Utah Royals v Angel Metropolis FC
Angel Metropolis ahead Christen Press has introduced her retirement from skilled soccer following the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League season.
The 36-year-old Press gained Ladies’s World Cup titles with america in 2015 and 2019 and a bronze medal on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Over a decade with the nationwide staff, she appeared in 155 matches, scoring 64 objectives and 43 assists.
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Press performed professionally in Sweden and has performed within the NWSL for the Chicago Crimson Stars, Utah Royals and Angel Metropolis, along with a stint with Manchester Metropolis.
A local Californian, Press was Angel Metropolis’s first signing in 2022. She scored two objectives in eight video games with the staff earlier than tearing the ACL in her proper knee. She had 4 surgical procedures earlier than returning final season.
“It’s onerous to search out the phrases to say goodbye to a sport that has outlined my life for over three a long time. Soccer has given me all the things, and I’ll miss being on the pitch so very a lot. Thanks to my household, mates, teammates, coaches, and group for this lovely experience,” Press mentioned in a press release launched Wednesday.
Press is without doubt one of the founders of RE-INC., each a industrial and advocacy platform for fairness points, and he or she hosts the favored girls’s soccer YouTube sequence The RE-CAP Present with fellow former nationwide staff participant Tobin Heath, her spouse. Heath retired earlier this yr.
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Press was among the many nationwide staff gamers who fought for equal pay and advocated for higher pay and taking part in circumstances within the NWSL.
U.S. girls’s nationwide staff coach Emma Hayes mentioned she first noticed Press when she performed at Stanford, and was impressed together with her versatility and scoring skill. Press was the all-time main scorer for the Cardinal with 71 profession objectives.
However Hayes mentioned Press was about extra than simply the on-field expertise.
“I believe a lot that folks don’t actually see with that technology of gamers is what they’ve needed to endure to get to the place they’re,” Hayes mentioned. “They’ve needed to sacrifice themselves or put themselves in a spot that positioned everyone else in a greater place, whether or not or not it’s the combat for equal play, whether or not or not it’s the combat for fairness, simply the precise to have the precise circumstances, whether or not that’s the precise taking part in floor, whether or not it’s to create the precise environments round gamers.”
Press introduced her retirement on Good Morning America on Wednesday. Angel Metropolis will honor her on Sunday when the staff hosts the Portland Thorns.