leave the Warriors, Bay FC provided her with a “perfect storm” to jump into women’s sports.

“I’ve had conversations in the past about working in women’s sports, and this conversation with Bay FC was the first I’ve ever had where the business case was sort of front and center,” Millet told this news organization Monday. “The approach wasn’t led with a philanthropic, mission-driven [approach] — all of that is still there, but the conversation was really about, ‘This is going to be an amazing business and women’s sports is a profitable business venture.’

“That was an empowering and inspiring mindset coming in.”

Millet was a key part of the team that has helped the Warriors capitalize on their move from Oakland to San Francisco’s Chase Center, helping to create the marketing events around the Warriors’ open area outside the area, known as Thrive City.

“Jen’s reputation for growing and elevating global sports franchises is second to none, having made a remarkable impact for the Warriors both here in the Bay Area and on the global stage,” Bay FC CEO Brady Stewart said in a statement. “As we build out the Bay FC team with top-tier talent both on and off the pitch, Jen will be an incredible asset ramping up operations to create a world-class organization.”

Warriors president Brandon Schneider said in a statement provided to Bay Area News Group: “Jen Millet has been an incredibly prominent and valuable figure in the Warriors organization over the last six years. Her accomplishments during this time have been nothing short of remarkable, including numerous sports business industry awards and accolades, the opening of an award-winning arena in Chase Center, helping establish the Warriors as a global brand and, of course, multiple NBA championships.  We’re sad to see Jen leave, but this is an amazing opportunity for her to be an integral part of the Bay FC launch and the organization’s long term development.”

A San Francisco resident, Millet believes that experience, plus her prior experiences with companies such as Pandora, Stubhub, Rdio and LiveNation, will help her acclimate well to a brand-new sports team like Bay FC.

“Brady and I have talked about this idea that, for better or worse, we get to build it all — it’s empowering and it’s nerve-wracking at the same time,” Millet said. “That we get to build this and really have an impact on the culture and values of the organization, that’s huge for me.”

Bay FC will kick off its inaugural season in the National Women’s Soccer League next spring, with an expansion draft in the fall. The club has yet to announce where it will train and play its matches, though the team’s initial home stadium appears likely be San Jose’s PayPal Park.

Former Stanford stars Naomi Girma, Alana Cook, Kelly O’Hara, Sophia Smith and Andi Sullivan have all returned to their college home of Cagan Stadium to practice ahead of Sunday’s tune-up friendly against Wales in San Jose.

“It’s been such a joy,” Sullivan said on Wednesday of returning to the Bay Area. “I haven’t been back in many years. It’s beautiful, it really boosts my mood. Hopefully it’s boosting my teammates’ moods as well. But it’s been really nice.”

Girma, who attended Pioneer High School in San Jose before coming north to Palo Alto, added, “There’s nothing like Stanford, and it’s so nice being so close to San Jose, too. I’ve loved our time in the Bay so far.”

The team has been training at Stanford since Monday, but the Cardinal quintet has been in the Bay Area since Saturday, when the five were at Stanford Stadium for the San Jose Earthquakes’ rivalry match against the LA Galaxy. O’Hara and Girma sounded the Earthquakes’ siren before the match.

It’s clear, then, that the return to The Farm has brought all five a healthy dose of joy. Smith remarked “I’m home” on social media, and the USWNT feeds also showed O’Hara dancing on the team bus as the Stanford fight song, “All Right Now” by the band Free, blared from the back of the bus.

Kelley O’Hara
Stanford University, Class of 2010 pic.twitter.com/TKne1CmMeJ

— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) July 3, 2023

Of course, it doesn’t hurt the ex-Cardinal stars to remind college foes turned international teammates, like Cal alum Alex Morgan, former Santa Clara stars Julie Ertz and Sofia Huerta or others from Pac-12 schools, about past battles.

Even USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski made a crack about the former rivals of Stanford struggling at Cagan Stadium, Sullivan said.

“I just have a lot of wins and a lot of good memories here,” she added.

Have the former Cardinal players heard any chirping back? “No,” Girma said before adding with a laugh, “It’s hard to smack-talk Stanford.”

The team will continue training at Stanford throughout the week ahead of Sunday’s send-off match in front of an expected sold-out crowd at San Jose’s PayPal Park. Andonovski said his first visit to the region has been “amazing” so far — though it surely won’t be his last, as the NWSL will add Bay FC to its league next season.

“I’ve heard so many good things, and obviously now with Bay FC coming in, we see that there is such strong support for women’s soccer,” Andonovski said. “We want to be there for them and we hope to put up a good show.”

“I’m home!”

Stanford’s own @sophsssmith pic.twitter.com/PaJwylwAfS

— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) July 3, 2023

The match in San Jose will also complete the true homecoming weekend for Girma. The 23-year-old said her mom requested 20 tickets for Girma’s first USWNT in her home state, and she’s likely to have many more family and friends in the stands.

While the likely starter for the USWNT recently signed an extension with the NWSL’s San Diego Wave, she’s excited that Bay FC’s entrance into the NWSL will give her more chances to play at home.

“The expansion teams in California have been so successful. Angel City and San Diego, we’ve done a great job of growing the league, bringing more followers and getting out in our community,” Girma said. “I’m excited that there’s a team here now for a lot of young girls playing soccer here in the Bay to look up to, and I’m excited to have a game at home every year.”

Girma said when she was growing up in the Bay Area, she mainly looked up to the region’s strong college programs. Stanford has reached nine of the last 15 College Cups and won three national titles (2011, 2017, 2019). Santa Clara has made 12 College Cups (soccer’s Final Four) and won two national titles, and Cal made three of the first seven College Cups.

The Cardinal’s current influence on the USWNT runs beyond just the current five: Alyssa Thompson, Angel City’s 18-year-old forward, was committed to Stanford until she turned pro immediately after high school. And the roster likely would have included other Stanford alums — like Menlo Park native Tierna Davidson, Catarina Macario and Christen Press — if they weren’t recovering from injuries.

Still, making arguably the world’s toughest 23-player roster is an achievement not to be taken lightly, as the USWNT seeks its third consecutive World Cup title next month in Sydney. While each player’s focus is on that ultimate goal in Australia and New Zealand, where they’ll head after Sunday’s match, the return to The Farm allows for an emotional journey on the way.

“It just gives me immense gratitude for my time here,” Sullivan said. “Because I know that the program and the school really prepared me to step on to the next level and the next level after that.”

But as of Wednesday, they know they’re on the clock.

The NWSL announced several roster procedural decisions on Wednesday for its two new clubs joining in 2024 — Bay FC and the Utah Royals.

Bay FC will have the first choice in the 12-round expansion draft, which is expected to take place in the fall. In prior expansion drafts, this slot has allowed for the expansion clubs to facilitate trades and acquire assets even before making the selection.

Before Bay FC will get to make a choice, each current NWSL team will have the opportunity to protect a set number of players. In the last expansion draft for Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC, that number was set at nine, with a maximum of one U.S. women’s national team player. Both Angel City and San Diego started to make trades in the run-up to the draft, with the first trade coming as early as August.

The 2024 NWSL Draft order was also set for the two expansions clubs, with Bay FC receiving the second choices in the first and third rounds and the first selections in the second and fourth rounds. That draft typically is held in January, before the start of training camps.

In addition to the draft rules, Utah received priority in the discovery order, which the league uses whenever non-USWNT players are being sought by NWSL teams, and the waiver order, which is used for players cut loose by other NWSL teams.

But Bay FC is now atop the distribution process list, which is used to help place any U.S. women’s national team players who are not in the NWSL but intend to join the league.

The current USWNT roster that will suit up at San Jose’s PayPal Park in a send-off match ahead of this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup only has one non-NWSL player — Lindsay Horan, who just signed a long-term deal with Lyon in France and officially left the Portland Thorns. In fact, the vast majority of top American soccer players are currently playing in the NWSL.

But the one USWNT player who is not playing stateside is midfielder Catarina Macario, a Stanford alum who is currently unavailable for the USWNT at the World Cup because of an extended rehabilitation from a torn ACL.

Macario, 23, is considered one of the best women’s footballers in the world, having scored eight goals in 17 career appearances for the USWNT and scoring 22 goals in 33 matches for her French club Lyon in her last full professional season. Her ability to play in both the midfield and up as a forward would have been invaluable for the U.S. in this summer’s World Cup.

When her contract with Lyon expired in early June, Macario signed a three-year deal with English powerhouse Chelsea. It doesn’t seem likely that she’ll want to leave to come to the NWSL.

But if she does, Bay FC may hope her past time in the Bay is a draw. Macario scored 63 goals in 68 matches at Stanford during her collegiate career and led the Cardinal to two national titles (2017, 2019). She even finished her degree at Stanford remotely, graduating in 2021.

If there was ever a young superstar for Bay FC to build around, Macario would be her. And while it may require some patience, they appear to be in prime position to bring her back to the Bay Area if she ever decides to come to the NWSL.

Now the Bay Area’s three largest cities are vying to become the future home of Bay FC.

The National Women’s Soccer League’s newest franchise is set to kick off in the spring of 2024 at a temporary home, which will likely be the San Jose Earthquakes’ home of PayPal Park.

And while there is still so much for Bay FC to do in the run-up to that first match next spring, Alan Waxman, co-founder and CEO of Sixth Street and co-chair of Bay FC, has made it clear that the organization wants its own training facility and stadium in the long-term future.

“You can’t be world class without having your own stadium,” Waxman said.

The desire for a stadium specific for a women’s team might have seemed far-fetched as recently as even three years ago. But by the time Bay FC takes the pitch next spring, the NWSL will already have one team in a stadium built specifically for a women’s team, as the Kansas City Current are nearing completion on an 11,500-seat stadium.

Bay FC could eventually emulate what the Current are doing here in the Bay Area — and all three cities appear ready to help do that. At Bay FC’s kick-off event in the Presidio this month, representatives from each city gave stump speeches for their city to be the team’s home.

In follow-up conversations with this news organization, it became even clearer that all three cities are gearing up for these discussions with Bay FC.

San Francisco

The City by the Bay might be the most enticing location for a permanent home, both because of how much Bay FC has used SF in its branding already and because of its central location to the greater Bay Area. It matches up with Bay FC’s message to unite and represent the entire region.

It’s also the most difficult city to place a stadium in. But according to SF Parks and Rec department general manager Phil Ginsburg, it’s something city officials are already discussing.

“We’re quite serious about this,” Ginsburg said this month. “And we’re really starting to do some of our own due diligence to identify some potential opportunities.”

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, downtown San Francisco may have changed permanently as more companies allow employees to work from home part- or full-time. The Giants have said that shift is why weeknight games have seen an attendance dip. That hasn’t happened to the Warriors, whose less frequent games feel more like events.

In that sense, a soccer stadium hosting matches once or twice a week around Pier 70, a few blocks south of the Warriors’ Chase Center, could draw people back to the city, and would remind Ginsburg of his hometown of Philadelphia’s “stadium corridor” setup. MUNI rail lines extend all the way down that neighborhood now, and Caltrain’s 22nd Street station would be a short walk away.

But there are already development plans at Pier 70, as well as other options farther south along the water like at Hunter’s Point or Candlestick Point. It could get expensive for Bay FC to even get the land from developers, and that’s even before building.

San Francisco mayor London Breed also floated the recently closed Westfield mall along Market Street near downtown as a possible location to build a soccer stadium at the Bloomberg Technology Summit on Thursday.

As San Francisco plans how to shape its downtown for the next century, Ginsburg can see how having a soccer stadium woven directly into the heart of San Francisco’s downtown — with a BART station right underneath, Union Square a few blocks north and the Civic Center Plaza less than a mile west — would make the city comparable to many major European cities.

“It’s not going to happen tomorrow, obviously,” Ginsburg said. “But they could really be an anchor part of this re-envisioning of downtown, and at the same time, make the soccer experience very accessible for families and young kids from all over the Bay.”

Oakland

When Oakland mayor Sheng Thao’s chief of staff Leigh Hanson made her pitch to the Bay FC crowd in the Presidio, she alluded to the city’s other professional sports teams who have departed, saying, “We’ve got all the stadiums you’d ever want.”

In terms of ready-made locations, it’s certainly true. Not only could the Coliseum complex be available soon if the A’s leave for Las Vegas after the 2024 baseball season, but so too could the Howard Terminal site the A’s sought for years.

But there are already two soccer teams in the city in the Oakland Roots and Soul, who both currently play in lower division soccer leagues. Hanson said the city is “excited” to be working with the teams and the African American Sports and Entertainment Group (AASEG) as they seek to build out a potential temporary soccer stadium at the Coliseum, and the Roots have been presenting to the Coliseum complex authority in their last two monthly meetings.

“We think that the [Coliseum] location is perfect for all parts of the Bay,” Hanson said. “It’s accessible, it has a great community vibe and Oakland likes to party.”

From the city’s perspective, a stadium hosting three teams would be even better than two, though it’s fair to wonder if future plans would make collaboration on one venue difficult. Two brand-new stadiums of similar size is also difficult to imagine.

But the ambition for The Town is clear, in Hanson’s eyes.

“Oakland would love to be the home of soccer in the Bay Area,” Hanson said.

San Jose

The South Bay city that will likely be Bay FC’s initial hometown already has a soccer-specific stadium for the Earthquakes. Given that Levi’s Stadium is just north in Santa Clara as a larger but similarly-shaped venue, it might be hard to see the South Bay adding another stadium of similar setup.

But San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan made note of his city’s “300 days of sunshine”, and knows it has another sizable advantage in the bidding.

“The South Bay has a lot more land than other parts of the Bay,” Mahan said.

San Jose will also get a prime opportunity to showcase itself as a great home for women’s soccer next month, when the U.S. women’s national team plays its lone send-off match for the World Cup at PayPal Park.

Mahan says he plans to attend the match with his kids and hopes that it shows San Jose is the right host city for Bay FC — for 2024 and maybe beyond.

“PayPal Park is a world-class park,” Mahan said. “It’s got a great fan experience, really easily accessible.

“We’ve got a lot of assets. But that’s up to them. We’re going to make the pitch and then they’ll decide.”