Days before heading to her fourth World Cup, US soccer great Megan Rapinoe announced Saturday she will retire at the end of the National Women’s Soccer League season.

Rapinoe, 38, an Olympic and World Cup champion, made the announcement on Twitter, saying she “never could have imagined the ways in which soccer would shape & change my life forever”.

“It is with a deep sense of peace & gratitude that I have decided this will be my final season playing this beautiful game,” the Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Cup champion said.

The US team is aiming for a third consecutive title when the Women’s World Cup kicks off on 20 July in Australia and New Zealand.

The athlete is a sports superstar and one of the leading women in the game of all time, but in recent years she also came to mainstream society prominence outside of football by taking a leading role in campaigning for equal pay for female teams and an end to sexual abuse in sports, among other causes.

Rapinoe, who was named player of the tournament at the 2019 World Cup, said late last month that she expects a “paradigm shift globally” for all women’s sport after the Women’s World Cup this summer in Australia and New Zealand.

“It feels like a real opportunity to blow the lid off, just in terms of fanfare and media and sponsorships and the sort of larger business around this sport,” said the United States forward, who will be playing at what will now be her final World Cup.

In 2021 she took the fight for equal pay to US Congress as she testified in front of a committee examining “the economic harm caused by longstanding gender inequalities, particularly for women of color” and made a memorable appearance at the podium in the press room at the White House for the daily briefing.

The following February, the US women’s soccer team reached a landmark agreement with their governing body over pay, after a six-year legal battle.

On the field, Rapinoe co-captained the US national team alongside Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan from 2018 to 2020.

She went viral and became iconic at the 2019 World Cup not only for strong play but for her majestic goal scoring celebratory pose, arms outstretched and aloft, standing still in front of the roaring crowd with an unapologetically triumphant and swaggering smile on her face.

skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Moving the GoalpostsGet our roundup of women’s football twice-weekly during the World Cup, featuring the insights of experts including Arsenal manager Jonas EidevallPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion

Rapinoe came out publicly as a lesbian in 2012 and is a big campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights and outspoken about the need for queer pride in the huge part played in sport by gay athletes, and an end to stigma in sports and wider society.

In December 2019, Rapinoe endorsed the progressive US senator for Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, for the Democratic nominee for president. Joe Biden ultimately became the nominee and won the White House and the soccer player took her campaign for equal pay directly to the US president.

Rapinoe was born in California and is a longtime player at the OL Reign club in Seattle. The club plans a tribute to Rapinoe and her “illustrious career” at its final match of the regular season on 6 October, CNBC reported on Saturday afternoon..