More than two years of work had led to this moment for the Boston Independent Supporters’ Association (ISA). Even before Boston’s new NWSL team had a name, a mascot or a roster, there were fans organizing, ready and waiting to embrace the franchise.
On 14 March 2026, it finally paid off. The Boston ISA members marched into Gillette Stadium for the Legacy’s opening match, following behind the marching band from Boston Public Schools and holding their “Up the Swans” scarves over their heads. The group arrived at their seats in the supporters’ section behind the north goal and unfurled the tifo they had spent many hours diligently painting.
“Our Legacy Takes Flight” could be read from everywhere in the nearly 65,000-seat stadium, the image of a flying swan wearing a black and green scarf capturing the spirit of this new team lifting off in front of a crowd of more than 30,000 fans. From there, the members of the Boston ISA carried the enthusiasm for the next 90-plus minutes, chanting, dancing, waving flags and beating drums.
“We’d all been building up to this point, and then the players are coming on to the field, and the tifo is up, and it all just starts,” Paige Wetzel, a Boston ISA member, says of that first Legacy game. “After all of the years of planning and not having a team that we had even laid eyes on yet, we actually watched them play. They were on the field, and we were cheering for them, and it just kind of all melted into this like moment of super excitement.”
That cheering, that energy and that support is something the Boston ISA has brought to every Legacy home game this season – rain or shine, win or lose, small crowd or large, Massachusetts or Rhode Island.
“I see supporter groups as the heartbeat of game day,” says Jammy Torres Millet, the former community marketing manager for the Legacy who served as the ISA’s team liaison from September 2024 until they left the club this past June. “They’re the ones that are bringing the energy and bringing fandom to life through their chants and their drums.”
Supporters’ groups are a robust element of soccer culture. Creating one for a team without an identity, though, is a difficult task. While chants and traditions will develop over time, the Boston ISA members wanted players on the Legacy, one of two expansion teams to join the NWSL this year, to feel supported from their first kickoff.
They faced the challenge of the Legacy not yet having a home stadium to play in: the team are spending their first season bouncing between Gillette in Foxborough, Massachusetts and Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island while their eventual home in Boston, White Stadium, is under construction until 2028.
Boston also hadn’t had a professional women’s soccer team in nearly a decade. The Boston Breakers, a club that played in the original eight-team NWSL and its three precursor leagues, folded suddenly after the 2017 season, and many Boston women’s soccer fans still mourn the loss. The NWSL announced Boston as an expansion city for the 2026 season back in September 2023, and the ISA came together shortly after.
“For us, especially given the history of Boston losing and now regaining a professional women’s team, the folks who are building this organization and the folks who are joining are really super enthusiastic about making sure that support for this team is really strong in Boston and beyond,” says Anna Esten, the membership chair for the Boston ISA.
Torres Millet says that when they joined the club back in September 2024, the ISA had already been in communication with one of the club’s founders. Before there was a club identity, the ISA members focused on networking with team leadership, going to events in the community hosted by the Boston ownership group and getting word to fans that visible and tangible support would be a crucial part of the team’s success.
“Supporter groups are key partners in our sport,” says Meghann Burke, the executive director of the NWSL Players Association. “They do more than show up on match day; they do even more than create the environment that sets soccer fandom apart, with chants, drums, tifos and smoke. They give the game its sense of belonging and turn it into something people feel and carry with them.”
The ISA has a board of directors with committee roles. As membership chair, Esten is involved in strategic conversations about how members can get the most out of being a part of the organization, brainstorming everything from hosting fun events to advocating with the team on things that members want or need to see at games. But the role also includes the nitty-gritty things, such as keeping spreadsheets and updating the membership base when needed.
“We are independent from the team, and so we’re not relying on them financially,” Esten says. “And so we are in a position to be able to advocate and push for what we think is really important for fans and supporters.”
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This role was tested almost immediately in October 2024, when the Boston ownership group rolled out its original branding with the name BOS Nation FC and a disastrous marketing campaign whose tagline was “Too Many Balls”. (Yes, really.) After public backlash, team leadership went back to the drawing board, eventually landing on Boston Legacy FC as the team’s name and a swan as its logo. The ISA was involved in that process, providing feedback during multiple focus groups and stressing why the fandom was so disappointed in the initial branding.
“I think [the focus group] was definitely a way to rebuild that trust and to nourish that relationship that was impacted by the original rollout,” Torres Millet says. “But then also, there’s something really special about the fan voice and giving fans input on building this club. That is something that is not always done when professional sports teams are built from scratch – offering the fans and the community a voice in the process so they can feel bought in from day zero.”
The ISA hosts tailgates in the parking lot before home games and watch parties at local breweries for away games. Their drumming echoes throughout the stands, ensuring the energy players feel while on the pitch never wavers, even when the team are losing. Like most expansion teams in their debut seasons, the Legacy got off to a slow start. Many of their players were new to the NWSL and hadn’t had much time to practice together before the season began. The team started the season 0-5, drawing their sixth game, and finally getting their first win in their seventh. The Legacy are third-to-last in the league standings at 6-12-5.
But they can always count on their supporters’ section for a pick-me-up. The group flies the flags of players’ home countries behind the goal. The fans blend player names with local references in their chants – for goalkeeper Casey Murphy, it’s “Dropkick Murphy” when she fires the ball out of her zone, a nod to the local band that sings the famous hype song “I’m Shipping Up to Boston”.
And then there is the honking. Chant leaders hold megaphones and yell, “If you’re not honking, you’re not Boston”, and then the supporters yell “honk” in an increasingly fast tempo. It is, of course, meant to mimic the sound a swan makes, but it is also incredibly annoying – in the way swans (and sports fans) can be. That identity carries to the pitch; swans are an aggressive bird and the Legacy are an aggressive team, leading the NWSL in yellow cards this season.
“We want people to come to Boston and hate it,” Murphy said in a postgame presser in March. “Regardless if we win or lose, we want them to hate playing us.” Defender Bianca St-Georges echoed that sentiment after a game in May. “Fouling is not an issue for us. It’s just us,” she said. “We’re not scared.”
Though the team and their fans may embrace the very Boston mindset of knowing everyone else probably hates them, that doesn’t mean that the stands are an unwelcoming place. A Pride flag and a trans flag always visibly wave in the ISA’s section. Even before the Legacy took the field, the ISA joined the “Trans People Belong” coalition created by NWSL supporters’ groups, ensuring Boston’s team had representation in advocacy for trans fans and athletes across the sport.
“When it matters most, [supporters’ groups] show up for players, standing at the intersection of player rights and labor rights and pushing the game to be fairer and more accountable,” Burke says.
The Boston ISA members are committed to continuing to show up, for the players, for the league and for each other. They look forward to 2028, when the Legacy will finally have a stadium to call their own and will no longer be the new kids on the block. For now, their drums will continue to carry the games in Centreville Bank Stadium and beyond.
“It’s been a winding road and things have changed on us, between team branding and stadium locations,” Esten says. “But one thing that has been a key tenet for us is that we want to be a supporters’ group where everyone can join and everyone can belong. Whether you’re a Breakers diehard or someone who watched their first game on 14 March, we want you to be part of our group.”
Esten cites the culture of women’s sports as one that lends itself to inclusivity. “The most rabid men’s sports fans can make you feel like not every fan has a place there, and we want to make it clear that no matter who you are, if you want to cheer for the Legacy then we want you here.”