Sinclair to retire at season's end
Published
Canada’s greatest ever footballer is hanging up her cleats.
Christine Sinclair, international football’s all-time record goal scorer, announced Friday that she is retiring from the sport at the end of the National Women’s Soccer League season.
The 41-year-old native of Burnaby, B.C. is in her 12th season with the Portland Thorns, who wrap up their regular season on Nov. 1. With five matches to go in the season, the Thorns currently sit in a playoff spot in seventh in the table on 28 points, three clear of Bay FC in ninth.
Sinclair, who retired from international football after a 24-year senior career last December, has appeared in 17 games this season, scoring twice. Her 76 goals are third-most in NWSL history and Sinclair will finish her career in the top-10 all-time in appearances and minutes played.
Sinclair has won three NWSL Championships during her time with the Thorns, in 2013, 2017 and 2022, and two NWSL Shields, in 2016 and 2021, awarded to the club that finishes the regular season atop the table. Sinclair also won a pair of championships in the NWSL’s forerunner league, Women’s Professional Soccer (the WPS), in 2010 with FC Gold Pride and with the Western New York Flash in 2011.
With Canada, Sinclair won a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as well as a pair of bronze medals at London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016, and a gold medal at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara.
In 331 appearances for the CanWNT, Sinclair scored 190 times.
The Thorns next see action on Saturday night when they visit the 12th-place San Diego Wave.