Megan Rapinoe started her lengthy good-bye with the similar of a homecoming.
In the last decade and a part since she was a certified football participant, Rapinoe’s occupation has taken her to football golf equipment on two continents, to the Olympic Games on 3 and, quickly, to a fourth World Cup. On Sunday, an afternoon after she stunned her group and her lovers by way of publicly saying plans to retire on the finish of this 12 months, Rapinoe discovered herself settling right into a seat on the USA ladies’s nationwide group bench a pair hundred miles from her place of birth.
Rapinoe, 38, grew up in Redding, Calif., about 250 miles north of the website online of Sunday’s sport, PayPal Park in San Jose. She estimated that about 40 of her members of the family and pals had made the travel south to peer the United States beat Wales, 2-0, in its ultimate sport on American soil forward of the Women’s World Cup that begins later this month in Australia and New Zealand.
“This is the closest that I’ll ever get to play to Redding in my career,” Rapinoe had stated on Saturday. “It does feel very special. It feels perfect.
During the news conference in which she announced her retirement plans on Saturday, Rapinoe had said that she was at peace with the decision to step away from soccer. Now, she was just enjoying the chance to give a proper goodbye to the sport that made her an international star, as well as a spokeswoman for equal rights, equal pay and social justice issues close to her heart.
Rapinoe has played for the national team since 2006. A three-time Olympian and two-time World Cup champion, she has scored 63 goals for the United States and is one of seven players to have accumulated more than 50 goals and 50 assists in her career. US national team career.
Her role is different these days, having evolved from a lineup fixture to a late-game substitute. She is still valued by her coach, Vlatko Andonovski, though; He included her on his World Cup roster because he values her leadership, experience and ability to shape big moments.
Whenever and however she plays going forward, she remains a crowd favorite. One fan, Corina Burns, who was a No. 15 T-shirt with the name “Rapinoe” on the back, said she drove from Southern California with her three daughters to attend Sunday’s game. It wasn’t the family’s first trip to see the national team play: They were in France four years ago when Rapinoe was one of the Americans’ most valuable players in their victory at the 2019 World Cup.
“We saw her play and fell in love with her,” Burns said.
That World Cup remains, for now, Rapinoe’s crowning achievement. She won both the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer and the Golden Ball as its outstanding player. It is also when she cemented her status as a pop culture icon: She scored six goals in the competition even as she publicly battled with President Donald J. Trump.
She remains an outspoken voice, but she is a different player these days. Rapinoe has been hampered by injuries for months, with an ankle injury keeping her out of the start of the National Women’s Soccer League season and a calf injury keeping her out of two national team matches against Ireland in April. Andonovski said following Sunday’s game that Rapinoe was medically cleared to play in the World Cup, but was still working up to game fitness.
In her absence, newer faces — Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman, Alyssa Thompson — have begun to lay claim to the forward position where Rapinoe was once a clear choice. That new generation, the one that would occupy the space vacated by Rapinoe, was on display again against Wales.
In the 76th minute on Sunday, Rodman, 21, broke through in a scoreless game by scoring easily off a cross from Smith, 22. Rodman struck again in the 88th minute, powering a shot from 20 yards past the hands of Wales goalkeeper Olivia Clarke. . Rodman became the youngest American player to score two goals in an international match since 2019. “It’s a younger roster this year, but the mix of the experience and the youth has been really good to learn from each other,” Rodman said after the game. as chants of “USA” echoed around the stadium. “Just as much as we can learn from them, they can also learn from us.”
In that regard, Rapinoe nonetheless has a lot to provide. Andonovski has made no secret of the way a lot he values the knowledge and institutional wisdom she brings to a group that now options avid gamers just like the 18-year-old Thompson, who’s recent out of highschool, and Savannah DeMelo, 25, who won her first cap on Sunday, along with a dozen different new faces headed to their first World Cup.
That the USA struggled to wreck down a resolute Wales group that did not qualify for the World Cup till Rodman scored two times off the bench was once in all probability a hopeful indication that Rapinoe would possibly nonetheless have crucial function to play prior to she walks clear of the group for excellent. .
Her likelihood by no means arrived on Sunday: Rapinoe didn’t heat up and Andonovski by no means referred to as for her to come back on. It was once some other signal that even if Rapinoe stated her time is nearly up, the days will have already modified.