RAPINOE BIDS FAREWELL AS RECORD NWSL CROWD, SPORTS GTREATS PAY TRIBUTE

USA TODAY Sports 

Megan Rapinoe received a hero's sendoff from a National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) record crowd of 34,130 on Friday, as the OL Reign stalwart played her final regular season home game, a scoreless draw against the Washington Spirit, in Seattle.

The twice World Cup winner, who helped form OL Reign's identity from its inception and spent the entirety of her 11-season NWSL career with the club, bid farewell at Lumen Field, the home stadium of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks.

"It just feels like home. It was always the safest place," Rapinoe, 38, said of her time in Seattle.

"This was just always the place where I could be myself."

RAPINOE BRINGS THE CURTAIN DOWN

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Olympic champion and two-time World Cup winner Megan Rapinoe took her final bow in international football after the U.S. beat South Africa 2-0 in a friendly on Sunday in the Soldier Field stadium in Chicago.

The relentless 38-year-old striker was crucial to both of her team's goals, providing the long pass to Alex Morgan that set up Trinity Rodman's goal and taking the corner that Emily Sonnett headed into the back of the net.

Rapinoe, who won the Golden Boot, Golden Ball, and Ballon d'Or for her role in the U.S. 2019 World Cup campaign, received a heartfelt farewell as she left the field in the 52nd minute to a standing ovation from the crowd, handed the captain's arm-band to Lindsey Horan and hugged her team-mates.

SPEAK UP! FROM MUTINY AND BOYCOTTS TO EQUAL-PAY DEMANDS, WOMEN'S GAME FACES RECKONING

Reuters 

From the American campaign against abuse in their professional leagues to France players demanding the removal of their coach and Canadians threatening boycotts, women's soccer is facing a reckoning in the lead-up to the ninth World Cup.

Some of the issues will be resolved, others might drag on, but it looks like the days when players suffered in silence rather than speaking out are long gone.

"One hundred percent, I think it's so prevalent," said Jonas Baer-Hoffmann, the general secretary of global players union FIFPRO.

"I think it's more prevalent than it's ever been in any other sport on a global stage. I don't think you've had this kind of co-ordinated - or uncoordinated - wave of speaking up, standing up, forcing change ever before."

Speaking up has proved highly successful in some cases.

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