We all thought Kelley O’Hara would have her swan song at the end of the ongoing NWSL season. Considering her club Gotham FC is the third seed in the NWSL table, we could have seen the two-time World Champion make a trip to the playoffs. And this was her plan when she announced that this was her last NWSL season, back in May. However, O’Hara’s chronic knee degeneration forced Gotham to add her to their season-ending injury list on September 21. Hence, her feature in the Gotham-Seattle game on September 08 was officially her last NWSL game.

The one who planned to last till the end of the season retired on the same day Alex Morgan abruptly called it a day. As O’Hara puts it after skipping four week days of practice, she trained on a Friday out of sheer eagerness to return. But upon going home, some alone time forced her to rethink her continuation in the game. ” I got home and my knee was just so swollen and so painful and I was like what am I doing like why keep putting myself through this,” Kelley O’Hara said during her recent appearance on the Fast Friends show on Just Women’s Sports.

But even so, she wasn’t ready to quit. O’Hara even told her mom she wanted to rip off her bandage and compete again. Anyhow, eventually, she got the message from her inner voice that it was time to draw a curtain. “If I could take myself out of my body and have a conversation with myself. I’ll be like, ‘You were doing yourself no favors for your future. And what are you doing? You’re giving your team a couple of minutes at the end of the game,'” the Gotham FC defender added.

Then, she detailed how she finally came to the “funny” yet drastic retirement decision while also inquiring about the pitch conditions in NWSL stadiums.

Kelley O’Hara took retirement decision in solitude while citing how turfs added to her woes

In an ideal world, Kelley O’Hara would never have said never to go out on the field and compete every other day. In fact, which baller would do? But what if these antics on the field ruin your body? You have no option.

“Obviously I loved being back on the field and I loved to like go out there and have fun and compete and be with my teammates and my friends. But was just like ruining my body for what you know and I’ve already put it through so much, so it was it’s funny I made the decision just sitting at home alone,” the Gotham star added.

She hinted that she could have had a late farewell in the September 16 clash against the Seattle Reign. However, Gotham FC’s medical team had ruled her unfit for play, considering her knee would hurt further if she played on the turf-laid surface at the Lumen Field. O’Hara, thereafter, called on for the NWSL authorities to plant natural grass in their stadiums to avoid recurrent injuries to its players.