Megan Rapinoe exited the 2023 NWSL Championship — and the final game of her illustrious career — in the sixth minute due to an injury.

While chasing after the ball, the 38-year-old OL Reign forward fell to the ground by the sideline at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, then clutched her lower right leg. She was helped off the field by trainers, putting minimal weight on the leg.

Already, Rapinoe suspected an Achilles injury, as she had felt “a huge pop” in the back of her leg. She told teammate Rose Lavelle as much at the time, and she reiterated that suspicion after the match, though she will get an MRI to confirm her self-diagnosis.

“I wasn’t overly emotional about it. I mean, f—ing yeeted my Achilles in the sixth minute in my last game ever in the literal championship game,” Rapinoe said with self-described “dark humor” after OL Reign’s 2-1 loss to Gotham FC.

Nothing in her preparation for the match foreshadowed the injury, she said, noting she felt “really good” during warmups. She also absolved the Snapdragon Stadium pitch of any responsibility for the injury.

“I guess I just rode it until the wheels really came right off,” she said.

As Rapinoe exited the field, she received a hug from Gotham FC captain Ali Krieger, who also was playing in her final professional match. Bethany Balcer replaced Rapinoe for OL Reign.

While Rapinoe went into the locker room immediately after the injury, she returned to the sidelines on crutches to support her team.

“You don’t always get to have the perfect ending,” she said. “I’ve had so many perfect endings.”

Kelley O’Hara joined Gotham FC as a splashy free agent signing ahead of the 2023 season. And from the very first day of practice, the U.S. women’s national team defender knew the club had championship potential.

On Just Women’s Sports’ Super Show at the NWSL Championship, O’Hara recalled the first day the team came together. First-year head coach Juan Carlos Amorós laid out his vision for the season, and O’Hara felt a spark.

“I was like, wow, this is the first time I’ve sat in a room the first day of season and been like, we could we could win a championship,” O’Hara told co-hosts Christine Williamson and Sarah Gorden.

While Gotham snuck into the postseason as the No. 6 seed, they have won both of their playoff games — the first two playoff wins in franchise history — to reach the NWSL Championship final at 8 p.m. ET Saturday against OL Reign.

Gotham midfielder Allie Long also felt the potential of the team from the start of the season.

“The group that we have is really special,” Long said. “And so I’ve always had this feeling that — of course, you set that goal, and it’s such a competitive league — but yeah, we set that goal. I haven’t taken my eyes off (it).”

The team carries some extra incentive into the championship match, as they are looking to send retiring captain Ali Krieger out with a bang.

“We want to send her out the right way,” O’Hara said.

The Reign are looking to do the same for retiring star Megan Rapinoe. Neither Krieger nor Rapinoe — and neither Gotham FC nor OL Reign — have won a title. And while O’Hara can’t root for Rapinoe, she is glad to see Krieger and Rapinoe end their career on such a fitting stage.

“It’s so good. You can’t write a better script in sports,” O’Hara said. “It’s very, very cool, and they both deserve to have the opportunity to potentially win a championship.”

Preview the 2023 NWSL Championship by tuning into the Just Women’s Sports Super Show Presented by State Farm, featuring surprise guest appearances by NWSL stars. Watch here.

There are few managers more synonymous with success than OL Reign’s Laura Harvey. In a league currently dominated by a constantly moving carousel of open coaching positions, the original manager of the Seattle Reign has endured, leading the team to their first NWSL Championship appearance since 2015.

Known for her humor, candor and proclivity for sitting on an ice cooler in the coach’s box during games, Harvey is already an iconic figure in NWSL history.

When you speak to her players, Harvey’s strengths as a manager are reflected in their words. She’s described by forward Megan Rapinoe as “the best manager I’ve ever had,” and by defender Sofia Huerta as the only coach she’s had that “knows what they’re talking about, and really cares about the players.” Midfielder Jess Fishlock says her managing style is “just successful, man. It works. It’s such a respectful way of working.” And defender Alana Cook says “she looks after us as humans before players.”

All players say that Harvey is the person who sets the culture upon which everything in the locker room is based. And if the Reign win the 2023 NWSL Championship by defeating Gotham FC in San Diego on Saturday, it will be because they leaned further into that culture rather than turned away from it.

Harvey is the longest-tenured coach in the NWSL, even after stepping away from the Reign from 2018-21. NWSL coaching positions as a whole have become difficult jobs to hold in recent years, either due to off-field misconduct or on-field results.

Harvey has the staunch support of her players for the way she treats them off the field, but the Reign also could be rewarded for patience with results over the years. Harvey famously has led the Reign to three NWSL Shields, an honor many on the team feel is more reflective of a truly successful season than the two- or three-game playoff run to the championship. But the team has also become synonymous with struggling in the playoffs, falling to lower seeds in recent years after earning top-two finishes in the regular season.

Consequently, Harvey’s record in knockout matches has seeped into the conversation about her reputation as a manager over time. Prior to 2023, Seattle had won only two playoff matches in the club’s history — two semifinals in 2014 and 2015. In both of those postseasons, the team fell in the championship match to Vlatko Andonovski’s FC Kansas City, and until this year had not registered another postseason win despite making the semifinals every single season from 2018-22.

Harvey’s knockout record (and her old coaching battles with Andonovski) have followed her, especially after Andonovski was named manager of the U.S. women’s national team in 2019. Harvey, who’d made the jump to become a coach at the U.S. development level in 2018, was considered a contender for the USWNT job after Jill Ellis stepped down in the aftermath of the 2019 World Cup victory. But Andonovski had the consistent record in playoff matches, one of the closest equivalents to international tournament play available at the domestic level.

Fast forward to 2023, and Harvey’s name again was in the mix for the USWNT job after Andonovski struggled to continue the program’s history of excellence with a disappointing Olympic and World Cup run. And once again, the well-respected Seattle coach appears to be left on the shortlist, with reports indicating that the job will go to current Chelsea manager Emma Hayes instead. Hayes, like Harvey, has a history of excellence at the club level, but she also has domestic knockout tournament wins in the FA Cup.

So if the Reign appear to go out of their way to win for their manager on Saturday, the intensity is warranted. The Reign have doubled their playoff win count in 2023, with two assertive victories in the quarterfinals and semifinals. And Harvey’s players have been steadfast in their desire to get over the top of that one final hill and earn their manager the respect they feel she deserves.

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(Jane Gershovich/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

“I actually think a lot of people still underrate Laura Harvey as a coach anyway, which is absolutely mind-boggling to me. I don’t understand what else she needs to do,” says Fishlock, who has played for the Reign since their founding in 2013. “Laura has a structure. She knows what she wants, she has her principles, but within that she has fluidity.”

The Reign are known to play some of the most beautiful, free-flowing soccer in the league, stringing long series of passes together to find an opening in the opponent’s defense and put the ball in the back of the net. They’re also strong defensively, with well-drilled pressing triggers that can set an opponent on their heels.

That consistency has been a clear asset to the Reign’s ability to rule the regular season, but Harvey’s players similarly credit their communication structure and steady principles with their ability to execute in the postseason.

“She’s very tactical but also is able to put together a really good group or lineup per game, depending on who shines,” says Emily Sonnett, who has flourished as a holding midfielder for the club after spending most of her professional career as a defender.

She credits the Reign coaching staff with not overcomplicating the game plan, a helpful tool when a player is getting used to a new position: “Laura and the coaching staff have done a really good job of each game [asking] ‘What is actually needed, and can we accomplish that?”

Harvey communicates with the team through her leaders, notably the Reign’s original three of Fishlock, Rapinoe and defender Lauren Barnes.

“She doesn’t really have an ego like that, and really wants that collaboration, and really relies especially on us older players to be her lieutenants out there,” says Rapinoe, who says she wants her final professional game to be a win for her manager almost more than she wants it for herself. “She’s always pulling us in and wanting our opinion, and allowing us the space to be f—ing annoying and ask a million questions all the time. But she empowers us to do that.”

Both the Reign’s desire to win and the tools are clearly there, and have been for years. But the players’ execution of the game plan, Rapinoe says, has let Harvey down in the past more than her own preparation as a coach.

“The thing about Laura, she’s always gonna get up and own the entire loss,” Rapinoe says. “But I think a lot of the knockout games, we’ve just played terrible and haven’t shown up as players.”

“I think being a coach is really difficult,” Huerta echoes. “It’s really hard to have success as a coach, because when the team loses, it’s your fault. [But] the team wins, and the players played amazing. I think it’s hard to be in that position. There’s a lot of turnover, I don’t think a lot of people are on your side. But we’re on Laura’s side. She’s a good coach, she’s really one of the main reasons we’re here.”

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(Michael Thomas Shroyer/USA TODAY Sports)

Harvey’s principles have guided the Reign to this point, but it’s their newfound ability to play a less beautiful, more punishing style that the team feels could earn them the trophy they’ve long been searching for.

“This year, I don’t think really anybody on the outside envisioned us being in the finals,” says midfielder Rose Lavelle. “And I think we maybe had more of a chip on our shoulder that helped us get here.”

To win an NWSL Championship, the Reign will have to be willing to endure touchy passages of play and lean into their defensive identity against the consistently dangerous Gotham FC attack.

“I think obviously you want entertainment, you want goals, you want flair,” says Cook. “But I think we can make our living on just being solid in that regard and being organized, being hard to break down.”

In other words, it’s possible that this version of OL Reign looks and plays more like a knockout-round winner than any other Reign team in the past. Through injury and absence, they’ve found a toughness that hasn’t always been a part of their identity.

“I think just the overall grit and discipline of the squad this year took a really big step, which is really necessary,” says Rapinoe.

With newfound confidence in their ability to weather the storm, the Reign feel ready to prove they can join the ranks of NWSL champions and forever take the asterisk off the legacy of their manager. Because in the NWSL final, it doesn’t always have to be pretty — you just have to end on a win.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

Preview the 2023 NWSL Championship by tuning into the Just Women’s Sports Super Show Presented by State Farm, featuring surprise guest appearances by NWSL stars. Watch here.

Kelley O’Hara will not be rooting for Megan Rapinoe in the last game of her professional soccer career.

While O’Hara is excited she’ll get to be on the field for Rapinoe’s sendoff during the NWSL Championship between O’Hara’s Gotham FC and Rapinoe’s OL Reign on Saturday, she’s keeping the battle lines drawn.

“I wasn’t able to go to Pinoe’s last national team game,” O’Hara said during media day on Thursday. “So I was thinking the other day I was like, ‘Oh, wow, I’ll get to be at her last game actually.’ So that’s exciting. I, unfortunately, cannot hope for her to have a good last game.”

That feeling is shared by Gotham midfielder Allie Long, who doesn’t want to hear from Rapinoe until after the final whistle blows. Gotham defender Ali Krieger is also playing in her last game Saturday before she heads off into retirement alongside Rapinoe.

“Once we knew we’re playing them, I’m like, ‘Don’t text me. I don’t want to see you,'” she said. “I feel like maybe if it wasn’t [Krieger]’s last game, Pinoe’s last game [would be different]. I feel very loyal. Even if we’re in season [and] it’s not a final, once the whistle blows, it’s like alright. And maybe before the game, we might hug it out. But we’re not pookies until after.”

O’Hara acknowledged that the narrative of Krieger and Rapinoe playing against one another in the final is “pretty incredible.”

“I mean, you can’t come up with a better storyline than the two of them playing their last game against each other for a championship,” she said. “It’s pretty incredible. And obviously what those two have done for not only this league. but the U.S. team and just soccer in general in this country, around the world, has been incredible.

“It is really crazy that it’s actually happening, and I’m so happy that it is.”

Krieger and Rapinoe will both be looking to win the first NWSL Championship of their careers, as will OL Reign and Gotham FC in the history of their organizations.

Preview the 2023 NWSL Championship by tuning into the Just Women’s Sports Super Show Presented by State Farm, featuring surprise guest appearances by NWSL stars. Watch here.

The NWSL Championship will bring plenty of buzz. But “the most exciting NWSL players aren’t going to be in the final,” Christen Press said on a recent episode of “The RE-CAP Show.”

No. 4 OL Reign will meet No. 6 Gotham FC in the NWSL Championship at 8 p.m. ET Saturday — a game that will prominently feature Megan Rapinoe, 38, and Ali Krieger, 39, as they finish their legendary careers.

Press and co-host Tobin Heath are happy for “elder millennials” Rapinoe and Krieger, but they are “done with retirement games,” as Heath stated on the podcast.

“I want to see the best players in their prime, and the best players that are coming up, and right now, I don’t see any of those two things in this final,” she said.

In the same episode, Press and Heath discussed the playoff format and how it may negatively affect players that had a first-round bye or had to leave training to fulfill U.S. women’s national team duties. The two top-seeded teams — the San Diego Wave and Portland Thorns — fell in the semifinals after long periods of not playing together, making room for the lower-seeded Reign and Gotham in the championship match.

Yet while none of the five NWSL MVP nominees will appear in the final, Press and Heath did give the players and teams who did reach this point their due. They pointed to Gotham forward Lynn Williams and Reign midfielder Emily Sonnett as potential game changers.

Heath highlighted Rapinoe and Krieger’s retirements, which give the match a great storyline. And both were excited that this tournament will end with a first-time NWSL champion. Press and Heath missed the 2023 season with injuries, but Heath won two NWSL titles with the Portland Thorns, and both played with Rapinoe and Krieger on the 2019 USWNT World Cup squad.

“Really, really interesting obviously, two teams that have never won a championship that, for the first time ever, they’ll make history and that’s so exciting,” Heath said. “If you look at a player like Pinoe and Krieger, they both have never won an NWSL Championship either. So it’s huge, one of them is going to do something at the end of their career for the first time.”

Preview the 2023 NWSL Championship by tuning into the Just Women’s Sports Super Show Presented by State Farm, featuring surprise guest appearances by NWSL stars. Watch here.

For Ali Krieger, reaching the 2023 NWSL Championship means a lot. So, too, does the support she has received from Megan Rapinoe, who she’ll be going up against Saturday in the final game of their careers.

The Gotham FC captain never imagined this storybook ending, but Krieger feels “grateful and lucky” that she and her friend get to share the field one last time. Krieger, 39, and Rapinoe, 38, played together on the U.S. women’s national team for years, winning the 2015 and 2019 World Cup titles.

And while they’re not wearing the same jersey this time around, the clash between Gotham FC and OL Reign will allow the soccer world to honor the two retiring stars.

“I am so happy that we get to celebrate together,” Krieger said Thursday.

Krieger announced her impending retirement ahead of the NWSL season, and Rapinoe followed, announcing hers ahead of the World Cup. They’re two of the best to play the game at their respective positions, and they’ve been putting off retirement for as long as they can – especially considering that neither has won an NWSL title yet.

“We were joking around because we’re like, are we really dragging out our NWSL experience to the max like the very last moment, very last game over the years?” Krieger said. “Like, so tired and fighting and playing and training, our very last chance, we really dragged it out. So we’re getting the full experience this year.”

Krieger has watched Rapinoe from up close and from afar, and she has plenty of praise for the Reign forward, calling her “magic” on the field.

“She just is so individually, technically good, and no one’s like it,” she said. “When she’s on the field, she just brings this electrifying element to the game and to the team that you give her the ball and you know something good is gonna happen.”

Krieger and Rapinoe are proud of one another. And while each wants to win as bad as the other, they’ll embark on their next chapters with their friendship stronger than ever.

“She has been rock solid for me as a best friend,” Krieger said.

And while Krieger did not want to delve too deeply into her personal life, she acknowledged her tough time of late. Her wife and former USWNT and Gotham FC teammate Ashlyn Harris filed for divorce in September.

“My personal life has been very difficult since about June, and she’s been there supporting me through that,” Krieger said. “And I think that’s what teammates are for. When you not only go through tough times on the field, when you have tough times off the field and you can lean on those friends that you’ve felt lifelong friendships with.

“I think, no matter what happens, we’re always going to be there for each other and it goes far beyond the playing field.”

Preview the 2023 NWSL Championship by tuning into the Just Women’s Sports Super Show Presented by State Farm, featuring surprise guest appearances by NWSL stars. Watch here.

When OL Reign contend for their first-ever NWSL championship on Saturday, they’ll be looking to close out an iconic era of the team’s existence on top.

As one of the NWSL’s founding clubs in 2013, the Reign have always been an outward example of stability. They’ve won three NWSL Shields, reached the championship game three times and made the playoffs six times. They’ve been coached by some of the most well-known names in the women’s game, including former USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski and current coach Laura Harvey. They’ve produced World Cup winners, attracted some of the best European talent available and become a home for a number of women’s soccer legends.

Going into Saturday’s matchup against Gotham FC, the Reign are lucky enough to have their entire ethos personified in one figure: Megan Rapinoe.

Rapinoe has played for the Reign since the team’s founding, first as a U.S. allocated player and then as a fully contracted player. She’s seen the team grow from humble beginnings, face multiple leadership changes, falter at times and win many games.

But she and the Reign have never won the NWSL Championship, and she’ll have one last chance to chase the trophy that has eluded her in her final professional game. She’s joined by fellow original Reign players Jess Fishlock and Lauren Barnes (both of whom are contracted to return in 2024) and Harvey, the team’s original manager. That Rapinoe, Fishlock and Barnes are all likely to start in the game is a testament to their competitive longevity and the team’s unfailing trust in their leaders.

Rapinoe is known worldwide for her international heroics, of which there are almost too many to mention.

There’s the famous cross to Abby Wambach in the semifinals of the 2011 World Cup, her Olimpico in the 2012 Olympic semifinal, her Golden Boot-winning World Cup campaign in 2019 and other small achievements that surround the iconic wins. Rapinoe became a lightning rod of attention, synonymous with the team’s successes, failures and off-field legacy. Her illustrious career with the USWNT ended with a sendoff game in September, following a muted final year for one of the most impactful players to ever grace the four-time World Cup champions’ roster.

But if Megan Rapinoe, international superstar, casts a larger-than-life figure over the game of women’s soccer, Rapinoe, Seattle Reign original, is a player firmly down to Earth.

The early days of the NWSL necessitated humility, as salaries and facilities in 2013 were a far cry from the consistent high-level support seen now. Rapinoe, alongside Harvey, Fishlock and Barnes, was known as a part of a Reign group that turned Memorial Stadium — the old, declining high school football venue — into a fortress, losing very few games at home during the team’s dominant run in 2014 and 2015.

And while the Reign changed over the years, in many ways for the better, Rapinoe remained. When Seattle Reign turned into Reign FC in 2019 and began playing games on a converted baseball field in the city of Tacoma, there was Rapinoe taking corner kicks near the outfield dirt. And when OL Reign made their triumphant return to the city of Seattle proper under the ownership of OL Groupe, playing under the bright lights of Lumen Field, Rapinoe was there. At that point, she could finally begin to collect her flowers from a fanbase that was at times disconnected from the team through their many moves.

“You cannot have this conversation without talking about Lu and Fish and Pinoe, and the players, the Steph Coxs, the Elli Reeds, and Keelin [Winters]. Like the backbone of who these people were that this club was built on, is also what makes it special,” OL Reign general manager Lesle Gallimore told Just Women’s Sports in June.

As the USWNT developed their run of international dominance in the late 2010s, with Rapinoe winning the Ballon d’Or in 2019, fans could make the trek to Reign games to see her up close in person. Her energy as a creative trickster with a rocket for a foot translated beautifully to the club game. She was known for taking quick throw-ins to gain an advantage, using her positioning to win fouls and turning every corner kick into a threat for the opposition. She reveled in the Reign’s fierce rivalry with the Portland Thorns and played every match with an authority and passion that earned the love and ire alike of NWSL fans.

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Rapinoe bid her final farewell to Reign fans this season in front of an NWSL-record crowd. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

The Megan Rapinoe of 2023 isn’t quite the firecracker that could take over a match in her heyday, but that player still comes out in flashes. After the team’s final regular season match against Chicago, she joked with Red Stars interim manager Ella Masar that she was ready to retire at halftime after a slow first half. Then she rattled off two quick goals right after the second-half whistle to seal the win and launch the Reign into fourth place. On one goal, she found an angle from the left wing that Harvey noted many players wouldn’t even try.

“She’s a joke,” Harvey said after that game. “Big players come up big in big moments, and she’s done it all of her career.”

Rapinoe also brought her off-field advocacy to the NWSL with the same authority. She supported good friend Ali Krieger (who will also play her last game Saturday with Gotham) when she and her family left the Washington Spirit after experiencing homophobia from the club, Krieger acknowledged years later. The first time Rapinoe knelt for the national anthem, an act she will likely always be remembered for, she wasn’t wearing a U.S. jersey; instead, she did so in front of a few thousand fans in Chicago before a Reign game.

Rapinoe will also be remembered as one of the players who won equal pay for the USWNT, but her track record of pushing for progress in the NWSL will leave a lasting legacy on the women’s game at home.

“I think I would always say the three amigos have been huge in creating that culture, and living that culture, and holding whoever sits in [leadership] seats accountable for that culture, to make sure that this place continues to be somewhere where people want to play,” Harvey said in June.

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Lauren Barnes, Jess Fishlock and Rapinoe (L-R) have been with the Reign since the NWSL's inception in 2013. (Jane Gershovich/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Harvey’s impression of the “three amigos” — Rapinoe, Fishlock and Barnes — is that they have held onto their roster spots not just for personal reasons, but also to make sure the club is ready for what comes after they leave. As 2023 comes to a close, the Reign are again for sale, moving on from their time under OL Groupe’s stewardship. Harvey is likely staying for the long term, after reportedly missing out on the USWNT head coaching position for the second straight cycle.

Despite some uncertainty around what the future holds, the Reign as they have been known aren’t going anywhere.

For Rapinoe, Saturday’s game serves as the last chapter of a one-of-a-kind career, with a title on the line. The legend didn’t get her perfect ending with the USWNT, but perhaps she was always meant to turn her final shining moment into one last opportunity for eyes to turn to Seattle.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

Sue Bird needs a new jersey.

The 2023 NWSL Championship final features a conflict of interests for the WNBA legend. Her partner Megan Rapinoe plays for OL Reign. But she also is a co-owner of NJ/NY Gotham FC and close friends with team captain Ali Krieger. Both Rapinoe and Krieger will be playing in the final match of their careers.

So naturally, that makes things interesting for Bird. Who does she root for? The team for which her longtime partner plays? Or the team in which she quite literally has a vested interest?

While the ideal outcome for Bird might be a draw, that isn’t a possibility in the winner-take-all match. But Bird is still looking to play down the middle. She took to Instagram on Monday to ask if anyone has a plug for a dual jersey.

“Anyone got the plug on a Donna Kelce type jersey?” she wrote, tagging both Rapinoe and Krieger – as well as Travis and Jason Kelce.

Donna Kelce, of course, is the now-famous mother of NFL stars Travis and Jason. Travis stars for the Kansas City Chiefs at tight end, while Jason is a center for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The two played against one another in the Super Bowl earlier this year, prompting Donna to wear a jersey that had Travis’ number on the front and Jason’s on the back. She also wore a jacket that was split down the middle with her two sons’ numbers and team logos and their last name written across the back.

Here’s to hoping Bird can get a similar hookup for Saturday’s final, which kicks off at 8 p.m. ET at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. The NWSL appears to be on the case, having written, “LET THE BIRD BOWL BEGIN! We’re already on it, @S10Bird!”

Ali Krieger and Megan Rapinoe are retiring at the end of the 2023 NWSL season. And as Krieger revealed, both predicted their final meeting in the championship match.

Krieger, 39, announced her impending retirement ahead of the league season in March, while Rapinoe, 38, announced hers ahead of the World Cup in July. In her Instagram Stories, Krieger posted a screenshot of a text message exchange with Rapinoe from September in which they discussed their last games.

“When is your last game for the Gothams?” Rapinoe wrote to Krieger, who is the captain for the New Jersey-based club and an NWSL Defender of the Year nominee.

“Nov. 11,” Krieger replied with confidence. That would be the date of the NWSL Championship at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. At the time of the exchange, both Krieger’s Gotham FC and Rapinoe’s OL Reign were very much on the postseason bubble.

Rapinoe laughed in response to Krieger’s answer, but she also shot back: “Well I guess that’s my last game too.”

With Sunday’s wins by Gotham FC and OL Reign in the NWSL semifinals, the former USWNT teammates indeed will face off in the league final to cap off their illustrious careers. And each player will be seeking her first NWSL title.

“The fairytale is Pinoe and Kriegs,” OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey said Sunday. “It’s a great story.”

Megan Rapinoe and Ali Krieger are set to hang up their cleats at the end of the 2023 NWSL season. But both will have to wait just a little bit longer, as their teams combined to script a storybook ending for the retiring stars.

With victories in Sunday’s semifinals, OL Reign and Gotham FC set up an NWSL Championship meeting between Rapinoe and Krieger as a fitting finale to their illustrious careers. One of the U.S. women’s national team legends is guaranteed to take home the title.

Both Rapinoe and Krieger are two-time World Cup champions, having been teammates on the 2015 and 2019 USWNT squads. Rapinoe, 38, made her final appearance for the national team in September, while Krieger, 39, played her last match with the team in 2021, but they have kept their stories going in the NWSL.

Yet in the waning weeks of the season, they seemed destined for quiet ends. OL Reign and Gotham FC were in danger of missing the playoffs entirely. And even after both teams narrowly clinched postseason berths, history stood against them: The Reign had not won a playoff game since 2015, and Gotham had never won a playoff game in franchise history.

Rapinoe’s and Krieger’s teammates, though, rallied around them. And with the Reign’s 1-0 win over the No. 1 seed San Diego Wave and Gotham’s 1-0 win over the No. 2 seed Portland Thorns, the dueling Cinderella stories reached the league final.

“The fairytale is Pinoe and Kriegs,” OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey said. “It’s a great story.”

USWNT and OL Reign midfielder Rose Lavelle concurred, noting: “It seems a bit poetic that the championship game is ending with Krieger and Pinoe’s last game.”

For the Reign, to cap Rapinoe’s career with her first NWSL title is the goal. For Gotham, to win a first title for Krieger has become a literal rallying cry.

“We all just feel this need to keep Ali Krieger in the game and to keep playing,” Gotham goalkeeper Mandy Haught said. “And it’s just the amazing camaraderie in this group that just like, we’re going to do this for us and we’re gonna do this for Kriegs. We’re not done yet. We’re going to go all the way.”