No big city mayor is ever going to make everyone happy all of the time. In fact, if they’re doing the job right, a chunk of the electorate is going to find beef over something, even if they embrace other elements of a mayor’s wide-ranging agenda.

Great leaders don’t try to bat a thousand.

So it is that as 2024 turns into election year 2025, Mayor Wu has amassed her fair proportion of admirers and detractors — most recently for her push to finalize a deal to modernize White Stadium.

On Monday, Wu answered critics and even allies who’ve pressed her for details about how this public-private partnership with the women’s pro soccer franchise will work. There’ll always be room to quibble over the fine print. But the agreement unsealed on Monday seems to be a sensible, well-framed, and fair deal for the citizens of Boston—and most importantly, for city schoolkids who have long been told to settle for below-average amenities and wait their turn.

The wait for real progress at White Stadium is over, per Mayor Wu. Love her or not, she deserves credit for putting the very real powers of her office to work to resolve a real-world problem in her city that other leaders decided to punt on or kick down the road for someone else to figure out.

White Stadium isn’t a shiny trophy on the city’s waterfront. Franklin Park is a glorious place to many of us who live here, but it’s not likely high-up on any tourist’s itinerary.

This is a project that will most directly benefit a constituency that too often gets kicked to the curb when the budget rubber hits the road: public school kids and teens from Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, and adjacent neighborhoods.

It’s true that the revamped stadium is going to displace football teams for part of their seasons. But, it’s also true that the new White Stadium is going to elevate city athletics in ways that just haven’t been a priority until now, especially for track and field and soccer.

The soccer squads of the city’s schools, in particular, are bulging with talent that deserve a marquee field with stadium seating that matches our kids’ skills and passion for “the beautiful game.” Anyone who goes inside a city school nowadays knows it’s filled with kids with roots all over the globe. They’re all crazy about soccer.

And, on the rare days when our city kids aren’t dominating their suburban rivals under the Dorchester lights, Bostonians can root on the city’s first-ever women’s pro soccer team, BOS Nation FC, who’ll use White Stadium for 20 home games per year.

Are there details that still need more scrutiny? Sure. As Councillor Erin Murphy suggested in reaction to the mayor’s announcement on Monday: “This project has the potential to deliver long-term benefits to Boston residents, but only if we prioritize equity, sustainability, and robust public input at every step of the process.” Absolutely.

We elect mayors to make tough calls. Sometimes that means pushing through resistance— even if its well intentioned— to keep the city moving and to fix long-standing problems. In this instance, Mayor Wu and her team secured a completion guarantee from the soccer franchise to ensure this stadium project gets done even in the unlikely event the league or team falters.

Thanks to Mayor Wu, generations of Boston kids will use this new facility and enjoy the thrill of watching their heroines compete in their own backyard. That’s a helluva holiday present.

Bill Forry is the executive editor and co-publisher of the Reporter.