Megan Rapinoe’s retirement announcement stirs emotions with a World Cup to come

Megan Rapinoe texted her USWNT teammates in their shared group chat to warn them: the moment was finally here. And on a brisk Saturday morning in a tent behind PayPal Park in San Jose, Ca., with the drone of incoming and outgoing airplanes overhead, Rapinoe announced that this would be her final World Cup and her final season with OL Reign. 

The announcement that her 17-year career as a professional player would soon come to a close was one that she said she could make with “a really deep sense of peace and gratitude and excitement.”

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Rapinoe, eyes shining at times but never spilling over, spoke only for about two minutes on Saturday, thanking head coach Vlatko Andonovski for the platform — her surprise appearance came ahead of one of his final pressers ahead of the team’s departure for the World Cup, and  USWNT press officer Aaron Heifetz joked he was unlikely to get many questions thereafter (he didn’t). Rapinoe also thanked the rest of her coaches and teammates for their role in her long and illustrious career.

Megan Rapinoe announces this is her final World Cup, and will be her final season in the #nwsl #uswnt pic.twitter.com/NvCGzxkWIt

— Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) July 8, 2023

“I could have just never imagined where this beautiful game would have taken me,” she said. “I feel so honored to be able to have represented this country and this federation for so many years. It’s truly been the greatest thing that I’ve ever done, and something that I’m so grateful for.”

She had watched her fiancée Sue Bird, go through this same decision only a year before, another player so deeply tied to women’s professional sports in Seattle, for the United States. Rapinoe noted on Saturday that with all the questions