User:Gateman1997/San Jose Pride

San Jose Pride is a professional soccer club to be based in Santa Clara, California that will begin play in 2009 in the inaugural season of Women's Professional Soccer (WPS). The team was announced on September 3, 2008 as the last team to join the league for the inaugural 2009 season, replacing the anticipated Dallas team. The team replaces the defunct San Jose CyberRays as the top level women's soccer team in the Bay Area.

Team history
The Bay Area franchise of the Women's Professional soccer team was founded on September 3, 2008 as the seventh and final team to join the top tier Women's Professional Soccer league. The team is owned by a group led by Brian and Nancy NeSmith. The new franchise's first actions within the league will be to participate in the allocation of players from the gold medal winning Beijing 2008 U.S. Women's National Soccer Team. The following day, it was announced that former San Jose Clash midfielder and local youth coach Alberto Montoya would be the team's first head coach.

On September 16, 2008, the initial WPS player allocation was conducted which consisted of U.S. Women's National Team players. Nicole Barnhart, Leslie Osborne and Rachel Buehler were allocated to the Bay Area team. On September 24, 2008 a further 4 players were allocated to the Bay Area via the WPS International draft. The allocated players were strikers Christine Sinclair and Eriko Arakawa along with Brazilian midfielder Formiga and defender Érika. The Bay Area team now has the exclusive rights to negotiate with those players and has rights to them should they choose to play in the United States.

On September 29, 2008 former CyberRays and Brazilian National Team player Sissi was announced as the first assistant coach for the Bay Area WPS team.

On November 13, 2008 the team's home venue was revealed to be Buck Shaw Stadium in Santa Clara, California which they will be sharing with the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer as well as the Santa Clara University soccer teams. On November 19, 2007 at a team press conference the team's, San Jose Pride was revealed along with the team's logo and colors. The team venue was also confirmed to be Buck Shaw Stadium.

Players
''As of October 6, 2008.

Head Coaches

 * 🇺🇸 Albertin Montoya (2009- )

Honors
None to date.