Soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe announces retirement: ‘Final season playing this beautiful game’

Soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe says she plans to retire at the end of the year.

The two-time World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist took to social media Saturday to announce that the 2023 season would be her last.

“It is with a deep sense of peace and gratitude that I have decided this will be my final season playing this beautiful game,” the 38-year-old winger for Seattle’s OL Reign and the U.S. National Team wrote on Twitter.

“I never could have imagined the ways in which soccer would shape and change my life forever, but by the look on this little girl’s face, she knew all along,” she added, captioning a photo of a much younger Rapinoe.

Speaking with reporters in a news conference ahead of a Sunday game against Wales in San Jose, Calif, Rapinoe said she felt “so honored” to have represented the U.S. for “so many years.”

“It’s truly been the greatest thing I’ve ever done,” she said.

Besides a stellar and groundbreaking career in sports, Rapinoe has done extensive advocacy work for pay equity for women in sports, as well as LGBTQ rights.

The openly gay athlete announced her engagement to Seattle Storm WNBA superstar Sue Bird in October 2020, four years after the two started dating after meeting at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

In 2018, the powerful sports duo became the first same-sex couple to be featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine’s annual Body Issue.

Rapinoe’s retirement announcement comes just days before Team USA gets ready to fight for its third consecutive World Cup victory.

The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which is set to kick off later this month, will be Rapinoe’s fourth — and last — tournament.

“Obviously there’ll be more to come further down the road after hopefully we get done what we want to get done,” she said Saturday, without going into any details about her future plans.

In 2019, after the team’s second consecutive World Cup title, Rapinoe brought parts of New York City to a standstill when she joined her teammates — and thousands of screaming fans — in a celebratory march through the confetti-drenched streets of downtown Manhattan.

In December of that year, Rapinoe — who has played for the U.S. national’s women team since 2006 — won the prestigious Ballon d’Or Féminin as the best player of the year.