It all started with an email. After attending the FIFA Women’s World Cup USA 1999™ final in Pasadena, a young Ali Riley dreamed of becoming a professional women’s footballer and representing the USA internationally.
During the now 37-year-old’s hugely-successful high school career at Harvard-Westlake School, her father John — a New Zealand native — made a decision that would change her life forever. He sent a cold email to New Zealand Football to let them know that his daughter, who did not appear to be on US Soccer’s radar, was eligible to play for their U-20 women’s team.
No one responded. Months later, however, John Herdman was appointed the coach of the New Zealand women’s team and after checking through old emails he discovered the message from John Riley, who then sent over a DVD across the Pacific Ocean of his daughter’s highlights.
Shortly afterwards, the 18-year-old Riley was invited to Australia to play in some friendly matches for the nascent New Zealand U-20 women’s team. The precocious defender impressed immediately and not only made the squad for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Russia 2006™ but also the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ in China the following year.
It was the start of an illustrious run in which Riley made 163 international appearances and appeared in five World Cups — with the final tournament highlighted by an emotional opening match in Auckland against Norway — and four Olympic Games. Riley would have participated in a fifth Olympics in Paris last year were it not for a chronic nerve issue which has led to the Angel City star announcing that she is officially retiring following the 2025 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) season.
Riley has had a rollercoaster year, with her childhood home in Los Angeles burning down in the Palisades Fire and her wedding taking place within days of one another. This was followed by — after months of arduous rehab — her long-awaited return from injury for the final nine minutes of Angel City’s home game with Portland Thorns on 19 October.
As she prepares to hang up her boots, the Football Ferns icon spoke at length to FIFA about her unlikely start with New Zealand, being able to leave the game on her own terms and her imminent move into the media landscape.
Ali Riley: When I was suffering from this nerve injury and I was in a lot of pain and not making any progress for a long time, I thought that that would be the time (to retire). I was very close to giving up in multiple moments but having come through the other side and to be out on the field with my team (in training) has been possibly my greatest achievement because I’ve never faced a challenge like this. I have been fortunate in my career but this was quite a doozy of an injury and adding losing my childhood home on top of that… it was just a really, really big mountain to climb.
To come through that, I now know that I have given everything I have left. I know I cannot sustain this level of physical and emotional loading for another six months, another year. I do want to be able to have an active lifestyle and want to have a life where I don’t have to spend hours and hours on training and then the rest of the day recovering so that I can train again the next day. This is everything I have left.
I thought I was going to have to retire because of injury so I’ve been processing and grieving for the past two years now. So I think that is why I feel quite light right now and at peace and so joyous and confident in these weeks and in this moment because I thought I had reached the end. When I was withdrawn from the Olympic team in Paris that was the first time when I realised how serious my injury was and I didn’t know if I would be able to walk comfortably again. To have recently run the most total distance of the team (in training) and to be able to walk off the field after a two-hour training session, this is just magic for me.
It’s not a miracle because I worked so hard for this and had a lot of help from medical and mental health professionals. This is an amazing moment because I have already reflected, I already thought the end had happened and now I get this little phoenix ending when literally after the fire… come out of this really dark place and this really sad time and be on Angel City again and say goodbye on my own two feet.
Each of them have such a special experience in my heart and my career. To go into the first team fresh out of the U20s, our national team hadn’t been in a Women’s World Cup since the first one in 1991 and feeling just really happy to be there… and then seeing the engagement and investment in the World Cup in France to then hosting a World Cup. Each of them, I was in a different place in my life and my career. And in the four years in between anything can happen so I feel really really lucky. I know that I worked really hard to maintain my fitness and my health but I know that I am lucky that I didn’t have a major injury until 37 years old.
I played with such inspiring women [and] against inspiring women in each of those tournaments. They are different eras and to cap it off with a home World Cup and to win that game [against Norway] and to see the growth of the sport in New Zealand, I just feel really, really proud and really lucky that I did get to experience at the highest level for so many years in those five tournaments. They really outline the growth of the game and I just can’t believe I’ve been part of it for so long.
It’s easy – it was the 2023 Women’s World Cup opener against Norway. That was everything. It was all I wanted. To have (former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden) in the locker room when we were singing and dancing. That was it. It’s a moment and a game that I will never, ever forget. I was at the 1999 Women’s World Cup final and I know how it empowered me. And the juxtaposition of where society was and what I was seeing and hearing when I was 11 years old at that tournament (to now)… we’re at a different era in women’s soccer. That is the game, that is the day.
This game, the direction it’s going and the growth… I want to be a part of it. I love storytelling and want to be in the media world. I’m looking forward to connecting with players who are in roles that we didn’t know were possible for women. So it wasn’t really even until Angel City that I even considered that I could have a role in media in women’s sports, that I could be an owner, that I could be a GM one day. I love Angel City and would definitely be interested in being part of this club in some way but I am excited, I have already signed to be part of the UEFA Women’s Champions League with CBS and so I’m jumping right into it.
