The team of destiny vs. the team that refused to die.
That’s the best way to sum up the matchup between AFC Toronto and Vancouver Rise FC who’ll compete in this weekend’s final of the Northern Super League, the country’s first professional women’s soccer league.
After a laboured start to the inaugural NSL season that kicked off in April, Toronto climbed into first place in June and never looked back, holding onto the top spot in the table the rest of the way and then cruising to victory in its two-legged semifinal playoff series.
Vancouver was a model of consistency and put together an impressive eight-game unbeaten streak during the summer, which included a pair of 6-0 wins, before earning a dramatic come-from-behind win in the playoffs to book their spot in the final.
Here’s what you need to know about Saturday’s NSL final (2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT) at Toronto’s BMO Field.
What they are playing for: The Diana B. Matheson Cup
The league’s newly minted championship trophy is named after Diana Matheson, a former Canadian women’s national team midfielder who played a pivotal role in the formation of the NSL.
Matheson scored 19 goals in 206 appearances and won a pair of Olympic bronze medals with the Canadian women’s team, from 2003 to 2020. She was inducted into the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame earlier this year.
How the teams arrived at the final
AFC Toronto won the Supporters’ Shield trophy as the regular season champions with a 16-3-6 record and topped the table by 12 points over Ottawa Rapid FC and the Vancouver Rise. Toronto scored a league-high 42 goals and had the league’s second-best defence (24 goals conceded).
Toronto then showed no mercy against fourth-place Montreal Roses FC in its semifinal playoff, winning its two-game series 6-1 on aggregate, which included an emphatic 4-1 home victory in the second leg.
Vancouver opened its playoff series with a 2-1 home win in the first leg but then was on the brink of elimination in the return match in Ottawa when the home side took a 2-0 lead. But Rise forward Holly Ward scored in the 84th minute to tie things up 3-3 on aggregate and the visitors completed the comeback with a dramatic 5-4 victory in the penalty shootout to book their spot in the final.
The teams earned two wins each and played to a draw over the course of their five regular season matches.
But Toronto ran rampant in the last meeting of the campaign by earning a historic 7-0 home win on Sept. 13, paced by forwards Esther Okoronkwo and Kaylee Hunter, who both scored twice. It was a record-breaking result, representing the largest margin of victory in the league’s first season.
Toronto also became the first NSL club to clinch a playoff berth on that day while at the same time halting Vancouver’s eight-game unbeaten run, which included four consecutive victories.
Vancouver fighting for respect
Despite a very solid campaign, Vancouver can rightly feel a little jilted after no member of its squad cracked the NSL’s season-ending team of the year.
Rise goalkeeper Morgan McAslan, a 25-year-old from Waterdown, Ont., won the NSL’s Golden Glove award for goalkeeper with the most shutouts (nine) this season. Yet, she didn’t make the NSL’s Best XI and was beaten out by Anika Tóth of Halifax Tides FC for the league’s goalkeeper of the year award.
A lot of the focus is on Toronto going into this game because the hosts are unbeaten in their last nine games (eight wins), outscoring the opposition 22-4 along the way. But Vancouver is not to be overlooked — it boasts a well-balanced roster, featuring Canadian internationals Quinn, Latifah Abdu, Holly Ward and Samantha Chang. Quinn was among the league’s top playmakers this season with six assists, while forward Jessica De Filippo finished with a team-leading seven goals.
“We’ve been a team that played one player (down) in two games against Toronto and won the first one,” Vancouver coach Anja Heiner-Møller said. “(Trailing) against Ottawa in a semifinal, the team still bounced back. So, I think we’ve learned a lot and grown as a team throughout the season.”
Shorter turnaround for Toronto
While Vancouver wrapped up its semifinal playoff series in the nation’s capital last Saturday, Toronto will play this weekend’s NSL Final on two fewer days of rest.
Toronto was supposed to host Montreal in the second leg last Sunday, but inclement weather forced the game at York Lions Stadium to be postponed until Monday evening.
Of course, Toronto will be playing at home on Saturday, but even that might not be such an advantage, as the club lost both of its games that were staged at BMO Field this year, including a 1-0 defeat to Vancouver in August.
“It’s one more game and this determines who wins the trophy,” Toronto coach Marko Milanović said. “What comes to mind is the rematch of the earlier BMO game we had against (Vancouver) that we lost. We really wanted desperately to go back to that field because that’s one stadium that we haven’t won this year. Hopefully, we can do it on Saturday.”
Vancouver player to watch: Holly Ward
The former standout at the University of Texas, Holly Ward signed with her hometown club before the 2025 NSL season and went on to bag six goals in 25 games. Ward added another goal in the second leg of the playoff semifinals against Ottawa. She made her national team debut in April and scored the first of her two goals in five appearances against Haiti in June. In doing so, she became the first NSL player to score for Canada.
Toronto player to watch: Kaylee Hunter
Still only 17, Kaylee Hunter is coming off an amazing campaign in which she won the NSL’s rookie of the year award and was named to the league’s team of the season. The Calgary native was a major offensive threat for AFC Toronto by scoring 14 goals (good enough for second in the Golden Boot race) and tallying three assists in 21 games. She followed that up with another goal in the first leg of Toronto’s playoff series vs. Montreal.
John Molinaro is one of the leading soccer journalists in Canada, having covered the game for over 26 years for several media outlets, including Sportsnet, CBC Sports and Sun Media. He is currently the editor-in-chief of TFC Republic, a website dedicated to in-depth coverage of Toronto FC and Canadian soccer.
