The reception area of the Houston Dynamo's headquarters doubles as a sort of Brian Ching art gallery. Here is a photo of the former US striker lifting the Major League Soccer trophy; there is a poster of him in his orange club jersey, arms folded, with the slogan "Forever Ching".

But nothing is forever. These days, Ching's work attire is suits and smart shoes. The face of one franchise is learning how to become the brains of another as the managing director of the National Women's Soccer League's Houston Dash.

The 35-year-old is enthusiastic but still coming to terms with the transition from dream job to desk job. He used to have team-mates; now he has co-workers. "There's been walls that I've come up against that I've had to push through, put it that way," he said last week from his office, which, almost cruelly, overlooks a grassy park.

"First big one is getting used to the hours, working 9-5, 9- 9 o'clock at night sometimes when you're doing events and whatnot. That was my big first hurdle. Then it was time management, finding time to work out. I forced myself into incorporating that into my routine. The third was getting used to sitting in an office and firing emails all day when I was used to being outdoors and helping with the team."

Ching is not the only one adjusting to the shock of the new. The Dash open the 2014 NWSL season at home to Portland Thorns FC on Saturday, only 121 days after the official announcement that the league would expand to nine teams for its second year. The Hawaiian was named managing director on December 23, ten days after the testimonial match that formally ended his playing career.

The team is the brainchild of Dynamo president Chris Canetti, who decided to explore the possibility of forming a franchise after a conversation last fall with Mike Golub, the president of business operations at MLS' Portland Timbers, who also run the Thorns.

Canetti crunched the numbers."There is an opportunity to make some money off of this, and after that realization it was: what are the other tangible benefits of having an NWSL team, how else can we justify this?" he said. "I came up with something like a dozen reasons. I think it's good for the growth of the game, good for the Dynamo, we've invested $80 million into the stadium so why not put more events in there?"

He took his plan to the Dynamo's owners - the entertainment behemoth AEG, the former boxer Oscar De La Hoya and the investor Gabriel Brener. They wanted to see more evidence, so Canetti leaked the story to the local media to try and build a buzz, then tried to gauge interest via Twitter and a survey of Dynamo season-ticket holders. He started taking season-ticket deposits and ended up with about 1,000 - slightly lower than he had hoped but enough to persuade his bosses.

Around 1 December, Canetti negotiated expansion terms with the league, only three months after US Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati had told soccerwire.com that the NWSL would not add any teams in 2014.

"Given the fact that we're an MLS team who's had such great success, who has a big fanbase, a stadium, a training ground, a front office with tons of resources and an ability to make things quickly, I think that was too tempting for NWSL to pass on," Canetti said.

And so the NWSL had its first team south of Kansas City and its second owned by an MLS club. And Ching would spend his winter dealing with sponsorships, ticket sales and immigration red-tape as the veteran head coach Randy Waldrum was recruited from Notre Dame to run the team and a frantic few months of trials, drafts and deals began as the Dash populated an entirely blank roster.

The Dash will play at the Dynamo's BBVA Compass Stadium in downtown Houston, a 22,000-capacity venue that will be limited to 7,000 for NWSL fixtures. The club expects to get close to that maximum on Saturday for the visit of the reigning champions, who are without the injured US star Alex Morgan.

Canetti would be satisfied with an average crowd of 4,500 this year. The league regular-season average in 2013 was 4,270, but that includes the Portland freak-factor. The Thorns averaged 13,320, drawing more than the bottom five clubs combined. The Pacific Northwest is a unique hotbed, but it is easy to see why the NWSL might welcome more MLS-owned teams into its ranks, with their solid infrastructure, deep resources and good stadiums located in big population centers.

With the US, Mexican and Canadian federations springing for the salaries of each country's top talents and a salary cap of $200,000 last year - meaning annual earnings between $6,000 and $30,000 for ordinary players - the NWSL is structured with survival and stability in mind. That is not surprising given the swift demises of its two professional predecessors.

But the economics are also a recipe for a competition of small clubs with limited growth potential and an invitation for the best players to go abroad, where the money is often better. While some fans may fret that inviting in big brothers from MLS could affect the identity and independence of the NWSL, it might offer a short-cut to growth.

And while any league needs time to develop (look at MLS's shaky infancy), whether professional women's soccer in north America has much time is a moot point given recent history and the nature of US sports. The country offers a uniquely dynamic environment where developing traditions seems to take only a few years, not a couple of generations. But it is not a patient climate. When a team is flourishing, it is a rooted, respected club; when it is struggling, it quickly becomes apparent that it is also a flexible, transient franchise.

"Going forward we obviously need to look at any partners whether linked to the MLS or not. We have a variety of different people who have shown an interest in having a team in the NWSL which is very exciting. Some are MLS teams and some are not," NWSL executive director Cheryl Bailey said on a conference call with reporters this week. "It's not necessarily what has to happen but it's certainly something when we were looking at Houston that made sense, for them to be able to join immediately."

While it would be unrealistic for a team that only held its first training session a month ago to flourish from the first whistle, how the Dash perform off the field will make them a bellwether for the future size and direction of the NWSL.

"I've heard from a number of [MLS] team presidents who've enquired, 'why are you doing this and tell me more about it,'" said Canetti. "I think they will be watching closely what happens here. Everybody expects Portland to do special, unique things. If Houston can now do something, that's proven it won't just be an anomaly. It'll be 'OK, they're on to something here'. I'm guessing, predicting we're going to be successful and other teams will take notice of that. Some might follow, some sooner than later."

Waldrum hopes so. "Hopefully we can convince a few of the other teams to come in next year from the MLS, I think that's our key. If we can get more of the MLS teams in here then I think this league has a real chance," he said. "From what I was told I think there's at least three other teams looking at possibly coming in next year. So that would be a big coup for us if we could add a couple of MLS teams next year."

Canada goalkeeper Erin McLeod joined the Dash from the Chicago Red Stars. She believes that a thriving professional league would help combat the cyclical nature of interest in the women's game, where the bandwagon only rolls during major tournament years.

"I think the biggest thing is right now you've got to have people going from the name on the back of the jersey to the emblem on the front. I think with the women's game it's generally the name on the back," she said. "The US is phenomenal for supporting the US national team players but what we need is a club loyalty. I think that goes across every team in the league. Teams like Seattle, like Portland, they're creating this culture. The culture around a club is something that the women's game is in desperate need of."

As the NWSL tries to figure out the right balance between ambition and prudence, Ching is at his desk aiming to build a brand without a famous player to anchor the marketing efforts. "The way you go out and sell it is to families that have daughters or kids that play soccer, it's showing them there's a professional league they can aspire to. On top of that, once you get to know the women you realize we have great role models," he said. Whether the Dash can turn novelty into loyalty could have a major impact on the shape of women's soccer in the coming years.



Disclosure: Tom Dart contributes freelance articles to the Dynamo website.