U.S. women’s national team and Gotham FC defender Kelley O’Hara announced she plans to retire from soccer following the conclusion of the 2024 NWSL season. A stalwart for more than a decade, O’Hara played in four World Cups (winning two in 2015 and 2019) and three Olympics with the national team, as well as adding a WPS championship and two NWSL championships in her professional career.
She announced the decision in a video created for Just Women’s Sports as part of her series Kelley on the Street.
O’Hara has played limited minutes for Gotham FC so far this season and has struggled with ankle and knee injuries. “To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you,” she told Claire Watkins in an interview for JWS.
O’Hara’s first cap for the USWNT came in March 2010, and, while she was named to the 2011 World Cup roster, broke out for the USWNT during the team’s gold medal run in the 2012 London Olympics, playing every minute as an outside back. She previously won the 2009 MAC Hermann Trophy as a forward at Stanford (scoring 26 goals and adding 13 assists), but it was the conversion to outside back that cemented her place on the national team for years.
(Notably, the 2012 Olympics were also the source of one of the greatest pieces of old-school USWNT content featuring O’Hara — in which she reports she “got sniped” after wiping out in the grass at a Scottish castle pretending to ride brooms).
O’Hara’s final match for the national team was against Sweden during the team’s exit from last summer’s World Cup in the round of 16. Due to injury concerns, there were doubts that O’Hara would be named to the final 23-player roster for the tournament, and when she received the call from former head coach Vlatko Andonovski, the emotions were clear.
She played over 10,000 minutes for the national team, sitting at 160 appearances, three goals and 21 assists. One of her most famous USWNT goals was the one she scored against Germany during the 2015 World Cup semifinal. It was also her first international goal.
O’Hara’s club career was also successful, starting with her rookie season in WPS with FC Gold Pride, winning the 2010 championship. When FC Gold Pride folded, O’Hara was signed by the Boston Breakers. She intended to play for the Atlanta Beat, her hometown WPS team, but the league folded. O’Hara has been with the NWSL since the beginning, starting her NWSL career with Sky Blue FC, before a stint with the first version of Utah Royals FC, then heading to the Washington Spirit — where she finally won her first NWSL championship in 2021. In January 2023, she signed with Gotham, who won last year’s final.
“It has been one of the greatest joys to represent my country and to wear the U.S. Soccer crest,” O’Hara said in the USWNT press release on Thursday. “As I close this chapter of my life, I am filled with gratitude. Looking back on my career I am so thankful for all the things I was able to accomplish but most importantly the people I was able to accomplish them with.”
As of now, neither U.S. Soccer nor Gotham has shared any intended plans to celebrate O’Hara ahead of her retirement before the end of the 2024 season, though U.S. Soccer could choose to take advantage of their July match at Red Bull Arena for a send-off.
(Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
