50 Days Out: How USL Super League Teams Are Preparing for Their Historic First Season

While the Sun have signed more than a starting XI’s worth of players now, other sides are still putting things in place to get the ball rolling. Here, at the end of June, fans should be aware of where the rest of the league is while we await the first kickoff in just under two months’ time!

There is no better place to start looking at the rest of the league than the start of the 2024-25 season with the club’s first ever game on Sunday August 18. That first match will be at home versus Dallas Trinity, another club which has come online to join the USL Super League in which they and six other teams will compete. Trinity FC will be playing their home games in the heart of the city at the Cotton Bowl Stadium. They have announced a coach, Scotswoman Pauline MacDonald, who will take over after leading the Scottish national under-17 team for several years. While their website does not have a roster section yet, many players have also been announced on Twitter. 

The club’s first signing, defender Amber Brooks, has had a long career playing in the National Women’s Soccer League after stints in both Germany and Australia. She has played for the US women’s national team one time; however, she won’t be the only player with international experience. Trinity also signed Finnish midfielder Jenny Danielsson, who has represented her country over 30 times. They have a roster as of writing sufficient to play a game as if having had a player sent off, with a goalkeeper, three other defenders, three other midfielders, and one striker on the books. Their striker, Allie Thornton, comes from RSC Anderlecht in Belgium, while both she and keeper Sam Estrada played for Southern Methodist University together. 

In Spokane, Washington, the Zephyr are the farthest along in terms of putting a full team together. At time of writing they have 19 players listed on their website, including six defenders, six midfielders, five attackers, and two keepers. Zephyr FC will play in the One Spokane Stadium, owned and operated by Spokane Public Schools and shared with their school program and the Spokane Velocity of the USL League One. Zephyr and Velocity share an ownership group as well, and the men’s side are in the middle of their own inaugural season. 

While Spokane have several players with international experience, the current highlights on their roster include American midfielders Marley Canales and Taylor Aylmer, Panamanian forward Riley Tanner, and Brazilian striker Thais Reiss. Aylmer was most recently with Racing Louisville of the NSWL, while Canales joined the Zephyr from nearby Seattle Reign FC. She has US youth national team experience, owing to her youth career with UCLA. Reiss played for the youth national teams of Brazil before going to the University of North Florida and getting drafted to play for Orlando Pride, also of the NWSL. Tanner grew up in America, but with a mother from Panama. She was called up to represent them during the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. 

The club with the next highest number of players currently signed is Carolina Ascent FC. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Ascent will share American Legion Memorial Stadium with USL League One side Charlotte Independence. Two things immediately stand out about the roster for this side: the first is the experience and the second is youth. On the one hand, there are several players with extensive playing time in the NWSL and in the comparable A-League in Australia. On the other, they have signed the league’s two youngest players. 

The Ascent have signed two North Carolinians who were playing in the A-League: defenders Vicky Bruce and Cannon Clough. Additionally, Rylee Baisden played Down Under after a stint with NWSL’s North Carolina Courage. Two further players have NWSL experience, with Taylor Porter joining the club from the Portland Timbers and Puerto Rican national teamer Jill Aguilera signing from the Chicago Red Stars. Aguilera led her country to their first ever major international tournament when her goal secured a victory over Haiti in a one-off qualification game for the first ever CONCACAF W Gold Cup. Puerto Rico beat Panama while coming agonizingly close to a result versus both Brazil and Colombia, before losing and bowing out. 

On the other side of the roster are 17-year-old local star B Hylton and 14-year-old Stella Spitzer. Hylton has played for local youth sides and won many individual trophies for her performances for the Charlotte Development Academy and the Covenant Day School. Spitzer is a unique case in the USL Super League. She joins the Ascent having been scouted from her US youth national team games and originally hails from Ohio. She moved to Texas to join the Solar Soccer Club and now will be making the jump to the professional ranks. These moves show Carolina intends to be a club that thinks of the future when shaping their roster. 

Another club with a substantial list of players already on board is Fort Lauderdale United. The proximity of this team to Tampa Bay should lend itself immediately to comparisons of the old North American Soccer League rivalry between the Tampa Bay Rowdies and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. It appears that each ownership group is already competing to be the most prepared for the season to come. Their website currently lists 11 players, including four defenders, four midfielders, and three attackers. Those who immediately stand out include former NWSL regular Addie McCain and two players with senior international experience, Nia Christopher and Laveni Vaka. 

McCain, a Texas-native, played for the Kansas City Current after leaving college and then spent last year with the Chicago Red Stars. She appears to be the player with the most high-level background in soccer currently with United. Christopher and Vaka are extremely interesting players. Both are just out of college and have been looking to start their professional club careers. On the other hand, each already has played for their country several times: Bermuda in Christopher’s case and Tonga for Vaka. Soccer is in Christopher’s blood, as her father played the sport and represented Bermuda before her. Vaka began her international career back in 2018. According to Fort Lauderdale, her signing makes her Tonga’s first ever professional player on the women’s side. 

The last team that has officially announced players on their website is Brooklyn FC. Playing in Maimonides Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn FC have two women listed for their roster, midfielder Jessica Garziano and Puerto Rican national team goalkeeper Sydney Martinez. The latter of those was involved in the success mentioned above, when Puerto Rico defeated Haiti to qualify for the inaugural CONCACAF W Gold Cup. In fact, it was Martinez’s 76th-minute penalty save that helped preserve the lead and ultimately the win against Haiti. Her play that day was hailed in the press and likely bodes well for Brooklyn this season.

The last two clubs that will play in the USL Super League do not have any signings announced thus far. DC Power FC will play at Audi Field, the home of DC United in Major League Soccer, while Lexington FC are under the same ownership group that have a men’s team in the USL League One. Fans of those teams and others eagerly await their first signings to show the intent behind the USL Super League. There are only 50 days left for them to join the rest of the league with their own players! The good news is each has named a head coach, and they should be sorting out what’s needed to complete a roster right now.