All-time leading scorer Christine Sinclair announces retirement, ends season at Thorns

Christine Sinclair, the all-time leading international goalscorer, will retire from professional football at the end of the NWSL season, the Canadian international announced on Friday. Her final game for the Portland Thorns will be on November 1 against Angel City FC in their season finale at Providence Park.

Sinclair, 41, retired from international football before the 2024 NWSL season. The 2023 World Cup was her last major tournament. She played her last game for Canada in December 2023 in her hometown of Vancouver at a sold-out BC Place and left the international stage as the all-time leading 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 season of club football without any international commitments. The Thorns re-signed Sinclair in January to a one-year contract through 2024.

In her final season with the Thorns, Sinclair played 854 minutes in 19 games with two goals and one assist. She helped the Thorns to three national championships in 2013, 2017 and 2022; she also won championships with her clubs in the previous American 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. She joined the Thorns in 2013 and has scored 79 goals in 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 throughout the regular season, playoffs, Challenge Cup, 2020 Fall Series and Summer Cup.

Sinclair received her first full call-up to the senior national team at age 16 and has won Olympic bronze twice, in 2012 and 2016, and gold in 2021. She received the Northern Star award as Canada’s Athlete of the Year in 2012 and is two awarded the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award for Canadian Female Athlete of the Year, in 2012 and 2020.

At a news conference before the Sinclair national team’s final match, she said she would remain 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)