Among the sounds of tweeting birdsongs and roaring airplanes taking off from the nearby airport, a group of 20-odd women start their day bright and early at 7:30 a.m., and kick off their soccer practice in Davie.
Their team, Fort Lauderdale United FC, is the only professional women’s soccer team in South Florida.
In their first season last year, the team made it to the final but lost to Tampa Bay Sun FC. This year, they’re determined to win the championship.
“ I mean, anything short but winning is not kind of our standard,” head coach Ali Rogers told WLRN.
The team forms part of the USL Super League or Gainebridge Super League, which was established in September 2021 and started its first season last year as the highest level of the United States soccer league system.
Fort Lauderdale’s team, along with the new league, has opened new paths for young athletes to get experience and become soccer professionals. After only one season, players, coaches and local sports analysts see the team’s success as an opportunity for growth in women’s sports in the region.
One of those opportunities was for Rogers, who was officially announced as head coach for the team’s second season in September after she had been associate head coach the previous year under Tyrone Mears.
According to Rogers, the early success of the team was based on laying a strong foundation during that first season, and now with half the roster being new players, that foundation has led them all to the same goals for this season: to get the championship trophy.
“The new girls are here because they want the same thing,” she said. “At the end of the day, they wanna win. They wanna bring hardware back to Fort Lauderdale.”
After going undefeated for most of this season, Fort Lauderdale has fallen to third place after two losses, two draws and just one win in November. They go to Sporting JAX on Dec. 13 and their next home game is on Dec. 20 against Spokane Zephyr FC at Nova Southeastern University’s Beyond Bancard Field.
Across two leagues
One of the crucial additions to the team this season was midfielder Lily Nabet, 26, who joined the team for the 2025-2026 season as a loan from Angel City FC in Los Angeles. Angel City is part of the National Women's Soccer League, or NWSL, the other first division women’s soccer league in the country.
From her experience in California to her time with Fort Lauderdale, she said women’s sports teams are trying to focus on the same community aspect to build a fanbase and grow the women’s game.
“It's kind of one common goal,” she said. “I think a lot of women's professional teams in the United States are trying to do the same thing, it’s just growing the women's game around.”
“I think there's a lot more that we can do and I'm happy to keep pushing that.”
Nabet said the team culture this season has also helped nurture growth in their players. Coming from the longer-established NWSL, Nabet has set herself the goal of becoming more of a leader and a mentor in Fort Lauderdale and the Gainebridge League.
“ I wanted to be more impactful and kind of drive the team to where they want to be and help in any way that I can,” she said. “I want to be more of a leader, more of a person who can push in the game, play [the] 90 minutes.”
From the industry perspective
The team’s growth and success in its second season mirrors that of the league as a whole.
Jack Edwards, a play-by-play broadcaster who regularly works the league’s games, said the key factor that teams are looking to improve this season is depth of their bench.
The league’s season goes from August to May with a short winter break. After the first year, Edwards said teams have realized it required a deeper slate of players that could be substituted while keeping the same high level of play throughout the season.
“ It's a really long season and you need depth. I think teams realized that last year, that ‘Oh yeah, this season can be a bit of a grind,’” he said. “Squads I think are a bit deeper this year than they were last year, especially Fort Lauderdale's.”
Aside from individual team growth, the creation of a new first division professional women’s soccer league has created opportunities both for athletes and other sports professionals like Edwards in South Florida. He said this aspect is what has led to and will continue to grow the women’s sport in the country in the next few years.
“When you create a new league, you don't just create 20 spots for professional women's athletes. You have support staff, you have coaches, you have broadcasters,” Edwards said. “When you have that investment, you create all sorts of opportunities and jobs and that just has a cascade effect. That's gonna be the biggest source of growth.”
Youth focus
A clear example of young athletes finding their place in the team comes from Fort Lauderdale’s youngest player, Taylor Smith.
Unlike her high school classmates, the 18-year-old spends most of her mornings at the Fort Lauderdale United FC training facilities. She has a packed schedule: 7:30 a.m. breakfast with the team, 8:20 a.m. team meeting, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. practice and a noon lunch. She gets a short break before heading to school from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Smith started with the team on their inaugural season, signing directly from the team’s academy and becoming the youngest pro in the league’s history. But, according her dad Tommy Smith, the chairman and founder of the team, Taylor is just the first of many young players who will go from the academy to a professional contract.
Now, Taylor Smith has goals of continuing her professional soccer career after graduating in the spring from NSU University School. Her success in the team has encouraged her to have long-term dreams in the field, as far as the World Cup and as soon as being the number one team in the league.
“ I think I just wanna be on the best, wherever that is,” Smith said when asked about her future in the sport. “Wherever I feel most welcomed and happy.”
