Soccer’s all-time leading goal scorer Christine Sinclair will retire from professional soccer at the end of the NWSL season, the Canadian international announced on Friday. Her last game for the Portland Thorns will be Nov. 1 against Angel City FC in their season finale at Providence Park.
Sinclair, 41, retired from international soccer prior to the 2024 NWSL season. The 2023 World Cup was her last major tournament. She played her final game for Canada in December 2023 in her hometown of Vancouver at a soldout BC Place and exited the international scene as the all-time leading goal scorer for both men and women with 190 goals in 331 games.
While discussing her international retirement last year, Sinclair mentioned several times that she was interested in being able to focus on at least one more season of club soccer without any international commitments. The Thorns re-signed Sinclair in January for a one-year contract through 2024.
In her last season with the Thorns, Sinclair has played 854 minutes over 19 games with two goals and one assist. She helped guide the Thorns to three national championships in 2013, 2017 and 2022; she also won championships with her clubs in previous U.S. league Women’s Professional Soccer, winning it all with both the Western New York Flash in 2011 and FC Gold Pride in 2010.
In NWSL, Sinclair is one of the few players who stayed with one club for her entire career, having joined the Thorns in 2013 and amassed 79 goals across all competitions. She holds the Thorns record for most regular season goals at 64, third overall in the league. She is one of two players to have scored in every NWSL competition across the regular season, playoffs, Challenge Cup, the 2020 Fall Series and Summer Cup.
Sinclair received her first full senior national team call-up at age 16 and has won Olympic bronze twice, in 2012 and 2016, and gold in 2021. She received the Northern Star award in 2012 as Canada’s athlete of the year and has twice been awarded the Bobbie Rosenfeld award for Canadian female athlete of the year, in 2012 and 2020.
At a press conference before Sinclair’s last national team game, she said that she would continue to stay involved in soccer, mentioning the possibility of coaching or helping former teammate Diana Matheson with her new Canadian women’s professional soccer league, the Northern Super League. “We’ll see, but I’ll definitely be involved,” Sinclair said.
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(Top photo: Craig Mitchelldyer / Imagn Images)
