After an illustrious career for club and country, Gotham FC and United States Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the street that she will retire from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.
“I always said I would play on two conditions: that I still love playing football and that my body allows me to do it the way I want,” O’Hara said. Sports only for women as his retirement announcement approaches. “I realized a while ago that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor.”
The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, Olympic gold medalist and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is difficult to fully summarize and will forever span some of the greatest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history.
In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, having recently converted to defender. His dazzling goal from the bench in the 2015 World Cup semi-final is legendary. And his return from a nagging injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup victory cemented a fairytale international career.
It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Spirit of Washington their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara returning to help Gotham win a title in 2023 after years in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the United States (she won her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes in the sport, on and off the field.
On the pitch, O’Hara has always been known for her never-stopping motor, making the right flank her domain when it comes to offensive possession and defensive transition. In recent years, it has also been celebrated for its competitive dynamism which raises the level of her teammateswhether she is in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.
But injuries take their toll, a reality fans watching from home don’t always see. “I never took anything for granted, and I feel like I was never freewheeling either,” O’Hara said of his late-career success in the NWSL despite his injuries. “I’ve always said, ‘I have to do my best every day I’m on that field’ – which, honestly, is probably half the reason I have to retire now instead of spending a few years more of that. I just worked hard.
Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined in Gotham due to ankle and knee injuries, and the situation has motivated her to prioritize listening to her body. “Getting injured and coming back, getting injured and coming back, and continuing to do it, it really takes a toll on you.
“People don’t see the doubt associated with injuries,” she continued. “As athletes, we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we’re very in tune with our bodies. And there’s always so much Doubts about injuries It’s like, “Can I feel what I felt before? The reality is that sometimes I don’t.”
O’Hara did not take the decision to give up her playing career lightly. But once she started seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the NWSL’s last offseason, it felt right. “One time I was like, ‘All right, you know what, this will be my last year,’ I had a lot of peace with that,” she said. “Really, the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything my career has been, for everything I’ve been able to do and for the people I’ve been able to do it with. “
She said she will miss the daily interactions with her teammates and all the incredible memories they created, although she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. “Basically, you get to hang out and film shit with your best friends every day,” she mused. “It’s so unheard of, and I feel very lucky to be doing it for so long.”
The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how the game gave her the space to just be creative every day . The tactical elements of football provided O’Hara with a way to solve problems and use his naturally competitive advantage.
She is now preparing to channel her on-court intensity into her full-time post-playing career, a new chapter she is excited to begin. “I don’t know if the world is ready for that, like the fact that I’m not going to put all my energy into football all the time,” she said with a laugh.
O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some way, whether as an owner, coach or part of a front office. She also has an interest in the growing media space surrounding women’s sport, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with his fiancée.
“I just feel like I have a lot of passions and things that excite me,” she says. “And I want to stay as close to the game as possible, because I feel a responsibility – and I don’t know in what capacity – to continue to develop it.”
The sense of responsibility to develop the game was a constant refrain for USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new era of soccer. equal pay for the national team and collectively negotiated protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players is different than it was 14 years ago, in large part because of this pivotal generation.
“I feel a huge sense of pride about this, because I don’t know if any of us knew this was going to happen,” she said. “As things unfolded, took the next step to change what women’s football looks like in this country and around the world.
“I’m really grateful to have been a part of that era with the players I was with, not backing down or pushing and knowing it was the right thing to do.”
Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is moving full steam ahead. It’s advice she would also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.
“Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it and things will fall into place,” she said. “If you love something, you’re willing to do what it takes. You’re willing to make sacrifices, you’re willing to handle the roller coaster.
“For me, it’s simple. Don’t do it for any other reason than that, and I think you’ll be fine.”
