“THE TIME IS RIGHT. THE MOMENTUM IS HERE.”

The 40-year-old from nearby Oakville, Ont., has been busy here at the Zanchin Automotive Soccer Centre, site of the NSL’s media day, which was set up for Matheson and 12 players to run through a gauntlet of promotional content and press interviews. AFC Toronto midfielder Victoria Pickett was in the middle of a video shoot earlier today when she first spotted Matheson. “I’m still trying hard not to fan-girl and act normal around her,” Pickett says now, wearing her team’s burgundy kit, which she both saw and put on for the first time today. “But I mean, she’s a legend — and she built all of this.”

Matheson certainly, and incredibly, did just that. The former Team Canada midfielder will be the first to point out all the others who helped bring the six-team NSL to life — and it’s a long list — but on April 16, when Vancouver Rise FC hosts Calgary Wild FC at BC Place for the first professional women’s soccer game on Canadian soil, it’s Matheson who’ll have made a long-held dream for so many come true.

She first wrote the big ideas for this league on a napkin at a bar over a few drinks not long after she retired from playing. Now, less than three years later, Matheson is about to see those plans come to life on fields in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. “It’s a bit surreal, to be honest,” she says, admitting it hasn’t really hit her yet, she figures that’ll come at the inaugural game. One thing Matheson already knows for certain, though, is that compared to anything else she has accomplished in her incredible soccer career, “this is magnitudes bigger.”

Those pantsuit plans changed when, near the end of her Grade 13 year, she got called to join a national team training camp. “I was almost 19, and then once I was in that national team pool, I didn’t let them get rid of me,” she says.

Matheson debuted for Canada in 2003 at the Algarve Cup in Portugal, and it was her first time flying overseas. Later that year, she cracked the World Cup roster. Canada impressed with a best-ever performance on that stage, placing fourth after a loss to the Americans in the third-place game. It remains the best Canada has fared at the World Cup, and veteran captain Charmaine Hooper was the first Canadian to be named a World Cup all-star. “Still, it didn’t get that much attention,” Matheson recalls. “We came home and no one knew who we were.”

It took another decade for that to change, for the sport in Canada to experience what Matheson calls “a watershed moment,” for fans to recognize her on the TTC and at her local frozen yogurt spot in Toronto. The delay was in part because the team didn’t produce any big results on the international stage, managing a quarterfinal appearance at their first Olympics in 2008 and a disappointing 0-3 showing at the 2011 World Cup.

The turning point came when Canada earned a semifinal date with the world-No. 1 Americans at the 2012 Olympics in London and played in one of the best knockout games in soccer history. Captain Sinclair met the moment, scoring a hat-trick to give Canada a 3-2 lead. Then came a controversial penalty on McLeod that led to an American kick in the penalty area, a hand ball in close and Abby Wambach tying the game for the U.S. on a penalty kick in the 80^th minute. Alex Morgan provided the dagger in extra time, giving the Americans a 4-3 comeback win.

“Truly, London 2012 is something people remember because of that semifinal, because of Sinc’s performance, and the absurd referee situation,” Matheson says. “We’d been on this crazy rollercoaster, and Canadians rallied behind us in an incredible way.”

The players cried over that loss together, and their captain told them they weren’t leaving London without a medal. In the bronze medal game against France two days later, an emotionally and physically exhausted Canadian team managed to take a 0-0 draw into extra time. In the 92nd minute, a Sophie Schmidt shot deflected off a French opponent and landed at Matheson’s feet while the French keeper was diving the other way. Matheson put her right foot on it and was running with her arms out in celebration even before the ball hit the back of the net. The 1-0 lead stood up to give Canada a first-ever Olympic soccer medal.

“I was interviewed right after, and they asked me to describe the goal, but I had no idea what happened,” Matheson says, smiling and shaking her head. “At the time when I scored, it was just the most surreal feeling of joy and this crazy dream we’d been working towards coming true, like a dream we believed in, but only sort of believed, because it had never happened before, you know?”

It was soon after those Summer Games that conversation about the lack of a women’s pro league at home really started to heat up among the game’s elite in Canada. Matheson had already played four pro seasons in Norway, but later that year, the American-based National Women’s Soccer League was founded, and in 2013, Matheson, Sinclair, McLeod and a handful of other Canadians were among the league’s first players.

Washington was the closest to home Matheson could play professionally, and it was during that first season with the NWSL’s Spirit that she noticed a change in how elite Canadian players felt about their national team, in large part thanks to their Olympic success. “We started to believe in ourselves,” she says. “We’d talked about getting on a podium, but to do it was really special. I think that was kind of our moment to put ourselves on the map and really solidify ourselves as a soccer country.”

The belief trickled down and created the first big ripple effect Matheson witnessed firsthand in her sport. “After the 2012 Olympics, there’s a generation of player that starts coming through the [national team] program that knows who we are on a different level, and they have expectations of more,” she says. “They’re not coming in just to compete for Canada, now they’re coming in to win Olympic medals, which then is able to take us to that next level.”

After she retired in 2021, it was Matheson’s intention to create another, bigger ripple with the NSL, an effort that has since dominated her life. “Someone smart at the beginning of this journey told me that you’ll be selling longer than you think, and selling is harder than you think — I’ve found that to be true,” she says. “But I’ve also been saying for a while now: We only have to build this once.”

Boychuk had designs on a second season in Vittsjo and signed a two-year contract to that end, but that plan changed when the NSL came calling and paid her league a transfer fee. “I couldn’t turn it down,” she says. Boychuk will make three times as much money in the NSL, where the minimum salary is $50,000.

But money isn’t the driving force that attracted Boychuk to the NSL. “Being a part of something from the start, from the ground up, in your home country, to inspire the next generation, in a league that puts players first — I could go on and on,” she says. “Who wouldn’t want to do that?”

She’s looking forward to Montreal’s first game at BMO Field in Toronto on Saturday April 19. And less than a month later, the Roses head to Calgary, which will be another highlight. “My whole family is going to come over in a bus and they’re going to bring everyone in the neighbourhood, and the Ukrainian community,” she says, her blue eyes lighting up at the thought. “I still can’t believe I get to play so close to home.”

For Pickett’s family in Barrie, Ont., the commute to see her play in Toronto will be even shorter. The 28-year-old midfielder is on loan this season from the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage, where she still has a year left on her contract. She has made three appearances with Canada’s senior national team and is targeting more. “And obviously, I wanted to be a part of something huge. To say I contributed to the foundation of the NSL?” she says. “That is just fantastic. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Pickett first left home in 2015 to play for the Wisconsin Badgers and signed in the NWSL right out of college. She always had designs on playing pro at home, but wasn’t sure it would happen. “This league has been so good already, to have our Canadian players, to retain them and keep them in the homeland, you know?” she says, laughing at her choice of words. “But seriously, I’ve been gone for 10 years. Quinn [Vancouver Rise FC], Desiree Scott [Ottawa Rapid FC], they’ve been gone for way longer. It’s amazing to be back on home soil.”

While these are the earliest days, Pickett is impressed so far. “When I first started in the NWSL, we were playing on a baseball diamond, we didn’t have showers, we were in portables,” she says, of her first year in the pros (though Pickett is quick to point out the American-based league has grown leaps and bounds since). “But to come here and this is the first year, it’s nuts. The NSL is starting from such a strong position.”

AFC Toronto has its own gym facility out of York University, and will play home games on the campus, aside from their opener at BMO. In addition to their salaries, players get a housing stipend and two meals a day. Pickett has also been encouraged by the talent she’s seen at early practices.

There are a lot of unknowns, but Pickett says she wasn’t nervous leaving a team in a well-established league. “I was more excited. I mean, she’s striving for this to be the best league in the world,” Pickett says, of Matheson.

Signing players like Pickett and Boychuk away from teams in established leagues, and getting other elite players to suit up Year 1, was easier than Matheson expected given all the unknowns her league presented. The earliest players to sign didn’t know who was going to follow or what the talent level would be. “In some cases, players were signed by sporting directors and they didn’t know who their coach was yet,” Matheson says. “We’ve had a lot of international players sign, too. It was a pretty big leap of faith for players that are here this year, or sponsors, or anyone who’s on board as of today, before we’ve kicked a ball.”

Ottawa Rapid FC hired Danish legend Katrine Pedersen, the long-time captain of her national team, as its first coach in franchise history. The opportunity convinced her to move from Denmark to the Canadian capital, with her wife and two kids.

“I think the fact that we are a league being built from scratch by former players, by women, that has a larger purpose of building opportunities for women on and off the field — that appeals to a lot of women in sport,” Matheson says. “There’s the opportunity to come here from Day 1 and be a part of that and leaving that legacy. They’re on board because they know what this is going to be, even if they haven’t seen it yet.”

Matheson’s pitch is pretty compelling and she’ll repeat it to anyone with ears: From its opening kickoff, the NSL will be a top-five women’s pro soccer league worldwide. The $1.6-million salary cap already ranks top-five among leagues with rosters of 20-25 players, and the minimum salary is second to only the NWSL. Matheson says the level of talent on the field and the coaching staffs are top-five, too — and that’s also where they project attendance, TV viewership and streaming numbers to rank.

While Matheson pitched her league to many, AFC Toronto CEO Helena Ruken and her business partner, Billy Wilson, pitched themselves to her. Ruken was president of the board with North Toronto Soccer, where Wilson was executive and technical director. As soon as they heard about Matheson’s plan, they approached her to prove they’d be the best suited to bring Toronto’s team to life.

“Diana inspired all of us,” says Ruken. Once she and Wilson convinced Matheson they were the right team to lead the Toronto franchise, they reached out to their network and raised the million-dollar franchise fee.

In front of Ruken at the moment, Toronto midfielder Emma Regan has just finished a bunch of action shots: kicking mid-air before landing on a blue puffy mat and firing NSL balls into a nearby net. Now she’s smiling and holding a team-issued burgundy scarf that reads: “Run it our way.”

“That’s our slogan,” Ruken says. “What that really means is, we create opportunities for women and girls to achieve greatness on their own terms.”

It was Toronto who signed the first-ever player in the NSL, forward Jade Kovacevic, the all-time leading scorer in the semi-pro League1 Ontario. Shortly after, Kovacevic reached out to Ruken to request a letter of employment, which the CEO signed. “I realized, ‘Oh my, this is the first time ever that a woman got a letter of employment for playing professional soccer in Canada,’” Ruken says, smiling. “That was incredible. This is all incredible. The time is right. The momentum is here. There’s so much support behind this, from all sides.”

By the time she announced her retirement in 2021, Matheson’s next goal was clear to her: to solve what she saw as a problem at home. Of the 32 countries that competed in the last Women’s World Cup, just two — Canada and Haiti — didn’t have professional domestic leagues. Canada, the 2020 Olympic champions, exported all their players to professional leagues elsewhere.

Matheson decided she needed a little business clout before she sought to change all that. She began an MBA at Queen’s University in 2021 thanks to a $100,000 scholarship from the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Game Plan initiative. At the same time, she did a soccer-specific education program through UEFA. For two years, she was a full-time student working on two projects focused on different aspects of the feasibility of women’s professional soccer in Canada. For some time, Matheson and many others believed Canadian expansion into the NWSL was the answer, and as she puts it, “the quick-and-easy, low-hanging fruit.”

But through her studies and projects, her thinking shifted. “Everything I was learning, I was applying to Canada, and it became really, really clear that the answer and the way to build in Canada was a league, and not just a club or two in the NWSL,” she says.

But how, exactly?

“People always ask, ‘How did she even start building the league?” Bucsis says. “I tell them: ‘That’s the question that she started with: How do you build a league?’”

In 2022, Matheson and her Queen’s classmate, Tom Gilbert, founded Project 8 and announced plans to launch one, and the intention was always to go at it differently from the other existing pro leagues. “We built the league for women, by women, which is a huge, huge strength in the international landscape. Most of these women’s soccer leagues have been started through men’s football investment in some capacity, whether it was leagues, clubs or the federation,” Matheson explains. “But it was the right choice to build independently here in Canada, so that meant a startup and a longer road of raising capital.”

Greg Kerfoot, a long-time supporter of women’s soccer, was Matheson’s first call. He’s now the majority owner of the Vancouver Rise. “I’d probably only spoken to the man 12 times in my life, but he said, ‘Ask me what you need.’ He had a few questions, but he was in from Day 1,” Matheson says. Another early call was to Sinclair, because Matheson says, “Canada cares more when Sinc’s saying something than if anyone else is saying something, so we needed her behind it.” The all-time international leader in goals scored is now part of that Vancouver ownership group with Kerfoot.

The learning curve in bringing all of this together has been steep. Matheson had never done performance reviews before, had never even booked her own vacation time. “I don’t even know mundane things like how you structure your day, 9 to 5,” she says. “People think you’re a vastly experienced businessperson, which you are, but you’ve also only had two-and-a-half years of business experience, you know what I mean?”

She runs through the main challenges that come along with a startup: “Lots of uncertainty, lots of stresses, lots of great days, but then something happens and your day explodes and it never ends,” she says. “And it’s still like that.”

Her eyes widen when she considers how much work she’s invested in the NSL, and she can’t put a number or a value on that time and effort. “It has been the most challenging two-and-a-half years of both of our lives,” she says of herself and Bucsis, who’s hustling in her own broadcasting career.

Bucsis describes that time as “drinking from a fire hose — but in the best way possible,” and “pushing a snowball up a hill.”

“There have been nights that I think both of us have woken up at 3:30 a.m. just kind of staring at the ceiling, thinking, ‘Is this going to work?’” she adds.

About five months ago, Bucsis became convinced it will. The NSL hired Christina Litz as the league’s first-ever president back in July, and Bucsis describes the former CFL executive as “a saviour to Diana, and to the league.”

Bucsis knew six months into their relationship that she wanted to spend her life with Matheson, but despite all the qualities she admires in her wife, she never anticipated the leadership required to pull off an endeavour like this one.

“No — that’s the honest answer, and I say that not as a slight. It has just been such an overwhelming pursuit,” Bucsis says. “It’s not a job. It’s a lifestyle, and I know I would’ve quit long ago. But when D makes up her mind about something, she is a force, and I don’t say that lightly.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I didn’t even do it.”

With that, Bucsis is on her feet again to make sure Roses forward Megane Sauve is at her next scheduled interview on time.

McLeod wanted to help in any way she could, and figured she’d be working for a team — off the NSL field rather than on it. Then she became the first player to sign with the Halifax Tides, because the thought of making history as a player was too good to pass up. Desiree Scott is in the same boat: after retiring from the NWSL very briefly, she signed in January with Ottawa.

Scott has imagined what it’ll be like to walk out on the field accompanied by a little girl soccer player ahead of Ottawa’s first game, as they both take it all in. “It’s going to be one of those really special moments of a dream realized,” Scott says. “It sounds cliche, but kids are going to be showing up and they’ll be like, ‘Okay, I can go play pro one day now.’ They can see it in their home country, in their home city. How special is that?”

McLeod doesn’t want to call her country lucky, so she settles on “fortunate” to describe how Canada managed to produce elite level talent for a long time without a league of its own. “The NSL will increase our player pool, which means everyone is competing against more players for spots. We’ve got [Canadian national team coach] Casey Stoney here today, and she’s going to be a huge advocate for this league, and she’ll get to watch more Canadians play. The timing of this is necessary if we want to continue to be in the conversation of the best teams in the world,” McLeod says. “We’ve got the league, we have fantastic leadership to do things the right way. What’s the ceiling? I don’t know. But we have a chance to be one of the best, if not the best in the world.”

Matheson’s wheels are constantly turning to that end. There’s a lack of soccer stadium infrastructure in Canada that needs to be addressed. She has ideas for expansion, and ideas for reaching an internal goal to attract one third of national team players to the NSL by 2027. “I think it only gets easier. And also, we get to sign the next Jordyn Huitema, Julia Grosso and Jessie Fleming,” she says.

What’s ahead, just weeks away now, is the NSL’s first game in Vancouver. Matheson has tried to imagine what it’ll be like, picturing 20,000 fans filling the lower bowl.

Bucsis’s eyes sting thinking about that first game. “To know what this means for the country. To know what this means for every little girl that’s ever played sports,” she says. “We’re just allowing ourselves to dream, and that’s a beautiful thing, my god. If that’s D’s legacy, I’m like, ‘What are you gonna do next? You’re only 40! What’s the next big mountain to climb?’”

For now, Matheson is working toward that NSL summit, and she knows Year 1 is important to fuel and attract more investment, more elite players and more attention.

“It’s huge. It’s massive,” she says. “It’s also just the beginning.”