2023-09-25 10:01:11
Tears but above all laughter. American football star Megan Rapinoe, Olympic champion and double world champion, won her last match with the American selection on Sunday in Chicago, 2-0 against South Africa in a friendly.
At 38, Rapinoe was even credited with an assist from a corner, before coming off in the 54th minute, to end a career in the selection lasting more than 17 years with 203 matches and 63 goals. Fifa Player of the Year 2019, she was eliminated in August with her team by Sweden in the round of 16 of the World Cup played in Australia and New Zealand.
A false note but not enough to detract from an impressive record. For the United States, she won the Olympic tournament at the London Games in 2012 and then the World Cup in 2015 and 2019. “I am grateful to have been able to play for so long with so many incredible players, and to have successful on and off the field,” she said on Sunday.
Feminist activist, on the front line of the fight for LGBT + rights since coming out in 2012, Megan Rapinoe also denounced police violence against black people by kneeling on the ground during the American anthem in 2016, when the gesture had not yet become a global symbol. She also successfully fought with several teammates to establish equal salary treatment between men and women within Team USA.
“What we did off the field had a much greater impact” than our successes in football, she commented before her last match. “I think we have played a role in highlighting within sport, and particularly women’s sport, issues like gay rights, racial justice or trans rights. »
Sunday, replaced in the 54th minute five minutes after her decisive pass from a corner for midfielder Emily Sonnett, she received a standing ovation, in addition to hugs from her teammates. “Pioneer. Icon. Inspiration,” posted his federation on its social networks after its release. “You made this sport, this country and this world a little better. THANKS. »
The iconic striker, a world figurehead in women’s football, will definitively end her career in November, at the end of the regular season of the United States championship, which she is playing with her club OL Reign.
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