Tobin Heath tried for three years to get back on the soccer pitch, but it wasn’t meant to be.
The two-time World Cup champion for the United States announced her retirement on Thursday, according to The Athletic’s Meg Linehan.
Heath’s last professional appearance resulted in a left knee injury that required multiple surgeries and has never fully healed.
“I had a personal journey back in January that I came to my own acceptance of not playing anymore,” Heath told The Athletic. “It was me grieving not being able to play soccer anymore. For me, that was the greatest gift that had ever been given to me and such a core part of my identity and how I express myself and know myself to be.”
Heath won those World Cups in 2015 and 2019. She also won two Olympic gold medals, two NWSL championships with Portland and three NCAA championships at North Carolina.
She finished her USWNT career with 181 caps, and she scored 36 goals with 42 assists.
Heath was a one-of-a-kind winger among the greatest players in the world on those winning United States rosters. She took players on off the dribble like no one else in women’s soccer.
She scored the final goal in the 2015 World Cup final against Japan, the exclamation point on the 5-2 victory.
Heath plans to embrace whatever life throws at her next.
“Right now,” Heath told The Athletic, “I feel like I have an abundance of time and energy to really build lots of worlds.”
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