In the first season of the USL W League - a pre-professional women’s soccer league in the USA - Minnesota Aurora lived up to its name and shone.

Nicole Lukic’s team topped the Heartland Division, winning 11 of 12 games and drawing the other, scoring 35 goals and boasting the second highest goal difference across all the league’s seven divisions.

Sadly, they saved their first loss for the championship game, when Tormenta FC beat them 2-1 after extra time. So near, and yet it will have felt so far.

The USLW awarded Aurora the Organization of the Year award for its performance both on and off the field and Lukic won Coach of the Year for the unbeaten regular season.

Naturally, Lukic, now also the club’s sporting director, says she would “trade all of that for winning that final game”, but describes it as “incredible to have that sort of recognition after year one”. 

Lukic is not only referring to the USL W League’s first season, but Aurora’s debut campaign, too.

Unlike the bulk of teams competing in the league, Aurora was built from the ground up in advance of the league’s launch in 2022.

Founded in 2021, Aurora is a women-led, community-owned team, the first of its kind in the US. A community round raised over $1 million from more than 3,000 fans in three months. Aurora is owned by people in 48 different states, and eight different countries.

When asked what it means to have a group of people so supportive of a venture she is at the forefront of, Lukic said: “It’s incredible. It means everything. It’s really helped me with my recruiting process.

“You feel it when you go to TCO [Stadium, Aurora’s home field]. You feel like the community is behind you.