Bay FC named Albertin Montoya as the franchise's inaugural head coach Wednesday, pulling a San Jose Earthquakes assistant into women's professional soccer at a moment when NWSL expansion clubs are trading cachet for infrastructure. Montoya's salary sits in the $300,000-$450,000 band, according to two people familiar with the deal—mid-table for an expansion coach but above what clubs paid assistants without NWSL résumés in previous cycles.
Montoya spent the last three seasons as an assistant under Luchi Gonzalez at San Jose, where the Earthquakes finished 13th, 14th, and 12th in the Western Conference. Before that, he ran the Earthquakes' academy and coached at De Anza Force, a Northern California youth club that feeds Stanford and UCLA. He has never held a senior women's professional job. Bay FC general manager Matt Potter, formerly with the U.S. Soccer Federation, chose development pedigree over the safer hire: an NWSL assistant or a European second-division coach with a women's résumé.
The choice signals Potter's belief that Year One is about building culture, not playoffs. Bay FC joins the league in 2024, the same window as Utah Royals' reboot. The franchise has zero rostered players, no technical director, and a temporary training facility in San Jose that it shares with youth teams on weekday mornings. Montoya's job is to shape a roster from the expansion draft in December and free agency in January, then survive a season where attendance matters more than standings. NWSL expansion clubs historically finish 9th or worse in their debut year; Angel City was the outlier at 7th in 2022, and they had $35 million in funding before kickoff.
The hire also clarifies the front-office pecking order. Potter is running recruitment without a technical director, which means Montoya has input but not final say on signings. Bay FC is interviewing candidates for that role now, including two former NWSL general managers and one MLS analytics director, per a person briefed on the search. Whoever takes the job inherits a coach already in place, which narrows the candidate pool to operators comfortable with split authority. The technical director will also own the academy buildout, which Bay FC has committed to launching by 2025 as part of its expansion bid.
Montoya's MLS pedigree plays well with Bay Area sponsors who write bigger checks when men's soccer CVs are in the room. The franchise has signed Visa, Kaiser Permanente, and DoorDash as founding partners but has not disclosed deal values. One sponsor executive said the naming-rights conversation is active with two tech companies and one financial institution, all based in San Francisco. Those talks were easier to advance once a coach was named, even if the coach's résumé lives in a different league.
The expansion draft is set for mid-December, roughly six weeks out. Bay FC can select one unprotected player from each existing club, the same structure Utah will use. Montoya has been watching tape on NWSL rosters since October, according to a club official, and his preference is reported to be mobile defenders and possession midfielders—San Jose's system in a different league. Whether he gets those players depends on which clubs protect defensive depth versus attacking stars.
The assistants now matter. Montoya has not announced his staff, but two NWSL assistant coaches and one former WPS midfielder are in conversations for roles, per a league source. Bay FC will also hire a goalkeeping coach with NWSL experience, a position the club views as non-negotiable given the league's set-piece intensity. Those hires will come before Thanksgiving, allowing the staff to attend the draft together.
One name to watch on the technical director shortlist: Polly Guthrie, former Houston Dash general manager, who left that club in August and has been consulting for a women's soccer data startup. She has relationships with agents across two continents and built Houston's academy from scratch in 2021. If she takes the job, Bay FC gets a front office fluent in NWSL economics and a credential that reassures players the franchise is serious about infrastructure beyond Year One.
The takeaway
Bay FC trades NWSL experience for MLS development résumé; technical director hire now sets roster-build authority and academy timeline.
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