What to know about Boston Legacy FC ahead of their inaugural match

Women's professional soccer officially returns to Greater Boston this weekend.

More than eight years after the last pro women's soccer game in Massachusetts, the Boston Legacy are set to kick off their inaugural season this Saturday at their temporary home, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.

Here's everything you need to know about the region's newest sports team:

The Legacy are one of two expansion teams in the recharged National Women's Soccer League this year. Their debut comes after a series of starts and stops for pro women's soccer in Boston.

A quick history: The Boston Breakers, the city's first pro team, originated in 2001 as part of the Women's United Soccer Association. That league shuttered in 2003 and brought the Breakers down with them. The team was resurrected in 2009 as part of Women's Professional Soccer. That league lasted until 2012, and was replaced by the National Women's Soccer League. The Breakers were a founding team of the NWSL. But the club folded in 2017, after the owners decided to no longer support the team. Got all that?

Over the last several years, the NWSL has ridden a groundswell of support for women's sports — breaking attendance records, inking lucrative TV deals and planning expansion to new cities. The addition of the Legacy and a team in Denver will bring the total number of NWSL clubs to 16 (and counting).

The Legacy are scheduled to play 30 games total — one home game and one away game against every other team in the league. The regular season runs through the fall, with playoffs in November. There's also a one-month break this year in June, due to the North America-hosted men's World Cup, which includes seven games at Gillette.

The Legacy's 15 home games will be split up this year between Foxborough and Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. White Stadium, the intended permanent home for the team in Boston proper, is still under construction (more on that later).

Since the NWSL announced in 2023 that Boston would be home to a new expansion team, the club has had to work quickly to build an organization from scratch.

"It's a surprisingly short amount of time to think about launching all of the infrastructure, and people needed, and fan base needed to bring the level of professionalism and quality to a sports-rabid city like Boston," Boston Legacy President Jennifer Van Dijk told WBUR. "But we're very excited to say that we feel like we've done it."

There were a few stumbles on the way to game day. The team initially debuted with the much-derided name BOS Nation FC. The name was introduced with a campaign called "Too Many Balls," a reference to the plethora of men's sports teams in the city.

But the ad was met with pushback from members of the LGBTQ community, citing transphobic messaging, and from others who noted that there have been professional women's sports in New England for years. The team apologized for the campaign and rebranded as the Legacy last March.

The team has built out the brand with a vivid green and black color palette and crest featuring a swan, a nod to the birds (and boats) dotting Boston's waterways. The club's home kits are bright green as well, with a Massachusetts-based company TJ Maxx as the front-of-kit sponsor.

Some of the notable Legacy players signed to the team include goalkeeper Casey Murphy, midfielder Chloe Ricketts and forward Amanda Gutierres.

Murphy won Olympic gold as the backup goalkeeper for Team USA at the 2024 Paris Games and has 20 career appearances for the U.S. women's national team.

Ricketts, an 18-year-old from Michigan, is a part of the USWNT youth system. She began her pro career when she was only 15, and played three seasons for the Washington Spirit before signing with the Legacy.

Gutierres joins the Legacy from the Brazilian club Palmeiras, and comes to the team with international acclaim. She was nominated for the prestigious 2025 Ballon d’Or Féminin award recognizing top soccer players from around the world.

The team has also signed a hometown hero in Sammy Smith. The 24-year-old forward hails from Hanson, Massachusetts, and played four years at Boston College, plus another year at Texas A&M. Smith began her professional career in Iceland.

“Playing for a sports team in Boston, that's enough said right there,” Smith said in a press release announcing her signing. “That's a dream come true, to be able to play in front of my friends and family after living abroad for a couple years.”

A number of Legacy players have been called up this year to represent their national teams, including Canadian forward Nichelle Prince, Mexican defender Nicki Hernandez, Danish midfielder Josefine Hasbo and Texas-born midfielder Barbara Olivieri, playing for Venezuela.

The team will play under head coach Filipa Patão, who previously led the Lisbon-based Benfica women's team to five straight top-flight titles in Portugal.

The team's inaugural game Saturday is a 12:30 p.m. home opener at Gillette, with lots of fanfare to boot. It's against Gotham FC, giving fans the chance to see the opening of a new front in the classic New York-Boston sports rivalry.

The match also features a halftime performance by grown-up boy band New Kids on the Block.

Over 20,000 tickets have been sold for the first match. But there are still seats available, with prices starting at around $34.

Parking at Gillette is free for all Legacy matches. The MBTA commuter rail is also running a $20 game-day event train from South Station for anyone hoping to avoid traffic.

For those who prefer to cheer from the couch, Saturday's game will be aired nationally on ABC.

Beyond Saturday's game, Legacy matches will be aired across a variety of networks. Friday night matches will air on Prime Video and Saturday night games on Ion, with CBS, ESPN, Victory+ and the free NWSL+ airing the remaining competitions. The full Legacy schedule, including the television partners, is available here.

Starting in 2027, the Legacy plan to make White Stadium in Boston's Franklin Park their home field. The team has entered into a contract with the city of Boston to overhaul the nearly 80-year-old stadium, which had fallen into disrepair. The agreement allows the club to use the space for up to 20 games and 20 practices a year, with Boston Public Schools athletics using the facility for the rest of the year.

The plan was met with pushback from some community groups over a variety of concerns, including entering into a partnership with a private company on public lands, impacts to the surrounding neighborhoods and the ballooning cost of the renovation. A lawsuit seeking to stop the project will go before the state's Supreme Judicial Court this spring, though construction work is already underway.

The team says it has made efforts to connect with community groups and that Boston school students will remain the primary users of the stadium. Still, the opposition to the stadium proved challenging for the Legacy and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who faced questions about the project during her reelection campaign.

Van Dijk, the club's president, said that despite the delays, the project is well worth it for the team. She noted that the team having a stadium of their own is a rarity across women's sports.

"Unfortunately, this is the biggest structural difference between men's and women's sports that creates an extra hurdle that we all have to get over," said Van Dijk.

"When you don't play in a stadium that you own, or at least that you can control, the availability of your schedule choice becomes greatly diminished," she added.

With reporting from Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Stephanie Brown and Lynn Jolicoeur.