United States ladies’s nationwide staff and Gotham FC defender Kelley O’Hara introduced Thursday that she is retiring from soccer on the finish of the Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League season.
O’Hara, 35, is a two-time Girls’s World Cup winner, an Olympic gold medalist and a two-time Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League title winner.
She made her announcement on the Simply Girls’s Sports activities platform, the place she has hosted a well-liked gamers’ podcast.
“I have been enjoying soccer since I used to be 4 years outdated, and it has been an absolute pleasure,” she stated. “However as they are saying, ‘Do not cry as a result of it is over. Smile as a result of it occurred.’ And I do know there shall be a variety of tears by me and doubtless a few of y’all, however I hope there are extra smiles.”
O’Hara, who was a free-agent signing by Gotham in 2023, has performed within the NWSL for 11 seasons. Gotham gained the NWSL title final season. Earlier than that, she performed for the Washington Spirit, which gained the league championship in 2021.
In 160 appearances with the nationwide staff, O’Hara has performed in 4 whole World Cups and three Olympics. She is one among simply 4 U.S. gamers to be chosen for 4 World Cup squads.
On the 2015 World Cup, she got here off the bench to attain within the 84th minute, sealing a 2-0 semifinal victory over Germany. The USA went on to win the match with a 5-2 win over Japan.
She gained a gold medal within the London Olympics and a bronze within the Tokyo Video games.
“It has been one of many biggest joys to signify my nation and to put on the U.S. Soccer crest,” O’Hara stated in a U.S. Soccer assertion. “As I shut this chapter of my life, I’m stuffed with gratitude. Trying again on my profession I’m so grateful for all of the issues I used to be capable of accomplish however most significantly the folks I used to be capable of accomplish them with.”
Lately dogged by accidents, O’Hara’s final match with the nationwide staff got here on the World Cup final summer season.
A Georgia native, O’Hara performed at Stanford and gained the 2009 MAC Hermann Trophy as the highest faculty participant her senior season.
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Reporting by The Related Press.
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