As Megan Rapinoe prepares to take to the pitch for the final time, the two-time World Cup champion and Ballon d’Or winner has been placed among the ranks of football’s all-time greats.
Rapinoe will walk out with OL Reign at the Snapdragon Stadium in her last game on Saturday November 11.
She will be looking for a win over NJ/NY Gotham FC which would earn her a first ever WNSL championship.
For a footballer who has won almost everything there is to win, it is remarkable that there is still a trophy missing from her cabinet.
But the high stakes will make her final match all the more meaningful.
The Times’ Senior Sports Writer Matt Dickinson praised Rapinoe for the ‘immense joy’ she has brought to so many any for the legacy she will leave behind her.
And he placed the 38-year-old alongside the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as some of ‘the most significant footballers of the 21st century’.
Rapinoe will be remembered by so many people for so many different reasons.
She will go down in history for her role in suing the US Soccer Federation in an equal pay dispute which resulted in a $24million settlement being awarded to the players of the US Women’s National Team.
She will be remembered for her ongoing feud with former US President Donald Trump after she declared, in no uncertain terms, that she would not be going to the White House if the USA won the 2019 World Cup – win, they did. Go, she did not.
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And she will be remembered for her iconic goal celebration, arms outstretched and expression serene, a pose which came to be familiar to many thanks to the 63 international goals she netted in her career.
But while Rapinoe’s career in football may be coming to an end, it is unlikely that the world is seeing the end of her influence.
As someone who has done so much for her sport and for women, the world can only watch and wait to see what will come next.
Rapinoe is taking her last steps on the pitch – but surely, only her first steps towards her next great achievement.