Reporting from Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, California.
We are told we cannot believe in fairytales. There is just too much of the real world that confronts us day in, day out, for so simple a story to ever come true.
But this is sports, and sports have a way of making you feel as if maybe, this time, the fairytale will have a happy ending. It’s happened before, after all; it could obviously happen again.
And then Megan Rapinoe crumples to the pitch in the third minute of the NWSL Championship game, the final moment of one of the most extraordinary careers in sports history. The fairytale once again fades out of view, the messy reality of life taking its cold, unblinking place. Backup keeper Laurel Ivory takes the burden of Rapinoe’s weight against her shoulder. Gotham FC head coach Juan Carlos Amorós offers his hand in respect as she passes. This really is it.
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