After three decades of soccer, Ali Riley is hanging up her cleats in her hometown
On Tuesday morning, Ali Riley, captain and defender for Angel City FC, announced she will be retiring at the end of the 2025 NWSL season. In a statement posted to Instagram, she explained, “while I certainly experienced my share of heartbreak in my career, it will never compare to the immense love, joy, and gratitude I feel when I look back on over 3 decades of playing this game”.
Ali Riley is a Los Angeles native and started her career playing soccer in Pacific Palisades, where she grew up. After high school, she went to Stanford and captained the team to two semifinals and one final. Following her college career, she was drafted to the Gold Pride of the WPS in 2010, where she won Rookie of the Year. The next year she played for the Western New York Flash. During her time in the WPS she led both teams to a championship.
In 2012, Riley took her skills overseas to FC Rosengard in Sweden, where she played for six seasons and won multiple titles with the team. She then transferred to Chelsea for one year. Riley played the next year at Bayern Munich, after which she came back to the United States for the 2020 season and joined the NWSL’s Orlando Pride.
However, due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, the season was suspended, so she was loaned out to FC Rosengard for the remainder of the year. Riley played for the Orlando Pride for two years, then was picked up by Angel City FC after their introduction to the NWSL in 2022 and has played in Los Angeles ever since.
Riley’s international career included five Women’s World Cups and four Olympic Games. Despite being a Los Angeles native, she played for the New Zealand Women’s National Soccer Team (Football Ferns) as her father is a New Zealand citizen. Her first international appearance was in 2006 for the New Zealand U-20 World Cup. Then, in 2007, she made the official national team for the Women’s World Cup. Riley went on to play in the 2011, 2015, 2019, 2023 Women’s World Cups and was a part of history when New Zealand won their first-ever World Cup game in the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Riley was also named to the rosters of the 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024 Olympic soccer teams, although she did not play in the 2024 Olympics due to chronic nerve damage that has continued to sideline her for the last two years. Riley has captained the Football Ferns since 2017.
Riley has been involved in many projects off the pitch as well, including hosting the BFFR podcast with Sydney Lerroux, a YouTube series with Angel City titled Ali in LA, a podcast called Changing the Game and publishing a vegan cookbook called Girls Gone Veg.
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After a well decorated career including many accomplishments and accolades on and off the pitch Riley decided to retire in the city where she first found her love for soccer, stating “I am so proud to be able to say goodbye on my own terms, in my hometown, and know for certain that I am giving everything I have left to the people around me and the sport that shaped me”.
Taylor Ford
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