‘The best ever’: Burnaby’s Christine Sinclair celebrated after soccer retirement
Posted October 20, 2023 10:24 am.
Last Updated October 20, 2023 12:56 pm.
Compliments of the highest accord are flowing in as the captain of Canada’s women’s soccer team is calling time on her career.
Burnaby’s own Christine Sinclair, 40, hinted at the news on Thursday night with a cryptic post on Instagram, and on Friday morning, reports were confirmed.
Sinclair will only play a handful of games on the international stage. She plans to play one more season for the NWSL Portland Thorns next year before hanging up her cleats.
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According to Sportsnet’s Arash Madani, she won’t suit up for Canada at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, however, Sinclair will play two final send-off matches in Vancouver and Victoria before the end of the year.
Sinclair has a long, distinctive list of accomplishments, including being the world’s all-time leading international goal-scorer — for both men and women — with 190 goals in 327 appearances. She also led the way when Team Canada’s women’s soccer team won gold at the 2020 Olympics.
Sportsnet 650 Host Dan Riccio points out there’s only one way to sum up Sinclair.
“The best ever,” he says. “[It’s been] an incredible career. One of the greatest athletes Canada has ever produced.”
Sinclair has been a leader on and off the pitch.
“It’s everything she’s done. She’s even recently called the most recent bout with Canada Soccer the biggest fight of her career, so yes, of course, she’s doing things on the women’s side to increase and get closer to equal pay, which they deserve.
“With Christine Sinclair, especially, in the Canadian soccer program, the women have led the way for pretty much forever, until recently the men’s program didn’t have any success outside of a 2000 Gold Cup win.”
Riccio says soon after Sinclair burst onto the soccer scene, the game in this country and women’s sports started getting more attention.
“People started paying attention to soccer in Canada and without that, I’m not sure we see the gains the game has had over the last decade-plus. None of this happens without Christine Sinclair, on or off the pitch, across the country, she has meant everything to soccer in Canada.”
To call her athleticism magical is also an understatement.
“Her ability was to always find the open space on the pitch, to always pop into that right space at the right time to score the big goal and she had physical gifts that other players just didn’t have.
“She was just incredible in the way she went about understanding the game, understanding where the opportunities were going to open up and she made her career based on that.”
Sinclair has always been a natural leader.
“You don’t have to look too much further than the 2020 Olympics to see how Christine took a little bit more of a backseat, a leadership role. Christine understood that she didn’t have to be that player for Canada any longer and that takes a real leader to do those things.”
Her leaving the game is happening at a time when there isn’t an obvious line of succession as to who may fill her shoes.
“There is always going to be a worry. For people who have followed Canada Soccer closely … without a Christine Sinclair, where does this program go?
“Without a leader, without somebody who’s going to take the bull by the horns, that’s an open void right now for Canada Soccer.”
Sinclair, who has played less than two dozen games for the National Women’s Soccer League’s Portland Thorns this season, is one of 26 players called up for games against Brazil on Oct. 28 in Montreal and Oct. 31 in Halifax.
–With files from Sportsnet and The Canadian Press
