Five months after her final NWSL game — a send-off no one could have anticipated, with an Achilles’ tendon tear that robbed her of a “perfect ending” with the Seattle Reign — Megan Rapinoe is finally starting to stretch her legs again in the world of women’s sports.

“I was really intentional about having a little more space going into retirement, and then tearing my Achilles kind of blew that even more open. It was really easy to say no for a while, so I took advantage of that and had a pretty easy end of the year,” Rapinoe said earlier this week in New York.

On Tuesday, I moderated a fireside chat with Megan Rapinoe at TN50, a summit on the business of women’s sports hosted by Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment and Axios in New York City. We talked a bit about her recovery – she stopped needing a walking boot a few months ago, but she’s still in the rehab process and going to physical therapy – but also about her future plans. Rapinoe joked that the stakes are not quite the same as when she was still a pro.

“Now I’m just a real fan girl. I love women’s sports so much,” she continued. She’s traveled to the Final Four — making another guest appearance on fiance Sue Bird’s telecast with Diana Taurasi — and the Reign’s home opener.

“Shed a…

It has been a busy week for Spanish football.

Sunday’s Clasico saw Real Madrid set one hand on the La Liga trophy after a thrilling 3-2 win over Barcelona, with Carlo Ancelotti’s side now preparing for a Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich.

La Liga president Javier Tebas has been talking about staging games in the United States, while a noisy debate continues about introducing goal line technology after the ‘phantom goal’ by Lamine Yamal at the Bernabeu. Barca coach Xavi has changed his mind and after being set to leave at the end of the season, will now stay on at the club next campaign.

But by the end of the week, many headlines were about the government intervening in the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to try and clean up the mess still flowing from the exit of former president Luis Rubiales, after his behaviour at last summer’s Women’s World Cup.

Thursday saw the Spanish government’s Superior Sports Council (CSD) announce a new ‘commission of supervision, normalisation and representation’ to work with the RFEF to “initiate a stage of regeneration under a climate of institutional stability”.

But less than 24 hours later Pedro Rocha — handpicked by Rubiales as his successor — was formally named the new president, despite being one of…

San Diego Wave forward and U.S. women’s national team star Alex Morgan suffered a left ankle injury during an NWSL matchup against the Orlando Pride on Friday, causing her to exit the game.

The incident occurred in a goal-line scramble, during which Morgan took a hard tackle. She then limped off the field.

The 34-year-old has appeared in four NWSL games this season but has yet to score a goal.

Any serious injury to Morgan’s ankle would put her involvement in the USWNT’s 2024 Olympic campaign in doubt. That tournament kicks off in France in just under 100 days, and any structural damage or even a severe sprain could mean Morgan will either miss the tournament outright, or at least face a race against time to get match fit before the tournament.

GO DEEPER

USWNT Olympic roster prediction after the SheBelieves Cup

At the very least, it will make Morgan a potential doubt for the next USWNT international window, which will be the first under new manager Emma Hayes. That window begins in just over a month on May 28, and will see the U.S. play two games against South Korea in their final tune-ups ahead of the Olympics.

Morgan has continued to be an influential figure for the U.S. as it transitions to a new era featuring a number of younger players ahead of Hayes’ arrival. The…

The Houston Dash have traded María Sánchez to the San Diego Wave for an undisclosed return.

Earlier this week, Sánchez publicly stated on her social media that she had requested a trade in late March. The NWSL trade window closes on April 19 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

A source briefed on the transaction said that there was more than one offer for Sánchez’s rights. According to a report by Theo Lloyd-Hughes at Pro Soccer Wire, Houston will receive a transfer fee but no players from the Wave.

Thank you, everyone, for the outpouring of kindness and support. pic.twitter.com/gcnN7dhCJU

— Maria Sanchez (@Maria17_7) April 19, 2024

Sánchez signed a blockbuster $1.5 million contract with the Dash in December 2023 that was supposed to keep her in Houston through 2026, with an option to extend through 2027. But after four games with the Dash in which Sánchez played 348 minutes, generating one assist and two shots, she will leave for the Wave, who are currently in seventh place and were last year’s NWSL Shield winners.

Sánchez’s contract is technically with the league, so the Wave must take on the remainder of that $1.5M contract, which counts total compensation including bonuses and an exercised fourth-year option.

Sánchez has played as a left winger for the Dash with varying degrees…

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The Portland Thorns are restructuring their technical department, making head coach Mike Norris their new technical director, following the club’s worst start to an NWSL season. Portland is currently in last place, having only managed a single point through the first four weeks of the 2024 season with a 0-1-3 record.

Rob Gale has been named interim head coach. Thorns general manager Karina LeBlanc told The Athletic the team will conduct a global search for Norris’ full-time replacement. There is no timeline for that hire yet, as LeBlanc expressed the need for the team to get it done correctly, not quickly.

LeBlanc said multiple times the club feels the technical director role is one that Norris will succeed in, and that he has the club’s full support as they restructure. While Norris has had less success this season, last year after he took over from Rhian Wilkinson following her resignation, the Thorns were one win away from the NWSL Shield and made the playoffs (defeated in extra time by eventual championship winners Gotham FC).

“The results have not gone our way, and in a head coach position, the results do matter,” LeBlanc said on Tuesday afternoon….

The Athletic has decided on the 35th anniversary of Hillsborough to re-publish an article that was originally released two years ago, which details the horror of the day, as well as the impact on some of the survivors.

When Martin Roberts returned to Halifax on the night of April 15, 1989, he wet the bed as he tried to sleep. The next morning, he did not say a word to either of his parents, his sister or his brother about what he had witnessed the day before in Sheffield, where 97 Liverpool supporters lost their lives in a steel pen he somehow escaped from.

Martin spent Sunday walking around the garden for hours, hopelessly trying to make sense of it all. By Tuesday morning, he was working again, at Barclays bank. His boss called him into a side room and asked how he was feeling. A stupid question. Martin wondered what his colleagues were thinking, fearing they believed what had been written in the papers about fans like him.

Martin’s deepest scars from Hillsborough were not physical but mental. His father, Liverpool-born, possessed old-school values. His generation understood broken arms and broken legs, but Martin’s pain was not visible. This contributed to him throwing himself into his career and back into what seemed like a normal life. He thought he was coping. Martin…

It is that time of year again. Lighter nights, daffodils and the sobering discovery of just how much your football team has handed over to agents.

The Football Association (FA) published its annual figures yesterday and, as is the norm, they were bigger, more gasp-inducing than ever before.

The Premier League’s 20 clubs combined to pay £409million ($509m) in agents’ fees in a 12-month monitoring period that began on February 1, 2023. Include the EFL’s outlays and English clubs handed over close to half a billion to that select group of men and women representing a footballer’s interests.

It was the usual suspects leading the way but the Premier League’s spend continues to rise. This year’s total is markedly up on the £318million of last season and almost twice the amount paid in 2017-18.

The Athletic picks out the key points from the FA’s latest report.

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Chelsea drive spending records… again

An age of excess at Stamford Bridge has seen Chelsea spend like no club has ever spent before. Close to £1billion has funded a lavish overall that is yet to deliver discernible progress under the Todd Boehly-Clearlake-led ownership group and the fees paid out to agents are another marker of their intemperance.

Brace yourself for Chelsea’s full outlay over 12 months:…

McKenna Whitham scored against Deportivo Cali in added time at the Women’s Cup in Colombia in February, finding her footing in a sea of defenders and tucking the ball away to send Gotham FC to the finals of the four-day preseason tournament.

The goal was the 13-year-old’s first in a professional environment, and it came after weeks of preseason training with the NWSL defending champions. Whitham, who goes by Mak, was unfazed.

“It’s just been spectacular,” she told The Athletic following her preseason debut. “I’ve always kind of been playing up at a high level, so I’ve just been motivated to be the best and just give 100% effort, and, I mean, just because they’re older, it doesn’t scare me.”

The teen has made a name for herself already, garnering headlines for being the youngest women’s soccer player to sign an NIL deal with Nike. In doing so, she joined a roster filled with well-established college stars, like Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, and followed the path forged by Angel City’s Alyssa and Gisele Thompson, who in 2022 became the first high schoolers to sign an NIL deal with the sportswear giant.

GO DEEPER

Sixteen-year-old Pfeiffer becomes NWSL’s youngest scorer

Whitham continued training with Gotham as the team prepared for its 2024 season and, on the eve…

Stuart Broad had the right idea.

The legendary England cricketer ended his playing days by hitting a six off his final ball with the bat and taking a wicket from his final delivery with the ball to win a match. Against Australia, his country’s most historic rivals, no less.

But he is the exception, not the rule. Thousands of professional sportsmen and women retire every year in circumstances far less celebrated and completely out of their control. But there are some controllables, right? Like bowing out at the top? Growing old gracefully? Or even just retaining your dignity?

There is another way — let’s call it the Cristiano Ronaldo way.

This way involves moving to a retirement league for a humungous payday and playing with and against vastly inferior opponents in a league where 14 of the 18 clubs have an average attendance of fewer than 9,000.

OK, fine, who is realistically going to turn down a reported £173million-a-year salary and king-like status? But there is still a way of behaving in a sophisticated, cultured manner while pocketing said cash.

All of which begs the question: Cristiano Ronaldo, what are you doing?

During Al Nassr’s Saudi Super Cup semi-final…

What’s the one thing (well, okay, one of the things) that separates James Ward-Prowse and Lionel Messi? Unlike Messi, Ward-Prowse has scored an ‘olimpico’.

An olimpico is a goal scored directly from a corner kick. They are unmistakably memorable and to pull one off involves a combination of skill, opportunism and luck. Arsenal and France legend Thierry Henry scored an olimpico for New York Red Bulls against Columbus Crew in 2012. Ex-Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder David Beckham, now Inter Miami’s co-owner, scored directly from a corner kick twice for LA Galaxy in 2012.

U.S. women’s national team icon Megan Rapinoe is the only player in women’s or men’s soccer to score two olimpicos at the Olympics. Last season, Aston Villa midfielder Douglas Luiz scored directly from a corner in a friendly against Walsall, a Carabao Cup tie Bolton Wanderers and then against Arsenal in the Premier League.

The player who is thought to have scored the first olimpico, Argentinan Cesareo Onzari, did so in a friendly against reigning Olympic champions Uruguay in 1924, hence the name.

A century later and despite racking up over 800 career goals, Messi is yet to score one. There are YouTube compilation videos chronicling the 36-year-old’s many attempts over the years.

GO…