← BFFR with Sydney Leroux & Ali Riley
BFFR with Sydney Leroux & Ali Riley
Ali Riley Announces Her Retirement from Soccer | Bonus Episode
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Hello? What? Okay, I can do this. Welcome to a very special bonus episode of the BFFR show. As always, follow BFFR show on all the socials and follow, listen, follow, subscribe, review, comment, wherever you get your podcasts. I am retiring at the end of the 2025 NWSL season. So four games from now. Yes, I'm gonna get emotional. I am emotional. I've known for a while. I have processed for a while, because as you have heard in many episodes, I didn't know if I would ever be able to play soccer again. So I've had quite a bit of time to accept that this was coming. But to finally make the decision and to announce it definitely feels monumental. It feels a bit strange. And in order to share some of my thoughts and feelings with you, because this is the BFFR show and I'm going to BFFR with you about my retirement. I did ask some people close to me to give me some questions to answer things that they have been thinking about or wondering in order to kind of guide this episode. So I have some very good questions here also. I would love to know if you have any questions. And so I'm happy to follow up with another episode or another segment. So DM us comment below. Send a voicemail, send me a message. And I am happy to let you into my deepest, intimate thoughts about all of this. I think it is helpful for me to share it and maybe other athletes or just anyone going through a big change in their life. Before I start, I do want to thank everyone who is listening, everyone who has sent messages and just for being on this journey with me. I feel like I have really lived it through bffr. It's special to go back to the episodes and see when I first ran and when I first trained and got off season, ending injury, the dreaded list. And yeah, it puts all of this into perspective for me, which is really, really helpful. Even though, yes, I'm tearing up here. The first question is, how do you feel? And are you sad? And it's not that easy to answer that because I have been sad, truly grieving and in despair and confused. And I have felt helpless and hopeless for probably the last 14 months, ever since being withdrawn from the Olympics and then not seeing any progress with my injury for seven months following that, losing the house. I have. I've never been so sad in my whole life. But now we're rebuilding. I have had just the most beautiful outpouring of support. I have this amazing podcast, friends that feel like family. I get to finish my career at Angel City, this club that has my whole heart. And I can play soccer again. I get to do this on my own terms. I. I mean, forget playing soccer. I can sleep through the night. I can walk, I can run. I can do these things that I never thought I would be able to do again. And that made me so scared and so sad. And now these are tears of joy. I'm so happy. I am so happy. And I feel weird saying it because it's a. It's a sad thing. It's a. It's a big moment. It is a loss. It is a change. It's a huge transition. I will not be the same person I was, I guess, when I. When I play my last game. And. And maybe I already have. You know, I. I don't know if I will get into an Angel City game. I'm hoping, of course, I'm working my butt off in. But for me, I have achieved my goals to be able to play soccer again and be available, and the rest is out of my hands. So my job right now is to stay healthy, to perform in training and be available for selection. But, yeah, it is going back to kind of being sad or happy. I. I am sad that I. That I got this injury. I'm sad that I was not available to play more games for my national team and for my club team, because those two teams have meant so much to me, and I've dedicated a lot of my life and my energy and my time to those teams, and it's. It's completely worth it. It is, you know, the greatest honor to have captained these teams and to have been part of the growth of this game through the lens of the New Zealand national team hosting a World cup. And this club, this club that is the most important team in the world, in my humble opinion, for many reasons. So I am sad, of course, that I couldn't do more of what I loved with these teams that I love. But when I look back at why I have this injury, because I played so much damn soccer and I ran so much, and I trained and trained and trained to reach the highest level that I could, and I am almost 38 years old, I think I have done everything that I wanted, not in terms of accomplishments. I didn't win a World Cup, I didn't win Olympic gold. I never won Champions League. Of course, those are all things I wanted to do, but the goals I had to treat every day, I got to play this game like it would be my last, to give everything to my teammates, to be the best teammate and leader that I could be to grow as a person through these opportunities I have been given through the sport, to spread joy and to open up my life to everybody through social media and connect with so many amazing people. I am so lucky and I am so proud and I'm, I'm so happy that I had the privilege of doing all of these things and that now I am in this position where I sit here healthy and get to not walk away, because I'm gonna be here. I am going to hopefully be on your television sets and in your ears and in your car, storytelling and doing what I love. Witches. Making people happy and growing the game to heights that I can't even imagine right now. So with all of that said, it is going to be strange to not be in a locker room and see my friends every day and kick a soccer ball every day. But I am ready. And again, that makes me really, really lucky. My mom asked why now? And I know people will wonder, you know, if you, you were able to come back then why would you stop? And the honest answer is, while I can physically come to training every day and train for those two hours, pretty pain free and my body can do what I want it to do for that time and I can compete and I can be a part of the. Everything that goes on on a field, the laughs and the jokes and the determination and the frustration, all of that that I missed so much when I was just alone in the gym. Then I was just frustrated at myself and laughing at myself and, you know, in a really dark place. So I get to be a part of that and I can be a part of that. But what it takes to get me out there feeling good is more than I can continue to do for a longer period of time. I have so much support. Our medical team, oh, my gosh. Sarah Ashling, other Sarah, Holly, Jake Bailey, the New Zealand medical team as well, Colleen and Sam, the performance people that have helped me get fit, try to stay fit. Jill, my Jillian, D.J. michael, Roman, Riley. I have had so much support and so many minds, people that have gone to the end of the earth to find a solution to this injury, to ease my pain, to get me back out there. I need them and I'm so thankful. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But it takes a lot and it takes a village. And after training, how I feel, the things I have to do in order to then train the next day, it is all worth it. It is all worth it for now, but it's not the life that I want to Live and I am not able to be my full self. And that's something that I talk about a lot. In any space you're in, you deserve to be your authentic self and your whole self and their environments. Maybe where you need to leave because someone is not letting you be that or yeah, there are obstacles in your way. I'm lucky that that that is not what I'm going through. It is that I feel physically I can't be myself all day because I come home and, yeah, I just have to spend the rest of my day preparing for the field the next day. And I love being active. I love spending time with Lucas and my family. And I miss my friends that I don't want to get in a car and drive to sea. I miss sitting down for long dinners and not being worried about getting stiff or sore for training or a game, long drives, traveling. I miss those things and I want to do those things again. And so these next few months had to be my last. And I think it is hard mentally and emotionally coming back and learning how to run, learning how to play soccer again. And it's taken its toll on me. And so now I think it is the perfect time when I feel nothing but joy and gratitude for my body, for everyone around me, for this game. It is the most amazing thing to feel. And that is how I want to look back. So that is why I'm retiring now. And when I say now, I mean at the end of the season, not yet. We have three Angel City home games coming up, and those will be very, very special games. There is a small chance we can still make the playoffs. You know, I want this season to be as long as possible, but you know, those home games. I look forward to saying goodbye as Ali Riley, the soccer player. But of course, it will not be goodbye.
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Boring since since 1865 is a service mark of the PNC Financial Services Group incorporated PNC Bank National association member FDIC okay, to some of the questions. That was a very long intro to the questions. I'm really good at just talking. I guess we all knew that. Oh, excuse me. Who has had the biggest influence on my career? That is an easy one. That is my dad, Junior Big John John Riley. My first coach. The first person who believed in me, who spent hours with me when I just picked weeds in the grass and scheduled playdates at soccer practice when I was 4, 4 or 5. He made soccer fun. And I think that's why I played longer than a lot of my teammates who were a lot better than me, because I just loved it. And my dad provided that environment for me. He made me feel so strong and capable, and he made me laugh. The. The exercises that we would do in my trainings, and he would erase us, and he'd come up with these games. And yeah, he would always do this thing at the end of the season when he'd hand out the trophies. This is with ayso. And he would hand out the trophies to every single player. And then he would say, oh, okay, that's it. And he would, of course, have missed me, his daughter. And then everyone would say, no, wait a. And then he'd say, oh, there's one more player. And then he'd call me up and I'd get my trophy. And I swear, he did this. And eight years in a row, and we went through some hard times. My dad struggled with his mental health and missed the 2019 World Cup. He had never missed a game at that level at a major tournament, and that was really hard. So coming back to Angel City and seeing him get better, and I think the Angel City community And us being together as a family really helped him find his way again. And if you. If you know him now, he is. He is thriving. Those days are long gone. But I really missed him because he was always my biggest supporter. And he thinks I'm the best player in the world, which makes him delusional. Maybe he's not. Well, but you need someone like that in your life, you know, until you marry someone who also thinks that but is a little bit more, you know. Lucas is able to tell me we. We can talk about when I make mistakes in games. My dad somehow. He somehow blinks, I guess, whenever I make a mistake. But again, that makes me really lucky. And yeah, he supported me so much. I feel like the only shirts he saved in the fire were Ali Riley shirts. He has some weird shirt. It's a T shirt. Honestly, I don't think they really sold our jerseys back then. But it's a T shirt from Western New York Flash from 2011. And you better believe we won the championship. And it is like a jersey, but it's a T shirt. He wears it all the time. He had some. Some Gold Pride T shirt. I actually don't know if he saved that in the fire. And then he has all these shirts that have, like, my face on them and shirts Lucas made and shirts some random person in New Zealand made and some. He. Angel City replaced his jerseys. Thank you, Julie Arman and Carrie. Yeah, he's the best. He's totally, totally loco, but we love him. Let's see. Okay, so my dad was my favorite. He was my most influential coach. I would say he's one of my favorite people. But in terms of favorite coaches who, I guess I have favorite coaches for different reasons. I think David Copeland Smith, Beast mode soccer. I was one of the first players he ever trained, and he changed my life. So thank you to David Copeland Smith. He is like a brother to me and really also supported me in. In so many different ways, very holistically in terms of, yeah, my confidence and nutrition. And the man does it all. Paul Ratcliffe at Stanford. Also, just my game grew so much. I was getting experience with the national team. I played at the Under 20 World cup and going into Stanford my freshman year, and then the 2007 World cup and 2008 Olympics. But Paul was the one who, you know, saw me daily and he pushed me and he really believed that if I worked hard, I may not have had kind of the. Yeah, the. The skill when I arrived, but he knew how hard working I was and that If I practiced my 1v1s attacking, defending. If I worked on my left foot I could be the best left sided player even as a right footed player. And yeah, he inspired me to work so hard and then he would acknowledge it, he would say, you worked so hard this week and look at this clip where you did it in the game. There was so much positive reinforcement and he had high expectations and that those four years definitely had a huge positive impact on my life. Being captain the second my last two years when we went to the final four and just that he supported me not because I was the best player on the team, but he believed that I was a good communicator and I was a really good teammate and that the fact that he valued those things taught me a lot about myself and empowered me for, for the future. I, I have to shout out Tom Cermani. He's one of my favorite people. He was our coach during the time when my dad was struggling and was like a mentor to me and felt like family. And he also had this amazing way of holding me and my teammates accountable in a way that you just, yeah, like was in such a good way with his communication and just he's so nice. But again, had high expectations and I think he gave New Zealand. He told us what we would need to do to beat any team on any given day. I'm not saying we were able to do it, but I felt that he prepared us so well in major tournaments in 2019 and Tokyo 2020. I wish he had coached us longer and just he's someone that I still have a lot of contact with and just has been a really special part of my career. I've been really lucky. I've had great coaches. Um, Jonas Idaval obviously is, is doing great things in San Diego. Um, Becky really trusted me, so did Freya here in Angel City. Um, yeah. And, and I'm so grateful. I think, yeah, I've, I've played for amazing clubs and really, really been pushed to my limits, but also supported and that's what, what really helped me to continue to grow. I've been lucky. I've had a lot of great coaches and even the coaches who didn't make my kind of top three list pushed me and helped me grow to be the person I am to end up at Angel City to captain the national team. So yeah, even if I didn't have the best experience at a club or with a coach, I think all of my clubs helped me grow a lot. The pinnacle of my playing career. Oh my gosh. So I Was thinking about this in two ways, like, when was I at my prime? But I don't think that answers this question. And I think that also shows kind of how your goals and your mindset changes over a course of a career. And I played for a really long time. The pinnacle of my playing career. My pinch me moment. The favorite game I've ever played in the best night of my life. The answer to all of those questions will always be the opening game of the 2023 Women's World cup in New Zealand at Eden park with when we beat Norway for our first ever World cup win. That was four World Cups in the making. We played for each other. We played for our country, we played for our families. We played for all of the players that came before us who didn't get to go to a World cup, who never got to play professionally, who weren't invested in. And I don't think anything will ever top that. Obviously, I'm not going to be playing much longer, but in life, not even the wedding. Sorry, Lucas. Although I think he would agree and okay, maybe if we have a baby. I've heard that's pretty special. Spoken as a true childless person. So that is definitely my answer. And I will say, besides the wedding, my second most favorite night is Angel City's inaugural game. That was. Both of those moments were full, Were full circle moments for me. And how lucky am I to have two of these moments where I watched the 99 World cup final. I get to play in this game, win the game in LA with this diverse, loud, intense, wide welcoming. Just the best crowd ever. And in my hometown. I just. Yeah, I think. I still don't believe that it actually happened. It is. It will never be normalized for me. People wearing my jersey will never be normalized for me. And that is sad for me. But also it makes me so happy that my teammates probably don't feel that way. Because of course you can buy our jerseys and of course we get paid to play and someone does our laundry and we have this performance facility. Like, things have changed so much. I'm getting really, like, riled up here now. Yeah. So to have that professionally and then with New Zealand, internationally, I think of these things and I, I just. If I. Whenever I think about my career before my injury, I. I just feel so at peace. And again, that makes me really lucky. The most memorable place I have played. That's a really good one. Um, I still. I still can't believe we had the Under 20 World cup in Russia and we're just Traveling around Russia and our families where my parents got lost or got in a car accident. Like some crazy happened in Russia. And I don't think I'll be going back to Russia. We played in Samoa. We played in, oh my gosh, so many places. I think New Caledonia has to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We flew to this tiny island for the semifinal of our Olympic qualifiers. And it was this tiny island. There was an airport, there was obviously some residences and a field. How perfect is that? And so we played the game and then we got back on plane and it was just. I saw the prettiest beach. We went to this hotel resort before the game to have our pre game meal. And I have never seen a beach like that. I'll. I'm gonna send some photos here to our producer. Never ever in my life. I need to go back. So that is again, how, how lucky am I? I've had these wild experiences that I would never ever have if I hadn't played soccer and hadn't played for New Zealand. What's something that I'm happy, relieved that the next generation will never have to experience that I did. I hope and pray and believe that these players will never experience a league folding. That is one of the lowest points of my career. Getting that email that the WPS had ceased operations. I don't think that's going to happen here and I really hope it doesn't happen anywhere else. I think we're past that now. But that was. Yeah, that I. A lot of us were triggered when we came together in 2021 after the scandals and allegations and so many of these horrible abuse stories came to light in the nwsl and we knew there was a risk that the league, it might end in. It might end in disaster again. And so to see where the league has progressed since then and that it did not fold after, after we took a stand as players was really powerful and it, it did make me believe, more confident that, that this league isn't going anywhere and these professional leagues aren't going anywhere. So last question here is. This is. This is horrible. This is impossible. This is from misha. Who are 5 players/coaches that you would invite to a dinner to celebrate your career? Okay. I'm taking Angel City teammates out of this. I will get to celebrate with them separately. Obviously my family like, okay, so I always make up special little like, caveats. I had like eight people on my Mount Rushmore. This dinner, this dinner is going to be rowdy. This dinner is going to Be wild. This is going to be filled with reminiscing, probably a slideshow presentation because I have so many videos and photos of these special people. Okay, starting off with Marta, obvious choice. Not only the best player in the world, but a dear friend and hilarious singer, dancer, plays the guitar, plays the piano and I mean we played on FC Gold Pride, Western New York Flash, FC Rosengord and Orlando Pride together. So you better believe we got a lot of memories. Closely followed by Christine Sinclair. Also a lot of memories. I owe her for a few tequila filled nights we had back in the day. That's all I can say about that. Um, Kelly o'. Hara. So this is basically FC Gold Pride reunion. I'm not mad about it. Caroline Sager just teleport her here from. From Sweden. One of the funniest people I know. And Western New York flash that year 2011 was just one of the best years of my life, hands down. Also a lot to reminisce about. And we played together in Sweden as well. And you know I'm gonna throw a little spin are in the works here. I am going to add for my final guest, Aaron Cuthbert. A couple years ago, Aaron was on vacation and came to my mom's birthday party at the house. And that was one of my favorite nights. We had so many good times in Chelsea. I had a hard time at Chelsea. I was injured, I didn't get to play a lot. And Aaron made my time there really, really special and she always made me laugh. So I think that will be fun to add a little bit of a. A little Scottish vibe to the otherwise kind of Western New York Flash WPS evening. So I hated that question. Nobody get mad. Everyone else who wasn't on that list, I'm inviting you to my retirement party. Okay. My mother had one question, one burning question for me and that was, when will I be a grandmother? Well, Bev, hopefully soon. I don't know. But we have talked with our fertility doctor and that IVF journey and freezing those embryos was not for nothing. So we will look to transfer one embryo at a time in maybe the spring. So you heard it here first. We're getting real personal here. So we are going to try. And I also do want to give a shout out to Bev. I know I talked a lot about my dad, but my mom was hard on me. I have talked about that. And she wasn't sure about this as a career in the beginning. But she's been there. She's been there for everything except those early games when I was Shit. She didn't come to those. My mom is the most strong and determined woman I know. And she. Especially when my dad wasn't doing so well, she became my best friend, the person I talk to every day. And she's the most amazing person I know, truly. And hugging her after that World cup game, I have the photo on the wall over there. She feels everything I feel. I know that is probably common with moms. I know when I was hurting that she felt it. I know going through this acceptance and processing what was happening with my body. She was so worried about me. And I know now I think it's gonna be a hard transition for all of us, but she's happy and relieved for me. It feels like we go through everything together and we've been figuring out details about this house and rebuilding together and. And she's just. Yeah, I don't know what I would do without her. So, yes, my. My parents and obviously Lucas, I know that they wish they could have seen me play more. I know they want to see me play now, but it's just because they support me so much and they know how happy it makes me to play. And I'm also really excited to be able to spend more time with all of them. Now. That's something I. I look forward to the most. Thank you for listening. Thank you to all of you out there who supported me during my career, who bought my jersey, who bought tickets to watch me play, who listened to this podcast. I feel so much love in this moment. I have felt so much love through my entire career. I played for all of you. I played for you. I played for my family and I played for me. And it's really special to be able to share this moment with you and talk through it with you. I've never done anything like this. I know you wouldn't know it by the fact I could just ramble on for this entire time, but these milestones only come once, and I just want to say thank you. I think out of all of this, the most overwhelming feeling I feel as I am four games away from retirement, is gratitude. So thank you for listening again. I'm not going anywhere. There are really exciting announcements to come, and I'm excited to talk through those with you as well. I have a really exciting guest on Monday. Don't worry, it won't just be me and me. You're not going to want to miss that one. And if you have questions, DM us, call the hotline comment. Follow us FFR show on socials and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. It is really an honor to end my career like this and a privilege. And I just. I know I keep saying thank you, but thank you. So I will see you on Monday.