Veteran Canadian goalkeeper Erin McLeod announces retirement from international game

Veteran goalkeeper Erin McLeod, who survived a string of accidents to win 119 caps for Canada over a distinguished senior profession that spanned greater than twenty years, has introduced her retirement from worldwide soccer.

McLeod, who turns 40 on Feb. 26, plans to proceed taking part in membership soccer for no less than one season. The Orlando Pride introduced Tuesday that McLeod and her new spouse, midfielder Gunny Jonsdottir, have left the NWSL membership for Jonsdottir’s native Iceland the place each will play.

While nonetheless having fun with her soccer, McLeod says she has discovered a brand new ardour. The native of St. Albert, Alta., is transitioning to creating fairness programming for grassroots soccer applications in Halifax the place her older sister lives.

McLeod has lengthy served as an LGBTQ spokeswoman. In 2014, she mixed with fellow Olympian Adam van Koeverden, now parliamentary secretary to the minister of well being and minister of sport, within the profitable marketing campaign so as to add sexual orientation to the Olympic Charter.

“I think since that moment I felt an immense amount of pride to wear the (Canadian) jersey and understand there’s a bigger purpose out there, to make sure that I’m continually fighting for more people to play the game, more people to have access,” McLeod informed The Canadian Press. “Less discrimination and extra inclusivity and extra variety.

“I think these things are really becoming more and more of what I think is important and what I want to be committed to for the rest of my life.”

She says taking part in in Iceland will place fewer calls for on her time, permitting her to “make a difference at the grassroots level.”

“I have a lot of things ahead of me that I am so excited about,” she stated.

McLeod can be seeking to assist former Canadian teammate Diana Matheson in her bid to ascertain a home ladies’s professional league.

As she leaves the worldwide recreation, McLeod takes pleasure within the Canadian ladies’s group on and off the sphere, citing its welcoming and inclusive tradition.

“As I’m watching the team do unbelievable things on the field, the culture is there — the team is incredible. They stand not just for themselves, but all Canadians. I’ve been so incredibly lucky my whole career. I know I’ve had a lot of ups and downs but just to be surrounded by so many people … I’m grateful to have worked with them for my country so many times.”

She additionally credited her household for its help.

“My family has always been there and my No. 1 supporters..”

McLeod final performed for Canada on Oct. 26, 2021 in a 1-0 pleasant win over New Zealand in Montreal — her forty seventh clear sheet.

She was in aim for the Canadian ladies’s bronze-medal run on the 2012 London Olympics and began all through the 2015 World Cup on residence soil. She was an alternate with the group that gained gold on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 however dressed for the sport in opposition to Chile when Kailen Sheridan stepped in for the injured Stephanie Labbé.

Labbé, who took over from McLeod as Canada’s No. 1, hung up her gloves in April. Labbé is now common supervisor of girls’s soccer for the Vancouver Whitecaps.

McLeod was 19 when she made her Canada senior debut in a 4-0 victory over Wales in March 2002 on the Algarve Cup. An 18-year-old Christine Sinclair scored twice that day, her twenty second and twenty third profession objectives, the one remaining energetic participant from the sport’s roster.

“I don’t remember much of the game. I just remember being so nervous — like shaking,” McLeod stated.

“It just seems like a million years ago,” she added. “I can’t even believe it.”

John Herdman, the Canada males’s coach and former ladies’s coach, referred to as it an “absolute privilege” to work with McLeod.

“A real leader and pioneer in the women’s game,” he stated. “She was one of many constant threads that ran by way of an unprecedented time period within the ladies’s recreation … She helped lead modifications to the ladies’s recreation off the pitch — from NWSL contracts to higher circumstances to lastly serving to younger gamers progress and meet their potential by way of her management capabilities.

“Just an exceptional human being .. A really special person.”

McLeod started her profession with the Vancouver Whitecaps within the USL W-League in 2004. She went on to play for the Washington Freedom (2009), Sweden’s Dalsjofors GoIF (2011-12), Chicago Red Stars (2013), Houston Dash (2014-15) and Sweden’s FC Rosengard (2016-17) and Vaxjo DFF (2018-19) earlier than becoming a member of the Pride.

At the collegiate degree, she performed two years at Southern Methodist University and two at Penn State. As a senior, she led the led the Nittany Lions to an undefeated common season in 2005 when she was a MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalist and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year.

McLeod signed with Orlando in February 2020 however was loaned out to Iceland’s Ungmennafelag Stjarnan throughout the pandemic.

She signed a brand new cope with the Pride in May 2022, beginning each recreation final season barring a quick concussion-related absence. McLeod additionally had an arthroscopic process on her proper knee in April.

McLeod was entrance and centre in Canada’s memorable loss to the U.S. within the semifinals of the London Olympics. With Canada main 3-2 within the 76th minute, Norwegian referee Christina Pedersen controversially dominated that McLeod had damaged the hardly ever enforced six-second dealing with rule.

Megan Rapinoe’s shot, after Tobin Heath handed her the ball from the following oblique free kick within the Canadian penalty field, produced a penalty after the ball struck defender Marie-Eve Nault on the arm. The U.S. tied the sport from the penalty spot and went on to win 4-3 after further time.

McLeod was in aim as Canada defeated France 1-0 within the bronze-medal match.

She missed the 2016 Rio Olympics after present process her third anterior cruciate ligament surgical procedure. At the time, one physician informed her it was time to cease taking part in.

McLeod, who additionally had surgical procedure on her proper knee in 2008 and 2010 as properly a shoulder operation, thought in a different way.

She underwent an operation that noticed a sliver of her kneecap inserted right into a gap in her tibia from a earlier surgical procedure and a small strip of quadricep used as her new anterior cruciate ligament. An further ligament, from a cadaver, was additionally inserted.

A painful foot problem saved her out of the 2019 World Cup in France. While it was initially regarded as plantar fasciitis, a specialist ultimately identified tarsal tunnel syndrome in each toes — a situation that sees swelling within the foot put strain on the nerve.

In early 2019, McLeod introduced she was becoming a member of worldwide soccer stars like Juan Mata, Giorgio Chiellini and Alex Morgan in signing on with Common Goal, pledging one per cent of their wage to a central fund which is distributed to soccer-based charities around the globe.

The group stated McLeod was the primary Canadian to return on board.

That identical 12 months, she launched the Mindful Project, developed in tandem with Bethel University professor Rachel Lindvall. The aim is to assist focus extra on constructive ideas whereas shifting previous detrimental ones.

Away from soccer, McLeod can be an artist, musician and entrepreneur. In September, she designed a clothes line referred to as “The Futures Collection” in collaboration with the Orlando Pride.

A portion of the proceeds have been donated to the Zebra Coalition, an Orlando-based non-profit that aids LGBTQ youth going through homelessness, bullying and different challenges.