With Retirement, Amy Rodriguez Ends An Era Of Women’s Soccer She Helped Build

The extent to which Amy Rodriguez’s career spans multiple eras in women’s soccer for the United States is clear when viewing the team she played with back in 2005, during her first call up to the senior national team.

Still in high school, Rodriguez suited up alongside Hope Solo, Kate Markgraf, Aly Wagner, Kristine Lilly in the 2005 Algarve Cup. In 2008, she scored her first two goals for USWNT in the same match as Lindsay Tarpley also registered a brace.

Tarpley has been retired for a decade.

So longtime women’s soccer fans can be forgiven for feeling a little bit older after Rodriguez announces she was retiring — though still very much at the top of her game — to become an assistant coach at USC, rejoining the program she led to a national championship.

“I want to thank USC for providing me with the opportunity to come home,” said Rodriguez. “Choosing to retire was an incredibly difficult decision for me. However, continuing to give back to the game was always a priority of mine and there is no better place for me to do that than here at USC. This university has given me so much and now it is my time to give back.”

She’s earned the right. This is a player who was critical for USWNT before the audience for the team had reached its current critical mass. She was the first overall draft pick not of the current women’s professional league (the NWSL) but its predecessor, the now-defunct WPS, in 2009. (Megan Rapinoe was picked second.)

She scored 17 goals in 37 appearances for the Boston Breakers and Philadelphia Independence. She scored everywhere she went. 64 goals in WPS and NWSL play. 30 goals with the senior national team. World Cup champion. Olympic gold medalist.

Ever a threat to the end, Rodriguez scored three goals in 15 matches following her trade to the North Carolina Courage this past summer, leading her team to the playoffs.

“Amy has helped build such a strong foundation for women’s soccer in this country and I couldn’t be more proud of her,” Courage head coach Sean Nahas said. “In the short time she was here, she left a mark on all of us with her truly professional approach, but more importantly, with the person she is. It was an absolute pleasure having the opportunity to coach her and I wish her nothing but the best on her new journey in the coaching world. USC is lucky to have her and we look forward to seeing her growth as a coach and continued involvement in the game.”

Rodriguez helped change the way pregnancy and motherhood fit into the career of the professional women’s soccer player, too, helping lead the way, alongside Jess McDonald, Christie Pearce and Sydney Leroux in showing the world women don’t have to choose between career and family in this profession, either.

Years before it became common knowledge that women’s club soccer in this country is a growth industry, she understood both that growth was an eventuality, and her role in it.

“I am committed to the league through and through,” Rodriguez said back in 2019. “I love playing in this league. I love playing for the fans. I love that my little kids can watch their mom play on the weekends and I just absolutely love my job.”

Now she starts a new one. And women’s soccer is richer for all she’s done.