All-time great Sinclair to retire after NWSL season

Portland Thorns forward Christine Sinclair, the leading goal scorer in international soccer history, will retire at the end of the 2024 National Women’s Soccer League season, she announced Friday.

Sinclair’s final regular-season game will be Nov. 1 against Angel City FC in Portland, where the Thorns will honor her career. Portland sits seventh in the standings, with the top eight teams making the NWSL playoffs this year.

“Portland, thank you will never be enough,” Sinclair wrote on Instagram. “Soccer has been my passion since I was four years old and it has taken me on a journey I could never have imagined. The game led me to making the most impactful decision of my life: to attend the University of Portland.

“As I finish out this last ride, I want to say what a privilege it has been to represent this unique, beautiful, and passionate city that I will always call home.

“I still have the same passion as that young 4-year-old growing up in Burnaby, BC, but as I hang up my playing boots, I vow to channel it in a new way.

“To continue growing the game I love, while inspiring the next generation.”

Sinclair’s 190 goals for Canada are the most for any player in men’s or women’s international soccer history. She retired from Canada duty at the end of 2023, ending a 20-year international career that included six World Cups and four Olympics, including two bronze medals and an Olympic gold medal in 2021.

In 2020, Sinclair eclipsed former United States forward Abby Wambach as the leading international scorer.

Portland has been home to Sinclair since the inaugural NWSL season in 2013, and she has been integral to making the Thorns a perennial contender and one of the most recognizable women’s soccer teams globally.

She was allocated to the Portland Thorns and helped the team win the first league championship in 2013, going on to add two more NWSL titles, in 2017 and 2022.

She is the only player who remains with the Thorns from the team’s inception.

“For the last 11 years it has been an honour to be part of the Portland Thorns organization,” Sinclair wrote. “The club that showed the world what is possible when women’s sports are invested in.”

The Thorns paid tribute to Sinclair on social media.

“A legend of the game. Your legacy and impact will live on for generations. Congratulations on your retirement,” the team posted on X.

Sinclair, who grew up just outside of Vancouver, Canada, also won a pair of NCAA national championships with the University of Portland, in 2002 and 2005. She twice won the MAC Hermann Trophy, given to college soccer’s best player.

She was a free agent each of the past two seasons but decided to stay in Portland each time. Sinclair signed another one-year contract with the Thorns at the start of 2024.

Winning has followed Sinclair throughout her career. She signed with FC Gold Pride ahead of the launch of Women’s Professional Soccer in 2009 and won a championship with that team the following year.

FC Gold Pride folded, and Sinclair, along with six-time world player of the year Marta, moved to the Western New York Flash, where they won another WPS title before the league folded in early 2012.

There was loose speculation that the 41-year-old might be tempted to play one more year in her hometown, with Canada launching a first-division women’s league — the Northern Super League — in 2025.

Sinclair played semiprofessionally for the Vancouver Whitecaps in the first iteration of the USL W-League in the early 2000s. The USL W-League was the highest level of women’s soccer in the U.S. and Canada at the time, during the years when there was no professional league in the U.S. Vancouver won the league title in 2006.

The Thorns will play the current iteration of the Whitecaps in downtown Vancouver’s BC Place on Oct. 15 in their final group match of the inaugural Concacaf W Champions Cup.

BC Place was the site of Sinclair’s final game for Canada last year. It was temporarily renamed “Christine Sinclair Place.”