Two-time USWNT World Cup winner Kelley O’Hara will retire at the end of the 2024 NWSL season

U.S. Women’s National Team and Gotham FC defender Kelley O’Hara announced her plans to retire from soccer following the conclusion of the 2024 NWSL season. O’Hara was a stalwart for more than a decade and played in four World Cups ( (winning two in 2015 and 2019) and three Olympic Games with the national team, while also adding a WPS Championship and two NWSL Championships to her professional career.

She announced the decision in a video created for Just Women’s Sports as part of her series Kelley on the Street.

O’Hara has played limited minutes for Gotham FC so far this season and has struggled with ankle and knee injuries. “To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you,” she told Claire Watkins in an interview for JWS.

O’Hara’s first cap for the USWNT came in March 2010, and although she was named to the 2011 World Cup squad, she made her breakthrough for the USWNT during the team’s gold medal run at the 2012 London Olympics, winning played every minute as an outside defender. . She previously won the 2009 MAC Hermann Trophy as a forward at Stanford (with 26 goals and 13 assists), but it was the switch to an outside defender that cemented her place on the national team for years to come.

(Remarkably, the 2012 Olympics were also the source of one of the best pieces of old-school USWNT content with O’Hara – in which she reports that she “got shot” after being swept away in the grass at a Scottish castle while she pretended to ride brooms).

O’Hara’s last match for the national team was against Sweden during the team’s exit from the World Cup last summer in the round of 16. Due to injuries, there were doubts whether O’Hara would be included in the final 23-player roster for the tournament, and when she got the call from former head coach Vlatko Andonovski, the emotions were clear.

She played more than 10,000 minutes for the national team, making 160 appearances, three goals and 21 assists. One of her most famous USWNT goals was the one she scored against Germany in the 2015 World Cup semi-final. It was also her first international goal.

O’Hara’s club career was also successful, starting with her rookie season in WPS with FC Gold Pride, where she won the 2010 championship. When FC Gold Pride folded, O’Hara was signed by the Boston Breakers. She planned to play for the Atlanta Beat, her hometown’s WPS team, but the league folded. O’Hara has been with the NWSL since its inception, beginning her NWSL career with Sky Blue FC, before working with the first iteration of Utah Royals FC and then moving on to the Washington Spirit – where she eventually won her first NWSL championship in 2021. In January 2023, she signed with Gotham, who won the finals last year.

“It has been one of the greatest joys to represent my country and wear the American Soccer emblem,” O’Hara said in Thursday’s USWNT press release. “As I close this chapter of my life, I am filled with gratitude. Looking back on my career, I am so grateful for all the things I was able to achieve, but especially for the people I was able to achieve them with.

So far, neither US Soccer nor Gotham have shared plans to celebrate O’Hara ahead of her retirement before the end of the 2024 season, although US Soccer could choose to capitalize on their July match at Red Bull Arena for a message. -out.

(Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)