One last kick. One last pass. One last run into the box.
No more medals to be won. No more late-game heroics. No more celebrations. No more goals.
No more.
It all came to a quiet and dignified end for Christine Sinclair on Sunday evening, a 2-1 road loss by the Portland Thorns to the New York Gotham in the first round of the NWSL playoffs marking the end of her legendary career.
Sinclair, a 41-year-old from Burnaby, B.C., played her final game for the Canadian women’s team last December in an international friendly against Australia before a crowd of 48,112 fans at Vancouver’s BC Place which was officially rechristened Christine Sinclair Place. However, there was still the small matter of playing one final season with her beloved Thorns, the pro club she’s spent the past 12 seasons with and with whom she won three league titles.
Her retirement following Sunday’s playoff loss means we’ll never again have the pleasure of watching her grace the pitch and bewilder us with her magical skills. But while Sinclair’s playing career is now over, we can take great comfort in the fact that she won’t really be gone — that her legacy will continue to live on in so many important ways.
As great as the influence that Sinclair exerted in so many matches during a storied career that saw her score a world record 190 international goals (more than any man or woman in the sport’s history), her most meaningful impact was felt far away from the pitches that she dominated since making her national team debut as a 16-year-old in 2000.
Back then, the Canadian women’s team program was in a much different place than it is today. Funding and resources were limited, as Canada Soccer paid closer attention to the men’s team. In a lot of ways, Sinclair and her teammates were an afterthought by the sport’s national governing body.
Conditions were less than ideal for the women, who were not in a position of strength to fight for equal treatment with the men. Playing for their country meant making sacrifices and having to accept the status quo without making any kind of fuss.
The three Olympic medals (including a gold in Tokyo) that came between 2012 to 2021 were the byproduct of Sinclair’s tireless work both on the pitch and behind the scenes to drive the program forward, pushing for meaningful change in how Canada Soccer dealt with the women in a more fair and equitable manner.
Sinclair didn’t bat an eye as she led player strikes and work actions, and wasn’t shy about publicly calling out Canada Soccer. In March of 2023, members of the Canadian women's team travelled to Ottawa to appear before a heritage committee to discuss how they felt their program was being held back by Canada Soccer.
The women were embroiled in a bitter labour dispute at the time, and Sinclair made the most of the occasion by ruthlessly taking Canada Soccer to task for fostering a "culture of secrecy and obstruction" in its labour negotiations with the women's team over the years.
"As the popularity, interest and growth of the women's game has swept the globe, our most painstaking battle has been with our own federation and trying to obtain fair and equitable treatment in the way we are supported and the way we are paid," Sinclair testified.
Fast forward to the present day where the women’s team is on a clear pathway to achieving equal pay and equal treatment with the men’s side. That’s in no small part due to Sinclair’s efforts.
Many critics and fans point to her memorable hat trick effort against the United States in the 2012 Olympic semifinals as her greatest moment, as it perfectly encapsulated the drive and commitment for which she was famous. But it can be argued that her speaking out in the immediate aftermath of Canada’s gold medal victory in Tokyo was the defining moment of her career.
Since 2013, Sinclair has played professionally for the Portland Thorns of the U.S.-based National Women's Soccer League, which doesn't have any Canadian teams. Nearly half the members of the Olympic squad played for European clubs. None of them earned a living at home. Canada was ranked eighth in the world by FIFA ahead of the Tokyo Olympics and rose to sixth after its gold medal win. But it was the only FIFA top 10-ranked country without a professional women’s league.
Instead of making it about her, Sinclair seized the opportunity after the gold-medal victory over Sweden and used the platform granted to her to talk about the long-term health of Canadian women’s soccer.
"I hope we'll see some investment in the women's game. I think it's time Canada gets a professional league or some professional teams, and if a gold medal doesn't do that, nothing will. It's time for Canada to step up," Sinclair said in the post-match press conference.
Sinclair continued to speak out about the need for a women’s professional league when she returned home from Tokyo.
"We're hoping that this platform will give us the opportunity to start that change and lead to Canadians who have the ability to make the difference to invest in women," Sinclair said.
"The youngsters, the young little kids deserve to be able to go watch their heroes on a week-to-week basis, not just once every four years."
Today, we’re roughly six months away from the launch of the Northern Super League, a new professional outfit that was the brainchild of Diana Matheson, Sinclair’s former teammate on the national team. Sinclair not only consulted with Matheson as she worked to get the NSL off the ground for the past two years, but she also put her money where her mouth is last month by officially joining the ownership group of the Vancouver Rise FC, one of six founding teams in the Canadian league.
The NSL is expected to employ hundreds of Canadians from coast to coast, giving many of them a chance to earn a living on home soil for the first time in their careers. For others, it’ll be their first time playing professional soccer.
Twenty years ago, such a league would’ve been a pipe dream in Canada — we simply didn’t have enough players. But in 2024, filling out the NSL rosters won’t be a problem. There are more women playing soccer than ever before and more girls are turning to the sport because they want to be like Sinclair.
Former Canadian women’s team star Kaylyn Kyle was one of them, despite growing up in Saskatchewan, in the heart of junior hockey country. Kyle’s parents enrolled her in soccer as a six-year-old and her passion for the game was ignited. Her love affair with the game grew, so much so that she convinced her parents to drive her to Edmonton to watch Canada play at the inaugural FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship in 2002.
Kyle watched Sinclair score a tournament-leading 11 goals and win the MVP award as she led Canada to the finals before record crowds at Commonwealth Stadium. Sinclair's exploits in Edmonton inspired Kyle to pursue her dream of playing soccer as a career.
"When I was little, I remember watching Christine and imagining myself playing for my country, and now I'm playing beside her," Kyle said in a 2011 interview with this reporter.
Kyle’s tale is not unique. Ask any young player who has passed through the Canadian women’s team over the past 20 years and they’ll tell you a similar story, as will the thousands of young girls across the country who are playing the sport today and will become the Christine Sinclairs of tomorrow.
Therein lies Sinclair’s greatest legacy, one that will live on for generations to come.
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