The Seattle Reign announced Thursday that Megan Rapinoe will be the second player to have a jersey number retired by an NWSL club.
The Reign and USWNT legend retired from her playing career last fall. The club will honor Rapinoe and her No. 15 shirt on Aug. 25 with a celebration at Lumen Field during the Reign’s match against the North Carolina Courage.
The only other NWSL player whose number is retired is Lauren Holiday, whose No. 12 was retired by FC Kansas City on Aug. 27, 2015. As that club dissolved in 2017, Rapinoe’s will be the only retired number among the league’s 14 active teams.
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In general, retiring players’ jersey numbers are a rarity in soccer compared to American sports’ standards. For example, only three players have retired numbers across all of MLS’s 29 clubs: Pablo Mastroeni (No. 25, Colorado Rapids), Bradley Wright-Phillips (No. 99, New York Red Bulls) and Clive Charles (No. 3, Portland Timbers). To that end, the fact that Rapinoe’s iconic moments came in the No. 15 shirt may have made it easier to set that aside for the rest of the club’s future than if she had worn one of the sport’s more iconic digits like No. 9, 10 or 11.
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