The illustrious careers of Megan Rapinoe and Allie Krieger will end on the same field Saturday, at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, Calif., site of the 2023 National Women’s Soccer League championship. The matchup could be between Rapinoe’s OL Reign and Krieger’s NJ/NY Gotham FC It is the league’s most popular game to date, with a potential tournament-record crowd and a large global audience expected to tune into the game in prime time.
The stage set in San Diego is a far cry from the forgotten early days of each player’s club career. Rapinoe and Krieger are two-time World Cup champions. Each has an Olympic gold medal to its name. Each player also bid farewell to the United States Women’s National Team. On Saturday, the two old friends get a great performance from their teams, one last chance for each to win a rare trophy that has eluded them.
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While both players are known globally for their accomplishments with the US National Team, they have honed their skills daily in their club environments. They come from an era when much of this work was done in the shadows, playing games in high school football stadiums (or, infamously, poorly converted baseball stadiums) at times when some teams in the National Football League were barely able Attracting 1,000 fans in a hot summer. a night.
As OL Reigns midfielder Rose Lavelle said after her team’s semifinal win on Sunday, “It seems a little poetic to have the championship game end with Krieger and Benoit’s last game.” It may have even been prophetic. Krieger recently shared a They exchanged text messages in September The two playfully argue about making it to the NWSL Championship. The letters are a window into their friendship and personalities. Both players are happy on and off the field. On Saturday, one will end her career at the top of the league she helped build. (Regardless of the outcome, expect these two to make you laugh afterward, like they always do.)
No one would have expected Rapinoe and Krieger to have the opportunity to end their careers in this kind of situation a decade ago, when the National Football League launched into a sea of uncertainty after the failure of its previous two championships. However, it is fitting that two internationally decorated stars are stepping away from the club, which helped shape their careers away from the limelight.
Krieger graduated from Penn State during the dark ages of women’s soccer in the United States, when there was no professional league from late 2003 until early 2009. She signed with FFC Frankfurt, a German and European heavyweight team at the time, in In 2007, I helped the team. The team won its third European title in its first season there. Krieger and teammate Jenna Lewandowski became the first American women to win a European title.
In Germany, Krieger became the best full-back in the world, a claim she reinforced at the 2011 World Cup, where she started all six games in the United States’ run to the final. She had another brief stint in Europe, playing for Swedish team Tyresö FF as part of the team’s run to the European final, but the NFL – and her hometown team, the Washington Spirit – welcomed her back. Krieger has been with Spirit since the team’s launch in 2013.
“I was here when the league started,” Krieger recently told ESPN. “I came home from Germany just to… [help] Create this league and give it a space where it can flourish, [to] Give these players room to improve every day and get that opportunity to play in their hometown or in front of their friends and family. It’s the thing we’ve always dreamed of having — [something] This is stable and consistent. Winning this after all this time would mean everything to me. “This is the pinnacle of playing in the NFL, winning this championship.”
Rapinoe found herself in a similar struggle between Europe and the United States at the start of the National Football League. She had already had a taste of professional soccer in the US with the Chicago Red Stars, and the 2011 circus known as Magic Jack, before signing with European powerhouse Lyon for a reported around $14,000 a month – a salary that was largely unheard of for Lyon’s female players. the time.
USA Soccer and the National Football League assigned Rapinoe to the Seattle Reign Soccer Club at the time – at the beginning of the NFL. It was there, in Seattle, that the Megan Rapinoe the world knows today came to fruition, and where the legacies of club and player became intertwined.
“I feel like I owe a lot of my national team career to The Reign,” Rapinoe told ESPN last year. “I’ve had two of the best, if not the best, coaches in the world coach here and to be able to play under them. Some of the best players in the world.” [were here]. …I feel like that’s where my game originated. I think until I got here it was like: ‘Yes, I’m talented, I’m in the national team, we’re doing things, we’re having success.’ But I feel like when I got here, my game completely changed, and I really took it to the next level. I owe a lot to this club.”
Seattle was terrible in its first season in the NFL. After an opening day tie against the Chicago Red Stars, the Reign lost nine straight games. The score was 0-9-1 when Rapinoe made her debut for the club on 23 June 2013. Her impact was immediate.
The Reign went on a six-game unbeaten run that coincided with Rapinoe’s arrival, and the star winger finished the season as the team’s top scorer. The groundwork was laid for 2014, when the Reign, featuring Hope Solo in goal and Rapinoe, Jess Fishlock and Kim Little in attack, went on a 16-game unbeaten streak and won the NWSL Shield.
Rapinoe has been an integral part of the Reign’s success over the years, from those two shields — and corresponding NWSL championship losses — in 2014 and 2015, when she was at her peak, to a string of late-season performances to capture a third NWSL title. Shield in 2022 and the team’s return to the final this year. At 38 years old, Rapinoe still knows how to make the most of her game-changing talents, even if those moments are less frequent now.
NWSL Championship Match Megan Rapinoe vs. Allie Krieger’s final match feels like ✨destiny✨ pic.twitter.com/hmhdpWb4wU
– EspnW (@espnW) November 8, 2023
Rapinoe’s entire NWSL career – the entire last decade of her career – has been with The Reign. It has made Seattle its home despite playing college football in Portland: home of the Reign’s biggest rivals, the Thorns. Never one to walk lightly, Rapinoe has stabbed the bear and sparked a rivalry with Portland over the years whenever she could (with her signature, cute smile, of course).
Winning the Reign — in Seattle, her adopted home alongside partner and WNBA legend Sue Bird — would mean everything to her.
“I’ve been really open: It’s a big gap, I feel, in my career and what it means more to me throughout my entire career,” Rapinoe said before this year’s playoffs. “Obviously we have great teams here – some of the best teams ever here with The Reign and we couldn’t get that elusive piece of silverware. So, that means the world to me. I would absolutely love it. I will put everything into it to try to achieve it like we do every year. This, of course, would be a perfect textual ending.”
For a decade, Rapinoe was hiding in plain sight with the Reign and in the NWSL. She gained international fame playing for the United States. It was the 2011 World Cup where she sang “Born in the USA” into a field microphone after scoring, and the cross in the quarterfinals to Abby Wambach that “saved a USA life” against Brazil. , as Ian Darke said on the call on ESPN. A year later, Rapinoe scored Olimpico’s goal in the Olympic semifinal win over Canada. In 2019, she gained a new level of global celebrity by owning the sporting moment — the World Cup title, the Ballon d’Or, the Golden Boot and the Ballon d’Or — and also igniting a polarized political scene by publicly sparring with President Donald Trump.
This was the Rapinoe that loyal NWSL fans already knew. Her decision to kneel during the national anthem to bring attention to social injustice has gained increased attention for (and nearly cost her a spot on) the national team, but it started in the National Football League. She was denied the opportunity to kneel in a September 2016 road game against the Spirit when then-Spirit owner Bill Lynch played the national anthem while the teams were still in the locker rooms. Rapinoe described these actions as “unbelievable.”
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Spirit players quickly issued a statement saying they were disappointed by what happened Owner’s decision. Their leader? Krieger of course. Two months later, Krieger was traded to the Orlando Pride. Washington had just qualified for the NWSL Championship, losing in a shootout that saw Krieger’s opening kick saved. It’s a loss that still burns in Krieger’s memory.
Rapinoe remembers losses in the 2014 and 2015 NWSL championships. She nearly pulled the Reign back from a 2-0 deficit in 2014 by scoring a late goal, but the frame of the goal denied Seattle on several occasions in their first back-to-back Finals loss to FC Kansas City.
Both players were at or near their peak in those years, but they managed to find ways to stay sharp until the end. Just as she did last year, Rapinoe came alive in the second half of the NWSL season, including a pair of highlight-reel goals on the final day of the season to secure the Reign’s berth in the playoffs. Krieger was exceptional throughout 2023. She credited her teammates and coaching staff with making the game exciting again.
Saturday marks the end. The end of two illustrious careers. The end of an era for two pioneers of a league that went from a precarious experiment to a thriving investment property. And in one way or another, the end of the quest for the grail they had previously failed to reach.
“It would be amazing to win an NFL championship,” Krieger said. “It’s something that’s been stuck in my head for a while, since 2016, when I was in the final with DC. It’s not going to make or break my career, right? I can look back at my career now and I can be very happy.” And I’m very proud of myself. So, it won’t specify that, but it will put the cherry on top. I think winning in the US and the MLS as an American player is really cool. “I think this would just be a dream come true.”
