“Find comfort in the unknown.”
This is the advice that Caprice Dydasco was given by her long-time friend and former youth national program teammate Abby Dahlkemper before deciding to join expansion side Bay FC as the team’s first free agent signing.
“She was the first person to give me comfort in knowing that even though there’s so much unknown, you have to follow your gut,” Dydasco exclusively told The Equalizer. “She’s been super helpful for me going through the process and giving me confidence that this was the right decision.”
Dahlkemper would certainly be the one to ask, as she was expansion side San Diego Wave FC’s first signing in 2022. Being one of the first players to join a new squad can be daunting, but as Dydasco explained, the trust she has in coach Albertin Montoya and the front office makes her confident she can be a leader no matter what the team looks like in its inaugural season.
“As a player, it feels good to be wanted,” she said. “It’s exciting but it also comes with a lot of pressure and responsibility, because it falls to you as your own choice.”
Dydasco is coming up on her tenth year in the National Women’s Soccer League, and although she’s constantly shocked by how quickly time has passed, she is ready to utilize everything she has learned to be a veteran presence and help lead the Bay to a successful first season.
First time free agency
“It’s crazy to think about ten years in the league and see how it has grown so much since my rookie season,” Dydasco said. “[Before the collective bargaining agreement], it used to be that you could just go into work one day and get waived, no severance, no insurance, nothing. So to have this offseason to choose what I truly wanted, what was best for me and my family, was really cool to see the league grow.”
The decorated defender has played most of her NWSL career on the east coast. She was drafted out of UCLA to the Washington Spirit in 2015 and was eventually traded to NJ/NY Gotham FC (then Sky Blue FC) in 2019. In 2022, she was traded to the Houston Dash where she played until she was a free agent. For the Hawaiian native, getting back to the west coast has been a long term goal, and one that free agency allowed her to pursue.
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“Being able to spend more time with my family is something that has become really important to me as I got older,” Dydasco said. “I also love being on the west coast. I missed the nice weather, and I’m looking forward to traveling around during my days off, going to Big Sur, Lake Tahoe, enjoying the outdoors, and even taking a quick flight to Hawaii.”
But even more than location, Dydasco is ready to get to work with Bay FC, and perhaps even repeating her 2021 Defender of the Year season.
“I’m not a super flashy player where I can dribble by ten players and score on my own, but I love being surrounded by good teammates willing to work for each other and play a good brand of soccer,” Dydasco said. “In 2021, my goal was to just come back from my ACL injury. I took the pressure off myself individually and just wanted to give back to my team. That’s what helped me be successful that season.”
This full team mindset and a style of play where she can thrive were emphasized by Montoya and Lucy Rushton, Bay FC’s general manager, further enticing Dydasco to sign with the club. She is looking forward to integrating herself into this new team and employing her skills as an attacking-minded fullback.
“I’m a possession oriented player and I love to attack,” Dydasco said. “This season at the Dash, we had the best defensive record, but we were defending so much I could not get into the attack, which is my thing. I’m really excited next season to be involved in the attack because I feel like that’s when I come alive and do my best, and I know Albertin will really help me be successful in that this coming year.”
An evolving NWSL
As Dydasco prepares for her tenth NWSL season and wraps up her first period of free agency, she cannot help but reflect on how far the league has come since she first joined. She recalled in her first season in the league being made to feel grateful she even had a job playing soccer.
“When I played in D.C., we had one owner who was just kind of paid out of pocket for everything,” Dydasco recalled. “That was my first four years in the league – just be grateful for what you have and don’t ask or complain. That kind of sat with a lot of veterans until we finally got more publicity, viewership, and awareness of the league outside of the national team.”
As the league gained more notoriety following the success of of the U.S. women’s national team and the tenacity of NWSL players fighting for change, the spotlight grew and soccer fans started to realize there was a competitive professional women’s league in their backyards.
“The support from ownership [around the league] has grown within the past three years, and we’ve seen the growth of women’s sports generally,” Dydasco said. “There is a good group of people that are willing to buy in for women’s sports and there will be big, big opportunities in the coming years.”
As she was making her decision on selecting a team during free agency, seeing Bay FC’s planned investment into players both on and off the field was a significant motivator for the veteran defender.
“Buying into off the field stuff like good housing, staffing, medical, those are things people don’t see but we appreciate it as players because we live it day in and day out,” she said. “On game day it’s easy to show what we’re putting out on the field, but what’s happening behind the scenes and what they’re investing in us really stood out to me.”
Knowing that teams are now properly investing into their clubs and players, Dydasco can focus on what’s most important for her job – the game. She hopes to be a leader by example for her Bay teammates and she considers herself “the encourager.”
“I try to get to know people off the field to know how they’ll need my support on the field,” she explained. “I’ve been through a lot in the league, from injuries, to not playing, to not starting, and I’ve been fortunate to win some awards, so I’ve been in every boat. I want to take my experience and try to help out not just the new, young players, but a new team, and hold everyone to a high standard and to the values of what our club is all about.”
Dydasco has already seen how significant community buy-in has been as a core value of Bay. Integrating herself into the Bay area community is just as important to her as finding success on the pitch. She wants the fans to feel a sense of belonging with the team and to know that they are just as integral to the club’s success as the players on the field.
“The louder and more excited they are, the more excited we get, and it makes us feel pride in our team,” Dydasco said. “We want to put out a good product on the field and win games, and the more fans that are there, the better we play.”
While Dydasco enjoys a few more weeks of rest during the off-season, getting started with her new team is top of mind. Ever the competitor, Dydasco sees Dahlkemper’s San Diego Wave as a possible rival for the newly minted Bay FC. “Wave has been successful as an expansion team,” Dydasco said, pointing to the team’s NWSL Shield win in its second season. “As two California teams, and it’ll be fun to see who is more dominant.”
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