{"id":414708,"date":"2026-01-18T10:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T10:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414708\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T10:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T10:15:07","slug":"liverpool-sign-north-carolina-courage-legend-denise-osullivan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414708\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool sign North Carolina Courage legend Denise O&#8217;Sullivan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jan 17, 2026, 07:33 PM ET<\/p>\n<p><a data-clubhouse-guid=\"d1b424a5-a896-4975-5604-68d044356c02\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=19971\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liverpool<\/a> have completed the signing of <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"6c755f7c-e52a-9693-7b4c-67a86440fe8f\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=15366\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">North Carolina Courage<\/a> captain and <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"c3d9c4c9-485b-a62a-27c1-ba02064f55d1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=4178\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Republic of Ireland<\/a> international <a data-player-guid=\"35cddbe7-00ee-3ab0-583b-37f5c05b0660\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/219065\/denise-osullivan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Denise O&#8217;Sullivan<\/a>, the clubs announced Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old midfielder departs as the National Women&#8217;s Soccer League (<a data-league-guid=\"5cfc4100-6528-4970-8370-21007a36fe3e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/USA.NWSL\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NWSL<\/a>) club&#8217;s all-time appearance leader after playing in 186 games during her nine seasons in North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>O&#8217;Sullivan now joins a Liverpool team that sits bottom of the <a data-league-guid=\"6343e3ed-7aff-3884-8553-50cf970031a6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/ENG.W.1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Women&#8217;s Super League<\/a> (WSL), without a win in 12 matches.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It means a lot. It&#8217;s a very proud moment for myself and also for my family, who are now only a 40-minute flight away,&#8221; O Sullivan told Liverpool&#8217;s website.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Liverpool is a massive club and I think when you join a club as big as Liverpool it comes with massive responsibility and I can&#8217;t wait to get to work and to give 100 per cent every day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Denise O&#8217;Sullivan played for the North Carolina Courage since their inaugural season.\u00a0Matt Kelley\/NWSL via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>After joining North Carolina in its inaugural NWSL season, O&#8217;Sullivan played a part in winning seven league trophies &#8212; three  Shields, two Championships and two Challenge Cups.<\/p>\n<p>She had been named captain ahead of the 2023 season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to put into words what this club has truly meant to me,&#8221; O&#8217;Sullivan said in a statement from the Courage. &#8220;North Carolina will always be my home, and I&#8217;m forever grateful to the Club, my teammates, and the incredible fans who supported and believed in me every step of the way,&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m on to a new challenge now, but I&#8217;ll always be a part of Courage Country. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The arrival of O&#8217;Sullivan, who has won 128 caps with Ireland, comes a day after Liverpool announced the loan signing of <a data-player-guid=\"922abb33-767e-6ae4-d7a7-0135dadb7919\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/226804\/martha-thomas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Martha Thomas<\/a> from Tottenham.<\/p>\n<p>The <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"ef69ee85-fb83-3e22-9d55-4ca29da45343\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=12633\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scotland<\/a> international, who joined Spurs from <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"5d1de908-8705-f172-5351-5271a4f2e5a7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=20061\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a> in 2023, has agreed to move to Liverpool for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n<p>PA contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan 17, 2026, 07:33 PM ET Liverpool have completed the signing of North Carolina Courage captain and Republic&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-414708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}