When it comes to winning championships in football, it always takes a massive team effort.
Last year, Vancouver Rise FC lifted the Diana B. Matheson cup thanks to a collective push from everyone in the squad – whether they played regularly, or stayed ready when called upon.
For those supporting players, it’s not always easy. But for someone like 25-year-old midfielder Anna Bout, it’s about doing what you can to help the team out.
But it's one thing to win a championship; another now is to retain it.
This season has seen Bout take on a larger role, as the team looks to create a legacy in the Northern Super League.
Something she has experience in building.
The Joy of Soccer
Born and raised in Cambridge, Ontario, playing sports became the main way a young Bout was able to make and maintain some of her closest friendships.
“I feel like that relationship with sports, it kind of shaped my childhood,” she recalled.
Soccer was just one amongst many that she played, but her father’s past as a semi-professional, playing for the Oakville White Eagles, paved her way to choosing it as her main sport.
“I saw how far he made it in the game, and I knew I probably wanted to do something similar.”
But more than her father’s influence, it was the communal aspect of soccer that Bout was most attracted to.
“That’s one of the things I love most [about soccer], is meeting new people,” she explained. “It’s just so easy to make friends. You just have to bring a ball, and someone always joins in.”
Even when Bout was captaining winning sides and winning individual accolades in her youth, it was the fact that she could succeed with her friends and teammates that drove her to succeed.
However, it wasn’t until Bout joined the University of Pittsburgh that she learned just how far you can go once you played for more than yourself.
Building Together
When Bout arrived at ‘Pitt’, the program had been struggling to live up to the glory of years prior.
The arrival of head coach Randy Waldrum, an ex-pro that coached NWSL side Houston Dash and the Trinidad and Tobago’s women’s national team, was a concerted effort from the school to turn their fortunes around.
It took a little while after arriving in 2017 for the rebuild to see progress, but by the time Bout joined in 2019, Waldrum’s experience at the top level of the professional game was beginning to pay off. And it opened Bout’s eyes to what could lie ahead.
“He really inspired me to pursue soccer as a career, because I could see how far it could go,” she explained.
Ultimately, it was the collective belief of playing for something greater, that really pushed Bout to perform.
“I just fell in love with the team atmosphere,” she recalled. “I feel like that’s what we did at Pitt, building a legacy. That was the moment where I realized that it’s cool to be part of something bigger.”
Legacy
In the five years that Bout was in school, Pitt went on to set and break the program record for overall wins in three out of the five years (2020, 2022 and 2023), and made their first appearance in the NCAA tournament in 2022 before going on to make the Elite Eight in 2023.
Unsurprisingly, Bout had a huge impact for the team. She registered eight goals and eighteen assists across her collegiate career. She was a consummate student-athlete, excelling both on and off the pitch, as evidenced by being named to the ACC Academic Honor three times and making the All-ACC Academic Team twice.
But looking back, what she is most proud of is what she was able to create with the team in her four years.
“I’m just most proud of where we took the program,” she admitted. “We re-wrote the script, going from being ranked in the hundreds to being a really tough competitor in the NCAA.”
The lessons she learned in that experience would go on to help her as she pursued a professional career.
Running Down a Dream
By the time Bout finished her schooling, Waldrum had become the head coach of the Nigerian women’s national team and Bout began looking for her first professional contract.
But despite impressing at Pitt, it took a little while for Bout to earn that first contract. It would prove to be the first real challenge that Bout had to go at alone.
“Immediately after coming out of college, I thought I was going to get a contract and go [play pro] right away,” admitted Bout. “But it took longer than I thought, and it became the first time that I thought ‘maybe I won’t be able to continue to play’.”
But Bout kept training alone and putting in the yards as the weeks turned to months, and she never gave up on the dream of being part of something bigger.
Europe-bound
Roughly nine months after playing her last game for Pitt, Bout signed a pro contract for Danish club Odense Boldklub Q.
“I was just so grateful and excited to have found a team, and to be able to play professional soccer,” she said.
Not only was the move great to kick-start her career, but it also proved to be beneficial for her personally, as she learned a lot from Danish culture.
“Learning from the Danish players and coaches, it was very interesting,” she recalled. “I think they really helped me develop as a player and as a person.”
But after a season in Denmark that saw her score two goals and register seven assists in 26 appearances, she couldn’t resist the lure of coming back home to Canada.
Biding her Time
On August 16, 2025, Anna Bout joined Vancouver Rise FC.
Joining halfway through the season is tough for any player, but Bout knew that she just had to bide her time.
“I knew it would be tough, as soon as I got in, because of the quality of players the team had,” she admitted. “But I also felt like that helped me, in training, and I felt like I really was improving.”
The 25-year-old featured nine times for Rise FC in 2025. She also spent time playing in the 2025 W Concacaf Champions Cup for Vancouver Rise FC Academy, notching the only goal against NWSL side Gotham FC.
Bout still had something to prove, but she had shown once again that she could compete when called upon.
“I went into that game knowing that this was a good opportunity to show the coaching staff just who I was ” she remembered. “Afterwards, I just kept trying to improve and help the team where I could, and I knew that preseason was coming and I would have another chance to prove myself.”
She would continue to make strides into the team. In November, she subbed on at the end to close out the club's inaugural NSL championship victory.
Her return from the winter break saw opportunity beckon. After an off-season of changes for Rise FC, Bout seized that opportunity with both hands.
From the first day of preseason, the coaching staff were impressed with the work Bout had put in, and they rewarded her with her first Rise FC start in the season opener vs. AFC Toronto.
She hasn’t missed a minute of football since.
Forever Grateful
Even though Bout has become one of the first names on the team sheet, she still remembers what she learned in college.
“I learned to be grateful, to seize every opportunity, because you never know how long this will last.”
With a goal and an assist already under her belt, Bout’s personal rise seems to just be starting. With more than half a season still to play, the goal will be to push Rise FC all the way back to the NSL Final in November.
There is no doubt that Bout will want to add another gold medal to her list of accolades.
But for her, it’ll always be about making sure the fans, her teammates, and her close ones are all able to share in the joy of winning too
