The last time the FIFA World Cup was held at Gillette Stadium was in 2003. It was then that a young Nichelle Prince visited Boston with her parents and her sisters and journeyed to Foxborough to watch the match.
The experience, Prince told the media on Thursday, inspired her desire to become a professional soccer player one day. In 2018, she achieved that dream when she was selected by the Houston Dash in the NWSL college draft after four years at Ohio State University, where she scored 27 goals with 27 assists in 72 appearances.
She’s gone on to compete on the international stage for Canada, including at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2019 and 2023 and in the Summer Olympics, where she won a bronze medal in 2016 and a gold medal in 2020.
After joining the Boston Legacy FC from the KC Current, the veteran forward will now return to the very same arena that ignited her passion for the game when the club kicks off its inaugural season on March 14.
“It was always my dream to be here,” Prince told reporters during the team’s first official media availability on Thursday. “To be starting my 10th year in this league, it’s something that I couldn’t even dream of. … This league didn’t exist. I didn’t know that it was even possible to do this. And so, I just want to go into this game remembering that, like, just to have fun, to play for her, and to be proud of what I’ve done so far and keep pushing towards more.”
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After what the club called “two successful preseason training trips to Florida and Spain, the Legacy FC defeated the Chicago Stars, 3-1, the Molde FK, 7-0, and Alhama CF, 3-0, although lineups were not disclosed. The Swans are embracing all the excitement surrounding their first match against the reigning champs, Gotham FC, which has already surpassed 20,000 tickets sold, and were even honored recently at a ceremony held at the Massachusetts State House earlier this week.
“It’s definitely not just a regular-season game. It’s the first game for this team, for this organization, the first game for a lot of players who are new to this league, and so, there’s a lot of excitement,” Prince told the media.
“I think that’s what we’re channeling all the nerves into, that excitement. But I think that the message that we try to instill this week is that it is just another game, and we played so many of these games, so obviously, there’s so much surrounding this, the first game of the season, first game for this team. But at the end of the day, it’s just football. We’ve had a good preseason [and] I think we have a lot of players that are confident that we’re coming in ready to show who they are.”
Head coach Filipa Patão was named Legacy FC’s first-ever head coach this past June after leading the Portuguese club Benfica’s women’s senior team since 2020, where she amassed a 156-28-15 W-L-D record. She revealed that her vision for the Swan’s style of play will center around risk-taking and giving her 24-player roster the opportunity to play freely.
“What we work[ed on] since Day 1 was giving to the players the comfort[ability] and the freedom to take some risks because if you want to have the ball and if you want to do creative things, you need to take risks,” Patão said when The IX Soccer asked her about her coaching style.
“You need to be comfortable to do that with a lot of responsibility, of course. But if you want to talk about identity and about our style of play, I think, it’s a lot of giving to the players the freedom to decide in regards of what [the] game is saying to you, and adaptability – adaptability to understand what is best for us to win the game … and capacity to have the ball and fight for every moment.”
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Boston Legacy FC Current Roster:
- Goalkeepers (3): Laurel Ivory, Casey Murphy, Hannah Stambaugh
- Defenders (7): Laurel Ansbrow, Laís Araújo, Jorelyn Carabalí, Emerson Elgin, Nicki Hernandez, Kaká, Bianca St-Georges
- Midfielders (7): Alba Caño, Aleigh Gambone, Josefine Hasbo, Annie Karich, Sophia Lowenberg, Barbara Olivieri, Chloe Ricketts
- Forwards (7): Amanda Allen, Amanda Gutierres, Fauzia Najjemba, Nichelle Prince, Sammy Smith, Ella Stevens, Aïssata Traoré
While Patão is confident that the Swans are “ready for the first game,” she also made it clear that their first match on Saturday is not going to be the end all be all in terms of their potential. “It’s a long season. We’re not going to be the best ones if we won this game, and we [aren’t] going to be the worst ones if we lose the game. So again, we’re going to be comparative….We want to see that we are aligned with the process that we start in the beginning of the preseason, and to be consistent in this process, week after week.”
It’s a sentiment that’s clearly shared amongst her players, including Prince, who echoed that while the Swans have every intention of competing, they’re more focused on the process ahead of them this season.
“We’re competitors. We want to win. We want to win every game. We’re going into every game wanting to win, but I think the big thing that we’ve instilled in this team is that it’s a process to trust the process, not to be so worried about the outcome, what’s going to happen at the end of the year, before playoffs. We’re focusing on every single day, every single game that’s right in front of us.”