The local and national news has been peppered with reports the past two or three days about a new National Women’s Soccer League (“NWSL”) expansion team coming to Louisville. There’s reportedly a press conference today featuring our own Brad Estes and formerly our own Amanda Duffy, now NWSL Commissioner. It’s not too hard to connect those two dots.

This is an awesome development. First, it’s awesome because the women playing in the NWSL are awesome. If you missed “This is Football” on Amazon this summer, it’s worth it if only for the episode about the US and Japanese women’ national teams. A lot of the best players in the world are playing in the NWSL right now, and we’re going to get to see them live and in person very soon.

It’s equally impressive that the Louisville City ownership plowed forward and invested in a women’s team, and almost as impressive that they managed to mostly keep it under wraps for so long. This will mark Louisville’s first top-flight professional sports team since, I don’t know, maybe the Louisville Colonels in baseball or something, and yet there’s been barely a whisper about it. Well, a few whispers. But not much.

What’s important now for us, as soccer fans and supporters, is that we keep doing what we’re doing, only more. A big part of the success of Louisville City FC is the fact that the Coopers and so many others were primed and ready to embrace and support the club and the players from day one. This new team, under a different name and badge but the same owners, is going to need that same kind of support and love from us.

They deserve it, even if we don’t know them yet. We didn’t know Matt Fondy or Brian Burke or Kadeem Dacres or Niall McCabe or Magnus Rasmussen back in March of 2015, either. But we wore purple, bought tickets, made tifo, and sang songs.

So buy tickets, write songs, buy swag, support team sponsors, all of it for this new team. One of the Coopers’ mission statements is to support the game in whatever form it may present itself. We’re getting a team in the best women’s league in the world in less than two years. Let’s act like it. Let’s be ready.

VAMOS MORADOS!