This part got me. 😭

Idk, outside of this, I had made peace with her never playing again. And then she did. I just took every moment as a miracle of modern medicine and sheer will. It wasn't the same, and that was okay. She and Ali walk away together, and that feels fitting. Two LA, Stanford girls that changed the game.

I legit just woke up. I have some thoughts for a later time. My tribute is this. There literally would be no Shea Butter FC without her. The first time a yelled "Shea Butter bomb" was organically watching a Christen Press USWNT goal. She gave my dream a name. Above all else, thank you for that CP23!

Retirements call for flowers, but also reevaluation. Christen Press’ career defies neat storylines of success on and off the field, even as she retires as a two-time World Cup winner.

An attempt to capture the whole, at @theathletic.com www.nytimes.com/athletic/671...

Only at @theathletic.com — Christen Press pens her farewell letters to herself, the game, and her fans as she announces her retirement at the close of the 2025 NWSL season with @angelcity.com.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/671...

(If we want to talk about Press purely in on-field terms? Well, there’s an easy starting point: Shooters shoot. A terrifyingly good finisher from anywhere within 20 yards. It certainly isn’t all she’s been as a player; but it’s something that in her prime she did better than almost anyone else.)

Seeing the Christen Press retirement news makes me think of the great blog Press kept during her first season, with Göteborg in 2012, when she was figuring out how to be a joyful professional soccer player and an independent adult, all at the same time. Rookie for life, indeed.

(And how could I forget Lo’eau LaBonta being third from last in *her* draft?)

See also Taryn Hemmings, Kristen Hamilton, and Ryan Williams. Each the very last pick in their respective drafts.

i really need you to turn on the volume and hear what they’re dancing to

FC Kansas City fans are thriving this morning but also CRYING.

Severance is definitely about worker peons, but at a company that’s far older and weirder than anything the Roys built.

I made a noise in real time

Oh dear.

Oh I see.

Are we talking MZB or something else entirely?

?????

Timeline cleanse!

Ugh feel better!

Sperry: I know you go against Temwa in practice.

Gabby Robinson: "Yeah, it's horrible." #KCBaby #NWSL

And obviously it’s not final yet, but the GA per game so far is ridiculous.

To give some apples-to-apples comparisons:

- 2.6 points per game, the most ever
- 83% win percentage, the biggest ever
- Lorena has a 64% shutout percentage, the biggest ever

These aren't records being padded by the extra games. They are staggeringly real.