When Megan Rapinoe and Ali Krieger, both set to retire at the end of this year, exchanged a few laughs over text back in September, they had no idea what they were manifesting. “When is your last game?”, Rapinoe asked, a question Krieger answered with the date of the 2023 NWSL Championship game. “Well I guess that’s my last game too,” was Rapinoe’s reply, the two giggling away as they imagined the unlikelihood of the stars aligning and setting up a title-deciding clash between Krieger’s Gotham and Rapinoe’s OL Reign.
But that is exactly what has happened. On Saturday, in San Diego, the final action for one of these icons of U.S. women’s soccer will be to lift a title that has eluded them for a whole decade.
These two have won plenty between them, including two Women’s World Cups together, but the top prize in their home domestic league isn’t on an otherwise almost complete list. Rapinoe has come closest over the years, playing in two of these NWSL Championship games and winning three Shields, the award given to the team that finishes top of the regular season standings, during 10 years with the Reign.
Given how regularly the Seattle-based side have been there or thereabouts, if you had predicted at the start of the year that Rapinoe would have a shot of signing off with this title, it wouldn’t have been a particularly bold shout. Krieger and Gotham, though? Now that’s a surprise.