Megan Rapinoe says she’s considering retirement as Hope Solo accuses her of ‘bullying’ teammates to knee

Carli Lloyd announced on 16 August she was retiring from the US national soccer team

Megan Rapinoe has opened up about her future playing professional soccer after her long-serving teammate Carli Lloyd announced she was retiring from the US Women’s National Team.

Ms Rapinoe appeared on the ESPN podcast Spain and Fitz and spoke to stand-in host Courtney Cronin about the team’s bronze medal-winning performance at the Tokyo Olympics. After praising the career and legacy of Ms Lloyd, their conversation turned to when Ms Rapinoe might put her professional soccer days behind her.

“I don’t really know,” she said on the podcast. “I need to take a little time away to think about it.”

Ms Rapinoe assured listeners that she didn’t plan on stepping away immediately. The 36-year-old is the captain of the OL Reign team in the National Women’s Soccer League, which is based on Tacoma, Washington.

“You know they always say like, ‘Oh, you’ll know when you know’,” she said. But Ms Rapinoe doesn’t buy that thinking.

“You can kind of keep going,” Ms Rapinoe told the podcast, describing the conversation in one’s mind about retirement as a form of “anguish”. But she’s open to weigh both sides as she works towards a decision.

During President Donald Trump’s time in office, Ms Rapinoe was an outspoken critic of the president. Most notably, she refused to visit the White House when the US women’s team won the World Cup in 2019, telling reporters, “I’m not going to the f****** White House” and urged her teammates to do the same.

Her activism continued during the recent Tokyo Olympics. She has also recently come under criticism from one of her teammates. Hope Solo, a fellow Team USA player, alleged that Ms Rapinoe’s attitude around taking a knee to protest racial injustice was “almost bullying” toward the team.

“It’s tough,” Ms Solo told All of Us, a podcast by Goal. “I’ve seen Megan Rapinoe almost bully players into kneeling because she really wants to stand up for something in her particular way. But it’s our right as Americans to do it whatever way we’re comfortable with and I think that’s really hard being on the main stage right now with so many political issues for athletes. There’s a lot of pressure and ultimately at the end of the day our number one focus should and has always been to win first.”