Just one day before Megan Rapinoe and the team boarded a plane to New Zealand for the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup, the forward announced: The 2023 season will be her last – football’s biggest. Rapinoe told reporters before the game that his fourth trip to the stage would be his final season. Press conference July 8th.
“I had no idea where this beautiful match would take me,” Rapinoe said at the press conference. “It’s been such an honor to represent this country and this federation for so many years. It was truly the greatest thing I’ve ever done.”
The issue of retirement was something she had been thinking about for “a long time” since 2019, when the final whistle blew in Lyon, France, and the USA won its fourth World Cup title. It’s something she’s been working on and struggling with all her life, she admitted.
But early in the 2023 season, and after discussing his WNBA retirement in 2022 with partner Sue Bird, the answer slowly became clear. In fact, she said at the beginning of her statement, “She feels really deep peace, gratitude and excitement” about her decision.
“I wanted to do it before the World Cup. I wanted to make sure it was,” Rapinoe said at the press conference. “But at the end of the day, it’s my career and it’s my word. I wanted to make sure I had time to say what I wanted to say.”
The agency that accompanies Rapinoe’s announcement is particularly fitting. She’s spent her career speaking out on issues beyond the pitch. During her 17 years as a representative of her football team USA, Rapinoe has been a vocal advocate in the fight for equal pay, LGBTQ+ rights, transgender inclusion in sports, and racial equality. In 2016, she reportedly became the first white athlete and the first female athlete to kneel during the national anthem to show solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. american football.
On the pitch, Rapinoe is equally prolific. Rapinoe, a three-time Olympian, won gold at the 2012 London Games and scored multiple goals in multiple Olympic games in Team USA’s bronze medal game in Tokyo. She became the first US Women’s National Team (USWNT) player. . She’s now a two-time World Cup champion and looking to finish in the top 10 for both goals and assists for the fourth time in USWNT history.
Her role at the 2023 World Cup may be different than usual, but she is likely to go from starter to international. Reuters— Rapinoe is focused on doing her best in international competition despite a recent lower extremity injury. At her press conference, she said it felt like “a little bit of borrowed time.”
