Ottawa Rapid FC job a homecoming for Carmelina Moscato

Carmelina Moscato’s remarkable footballing career as a player, coach and administrator has taken her on a whirlwind world tour that has included stops in Australia, Bahamas, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and the United States.  

But now the former Canadian international is coming home after being officially named head coach of Ottawa Rapid FC on Monday. Moscato will take over the reins at Ottawa at the conclusion of this season after signing a deal that ties her to the Northern Super League club through the 2028 campaign. Moscato is the first Canadian women's team alum to become a head coach in the NSL.

It’s an opportunity that Moscato, a 42-year-old native of Mississauga, Ont., once thought would never come her way, having left Canada at an early age out of necessity. She played NCAA soccer at Penn State and spent time early in her career with the Vancouver Whitecaps and Ottawa Fury in the semi-pro USL W-League from 2003-08. But there was no fully professional Canadian league back then, which meant Moscato, who went on to become a Canada Soccer Hall of Famer, had to move abroad at a young age if she was serious about carving out a pro career as a footballer. 

The formation of the Northern Super League in 2025 by Diana Matheson, who like Moscato is a former national team standout, has radically changed the footballing landscape in this country. The second-year top-tier league not only gives Canadian women a chance to earn a living as footballers but also provides coaching opportunities for long-time dedicated servants of Canadian football such as Moscato.  

“The biggest luxury in life is to have a choice. I always wanted the choice to continue my career and to continue pouring my experience into Canadian football, but I really didn’t have that until now,” Moscato told TFC Republic in an exclusive interview.  

“I've gone away, I've built tools and skills, gained wisdom, and I feel like my toolkit is a lot deeper now. I've been able to have a lot of experiences with players, with upper management, with leagues, with different competition structures from around the world. So, I'm coming back home with my toolbox full, and I can't wait to apply that. Having the choice and the ability to do that here in Canada is pure joy. It’s the part of the story that I think all women and people in Canadian soccer should be really proud of.”  

Taking charge of Ottawa is an opportunity that’s been a long time in coming for Moscato, who earned 94 caps for her country from 2002 to 2015. The former defender represented Canada at three FIFA World Cups (2003, 2011 and 2015), and she was also a member of the historic Canadian side that won a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics in London.  

Her pro career included stints with ASD UPC Tavagnacco in Italy, Swedish outfits Piteå IF and Dalsjöfors GoIF, the NWSL’s Chicago Stars FC, Boston Breakers and Seattle Reign FC, and Western Sydney Wanderers in Australia.   

After hanging up her cleats as a player, Moscato stayed involved in the game off the pitch in a variety of positions, including coaching and developmental roles within Canada Soccer’s youth system, director of women's football for the Bahamas Football Association and commissioner of League1 Ontario Women's Division.   

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Over the last five years she served as coach of FC Nordsjælland in Denmark before becoming head coach and technical director of Tigres UANL, where she made history by becoming the first foreign-born coach to win the Mexican league, and the first female coach at Tigres to win a championship. She later joined Racing Louisville FC as an assistant coach in the NWSL and most was the head coach of Al Qadsiah Women in Saudi Arabia.  

But Moscato’s dreams of coaching in Canada never wavered, telling this reporter in an interview for CBC Sports while still at Tigres – two years before the NSL’s inaugural campaign – that she hoped one day she’d get that chance.   

“At some point, Canadian coaches have to be given the opportunity to do what I'm doing in Mexico for Canadian players. Right now, we don't have that,” Moscato said at the time. 

When Katrine Pedersen announced last month her intention to step down as Ottawa’s coach at the end of the 2026 season, Moscato heard from Ottawa sporting director Kristina Kiss, her former teammate on the Canadian national team.  

 It was a phone call that caught Moscato totally off guard.  

“I think once Kat disclosed to the club and made her intentions clear that she wasn't going to be coming back, they started their head coach search and I heard from Kristina,” Moscato said.  

“I was surprised but also excited about the possibility. I did receive a few calls from [NSL] clubs exploring their potential coach situations when the league was being put together, but it didn't feel right at the time because I was in Louisville and I was hoping I could get a head coaching job in that league. So, from a career trajectory standpoint, it didn't feel right to leave. 

“I was in one of the top leagues in the world. I have great responsibility at Louisville, and I didn't feel that it was right to leave. But then the Saudi opportunity came along in which I got to be a head coach again. And I'm thinking, ‘You know what? Let's go build in another country and see if I can really apply myself there.’ But it was too far of a stretch. Saudi Arabia was a difficult project … It was so isolating for me in that part of the world; I just really couldn't find the balance of work and me as a person.”  

The lure of coming home, reuniting with family and friends and former colleagues, and taking charge of a team in the upstart NSL was too good of an opportunity for Moscato to turn down.  

“I knew I would come home at some point. I knew I would try my luck to coach in Canada, and then the more I learned about the Ottawa Rapid, what they're building, what Kristina Kiss is building, the new ownership group, and looking at the player pool, I got really excited. If I'm honest, I couldn't deny that feeling, and I would be lying if I said I didn't want to be closer to my family again,” Moscato admitted.  

Moscatos’s appointment continues a recent trend of current and former Canadian internationals hitching their wagons to the rising star that is the Northern Super League. Earlier this summer, AFC Toronto made a pair of ambitious roster moves in signing goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo (formerly of Aston Villa) and defender Shelina Zadorsky (West Ham United) to lucrative deals, prying them away from the high-profile Women's Super League in England.  

Last month, the NSL announced its new expansion team for the 2027 season would be based in Winnipeg, with former national team member and Olympic gold medalist Desiree Scott as its co-founder.  

As the NSL continues to grow, Moscato is hopeful that more Canadian national team members, both past and present, will be drawn to the league. 

“There's a lot of people that have been waiting a hell of a long time to give back and to serve our country, and we haven't been able to do that until now. The NSL has a place for everybody. If you look across the league, it's incredible how many people have just been waiting to give back. Right now, the role I have is as a coach. But maybe in the future, I'll be a sporting director. Maybe in the future, I’ll become part of shaping the league’s strategy. The possibilities and opportunities are endless. And the fact that can happen is everything to us,” Moscato enthused.  

For now, Moscato is relegated to the role of spectator as she won’t take over from Pedersen until the conclusion of the 2026 NSL season.  

“It's her team. I'm cheerleading in the background. As soon as the season is over, I’ll be hands on. But right now, I’m watching from afar and preparing for 2027,” Moscato explained.

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It very well could be that Moscato will inherit a championship winning team. 

Ottawa currently tops the NSL standings, having won a league-high 10 games and has a comfortable six-point edge over second-place Monreal Roses FC. The capital club has lost just twice in 15 outings and is riding a 10-match unbeaten run (seven wins) since its previous loss on May 23.   

Canadian international Delaney Baie Pridham ranks among the league’s leading scorers (eight goals) and playmakers (four assists) on a team that also includes promising young Canadians such as defender Liv Scott, midfielder Florence Belzile and goalkeeper Melissa Dagenais.  

Moscato has been impressed with what she’s seen from Ottawa this season and is looking forward to working with the group of players she’ll inherit while also putting her own stamp on the club.  

“Probably one of the harder things to build is resilience; that mindset. It doesn't come with every group, and you see this group finding a way to win every single match, and that is something that we have to keep as the heart and soul of Ottawa – a team that never gives up, a team that has the ability to overtake at any minute. They are a team that's well organized, and dynamic,” Moscato said.  

“They have a clear identity. They're a very possession-based team, and you can see that they've recruited really top players that can provide that level of organization and style that Kat has. And respect it. It's a joy to watch. … So, my job is not to disrupt what's good. It's just to elevate where I feel and make it my own team next year in the sense of my vision of football and how that's evolved with my experiences I’ve had all around the world.”