{"id":181525,"date":"2025-10-01T02:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/181525\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T02:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:57:08","slug":"football-ali-riley-to-retire-after-injury-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/181525\/","title":{"rendered":"Football: Ali Riley to retire after injury battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4L51IQH_230730NZLvSUI_064_JPG\" width=\"1050\" height=\"699\" alt=\"New Zealand's Ali Riley.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nFootball Fern Ali Riley<br \/>\nPhoto: PHOTOSPORT\n<\/p>\n<p>Former New Zealand captain Ali Riley will retire from football at the end of the US National Women&#8217;s Soccer League season following a prolonged battle with a chronic nerve injury.<\/p>\n<p>The 37-year-old Angel City defender has barely played at any level since being withdrawn from selection on the eve of New Zealand&#8217;s opening match against Canada at last year&#8217;s Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles-born Riley said on social media she would be proud to bow out in her hometown.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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 three decades of playing this game,&#8221; she wrote in a post.<\/p>\n<p>With 163 New Zealand appearances dating back to her 2007 debut, Riley is the nation&#8217;s second-most capped international behind only former Football Ferns teammate Ria Percival (166), who retired last year.<\/p>\n<p>A veteran of five Women&#8217;s World Cups, Riley led New Zealand to their first win at the global tournament in 2023 when the Ferns beat Norway 1-0 at Auckland&#8217;s Eden Park.<\/p>\n<p>-Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football Fern Ali Riley Photo: PHOTOSPORT Former New Zealand captain Ali Riley will retire from football at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,1590,63,1589,596,44,1591,1588,1586,1587,85],"class_list":["post-181525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-current-affairs","tag-football","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}