Wave FC says goodbye to its first home

When you step into Torero Stadium, there really isn’t much to see. It's located on the University of San Diego campus and is home to the school's football as well as men’s and women’s soccer teams. This is not the historic Rose Bowl or Coliseum, which also host Southern California college sports. Rather, this is a 6,000-seat stadium with patchy grass and poor wifi.

As San Diego Wave FC goalkeeper Carly Telford stepped into the small stadium early this year, she wasn’t really sure what to expect. Born in Newcastle, England, she had never played in the NWSL let alone been to an American University. As an expansion team, who even knew if there would be fans in the stands or people who knew the team existed.

Now, as Telford prepares for the final game in Torero this Saturday, she knows the stadium will be full, people will be chanting Wave FC to victory and ahead of its move to the Wave's brand-new Snapdragon Stadium home, the buzz around Wave FC has never been higher.

Torero Stadium was built in 1961 and along with the school’s football and soccer teams, it has been home to the San Diego Legion of Major League Rugby and the USL's San Diego Loyal, and it's also hosted international soccer friendlies along the way. 

“I think if you just walked on and there was nobody there, it's actually quite small,” Telford said about the stadium. “I just think once the people start walking in there, and the atmosphere that they create within it, the colors, the noise, the chants, it just makes it pretty special." 

While the Loyal has been playing at Torero Stadium since 2020, Wave FC had its first game at the stadium in late March of this year. The players, finding themselves on a brand-new team, didn't know how many people would show in support. 

“None of us really knew how many fans would turn out,” Telford said. “But luckily for us, San Diego's a great sporting city and we got lots of fans for the first couple of games and I think we excited them with the way we played and the kind of goals we scored.”

While it may not be as big as other stadiums across the league, Wave FC players say no place has a better gameday atmosphere than Torero.

“It has always felt that the sellouts had more people there than there actually are,” Wave FC forward Jodie Taylor said. “That’s just credit to the fans for bringing the energy and bringing that to the games for us ”

Wave FC’s first supporters' group, Sirens, has had an impactful role in the growth of fandom for the club. Sitting on the far side of the stadium directly behind the goal you will find Sirens in their section, which they call The Cove. While you'll find people in the section wearing hippo costumes and blowing bubble guns, as well as one fan wearing a Gritty mask, their passion and dedication to the progress of their club on the field and within San Diego is all but fun and games.  

Telford’s favorite memory at Torero actually happened right in front of the Sirens. Late in a game against Racing Louisville FC, Telford saved a penalty to keep the game at 0-0. She has developed a relationship with the Sirens due to their outlandish costumes they wear during the games, so saving a penalty in front of them felt even more special. 

“To turn around for [the Sirens] and give them that [penalty save] right in front of them, it was brilliant,” Telford said. 

On the other end of the stadium, you will find Alex Morgan’s Home Break. Wave FC’s star striker brings a different girls' soccer club to its own section to attend each home game. Through supporters groups, youth soccer clubs and the rest of the San Diego public, Torero is not a fun place to play as an opponent. Up until two weeks ago, Wave FC was unbeaten at home. 

This tangible advantage to playing at Torero is not lost on players like Telford, who says smaller stadiums have their advantages. At Chelsea, Telford played in a 4,000-seat stadium similar to Torero. 

“The atmosphere is so intimidating and the crowd is very close to the pitch,” she said. “It's quite a daunting proposition when you're walking down the bank and there are fans on each side of you.”

While there are advantages to playing in front of a small and intimate crowd, there are also advantages to playing in a 32,000-capacity stadium. Snapdragon Stadium awaits Wave FC and so does the opportunity to have more fans support the club at its games. 

“As a fan, you are going to feel like you are walking into something that is new and fresh,” Telford said. “It's your own city, it's your own club. It just feels more real.”

The ability to have this amount of fans watch women’s professional soccer weekly is a vast improvement to what the game has seen in the past. When Telford was beginning her career in England, the facilities and fan turnout was far below the standards of today. “As a professional athlete, [what] I played in, I wouldn’t even classify them as stadiums,” she said. “There was a man and his dog walking past and that was the kind of crowds we we're getting when I was playing at an elite level 10 years ago.”

Now, Wave FC expects to bring the most fans to an NWSL soccer game at its Snapdragon debut on September 17 against Angel City FC. The current NWSL game day attendance record is 25,218 fans, set by the Portland Thorns at Providence Park in 2019. Wave FC hopes to sell out the stadium in its debut.

Beyond the excitement of a new stadium and its debut game, there is another reason fans will be turning out to Snapdragon for its opening game. Wave FC will be taking on its SoCal rivals. The last time these two teams faced on July 9, it was an exciting game that ended with a 2-1 ACFC victory in front of a packed stadium. Wave FC will look to do the same in September. 

“We've witnessed [ACFC’s] crowd and the hostility and that kind of momentum, that huge crowd can bring you as a club and as a team,” Telford said. “When they come to our place, we really want to fill it and have so many San Diegans in there that they don’t even know what hit them.”

People across the country will tune into the game to see if Wave FC breaks the attendance record and can win its first game at Snapdragon, in this latest installment of an engaging rivalry.

But until then, Wave FC has one more game at the small college stadium which has been its home for most of the season. In the future, people will think of Snapdragon when they think of this club. But without Torero, the popularity of Wave FC within San Diego may have never begun.