OL REIGN vs. WASHINGTON SPIRIT POSTGAME QUOTES

Friday, October 6, 2023 • Lumen Field • Seattle, WA OL Reign Head Coach Laura Harvey

On how today felt:

“I’m a football coach, so I’m going to always lean on the side of the immediate emotion is around the game and I thought we had some really good periods where we could’ve won it. (Goalkeeper) Claudia (Dickey) came up huge at the end of the game for us and (Racing) Louisville did us a solid. So, I think obviously there are games over the weekend that could change it but still right now, the playoff push is in our hands – that could also change with a big result for Houston. We wanted the win, we didn’t get it, but there were some positive signs of our team tonight. I thought we played some really good football at times and we had some big asks of some players – putting (defender Emily) Sonnett back in at center back, (defender) Ryanne Brown coming in at right back, having not even gotten on the roster last week, it’s a crazy world. (Defender) Phoebe (McClernon) having a very specific job to get a hold of (Spirit forward) Trinity (Rodman) and I thought she was exhausted at the end of it, but I thought she kept Trinity pretty quiet until the end. Yeah, just a little bit of quality in the final third, which you guys know, that’s been a broken record all year for me. So overall, the night, if I’m not thinking about football, it was amazing. I’m trying not to be emotional about it, but it’s hard when you think of what it means for the club – having [34,130 fans] here, it frustrates the hell out of me that it’s taken (forward Megan Rapinoe) Pinoe to retire for that to happen because we’ve had her for 10 years. But, I think it just shows people want to watch us play, they want to watch these players play and we have to capitalize on that – that’s the biggest thing for me is, all of this means nothing if we don’t capitalize it and that’s something that Pinoe has lived by, she has wanted to make the places that she’s a part of a better place for now and for the future and if we want this club to be where we want it to go and what we all believe it should be, we have to get these people back and if we don’t, we’re letting Pinoe down, we’re not letting anyone else down. If there’s a message from it, that’s my message it – we have to make sure people come out and watch this team play because that’s what’s going to push us to the levels that we want to go to and I will say until I’m blue in the face – this is a special place to be and I’ve always believed that when you get a taste of it and a lot of you have been on this journey with us, you don’t want to let it go, you want to come back to it. So, I think that’s my overall emotion about the whole day is, this is amazing, but let’s not lose sight of what it can be in the bigger picture because we need to push this thing on. If we can have 34,000 on a night like tonight, why can’t we get that all the time? Let’s go out and make that happen.”

On Rapinoe’s impact on her life:

“I think when I came to this country, I lived in a world where – and it’s just what it was at the time – the life that you lived outside of your job, it wasn’t really something that you celebrated and made part of who you were and when I came to this club – not just Pinoe, but everyone around the club took me in with open arms and I was this 32-year-old with a girlfriend who had no family here and they just took me in and you see someone like Pinoe just live so authentically on who she is that it made me feel OK doing that too. So, there’s no bigger impact on my personal life than that, for what Pinoe’s done for me. I think we’re very close in age – she’ll hate me for saying that, but we are. So, we’ve grown up through a lot of the same things and I haven’t been a player throughout it, I’ve been a coach through it, but I’ve lived through – I’m a female coach and people have thought that I shouldn’t be a coach because I was a woman. I’ve lived through homophobia around who I am and I think that we’ve lived through that. So, have I lived through the same things she has? No, but I can relate to what she’s talking about and I think that’s a big part of the impact she’s had on me. The other big part that she’s had on me, I’m an English woman who was, honestly, naive and uneducated about a lot of the social justice stuff and the kneeling around the anthem and all that, I didn’t understand the gravity of what that was and she educated me on that with no doubt. I hope I allowed her to have a space where she felt comfortable to be able to do those things, but there’s no doubt that she educated me too. So, I think from my personal life, she’s made me a better person, there’s no doubt and I will be forever grateful for that.

OL Reign Defender Lauren Barnes, Midfielder Jess Fishlock and Forward Megan Rapinoe

On what this moment means to her:

Megan Rapinoe: “Yeah, it is hard to put into words. Spending so much of my life here and such an important part of my life here and just this one club with these people, I didn’t even see it while it was happening today, there was so much going on, but to see the way that this city showed up and to express that, I guess, gratitude or love towards me is really special. It’s really overwhelming and I don’t really know how – it’s like, I know that I’m a well-liked figure and an important person in this game, I’m not trying to minimize that or try to play to humble, I do know my impact, but it’s one thing to know it and then another thing to really feel it and see it and see some of the signs and see pink wigs and just see what that means to people. So yeah, it’s hard to put just this kind of deep sense of gratitude and joy and thankfulness for being able to have a moment like this into words, I think that’s kind of the hardest part – who do you thank? Literally everybody, I couldn’t look out in front of me – there was like 100 people, friends, family, former teammates, teammates, people that I’ve worked with, people that I love very much. So yeah, you either talk for like five minutes or like 105 minutes, so I tried to keep it at that today.

Lauren Barnes: “Honestly, we’ve known for a while and this month’s been hard. I text Pinoe probably every day that there was a moment you think about or there’s an instant that happens in training, the locker room and you’re just like, that’s probably never going to happen again. These were really special moments and I don’t think we ever took it for granted – our 11 years here – one bit, that’s what is really, I think that’s how Pinoe lives, she lives with joy, she lives for those moments and she really pushes us to also do that. I think it’s undeniable her positive impact that she’s had on this city. We’ve been playing all year and we get [34,130 fans] today – that is specifically for [Megan Rapinoe]. I mean, our foundation is because of her. We’ve built everything around her. This is the first time we’ve seen a retirement like this, so everything is really new and we’re going through it. I think it’s been truly incredible. I’m in awe. Like she says, she knows where she stands in the world and it’s still really special to take these moments in and just be – I mean, 2013, if you said this was going to happen today, I’d just be like, what? So, to see how far everything has come and that’s a big part because of her. I think she deserves everything and I hope [she] felt that today.”

On playing 90 minutes on short rest and the legacy they are hoping to leave for the younger teammates:
Jess Fishlock: “I think we have to show out. It’s really non-negotiable. We’re trying to communicate and sometimes screaming to cause fear in those moments and like I said, we didn’t get the win today, but there was a lot of stuff today in our group specifically that I’ve been missing a little bit, we’ve been lacking in certain areas and I felt like today was the opposite of that and I’m not talking about a football perspective, I’m talking about togetherness, communication, work rate, working for each other, just doing what we’ve always done. This season has been so weird, it’s been so stop start, so up and down, injuries left, right and center. So, it’s important that we show up and specifically in these moments and I felt like – question sometimes how it is for Meg right now to have everything and then try to enjoy it, but also try and go out and not fail to perform whilst also knowing that everyone is here just to watch her play and also, we’re still a team that needs her to play and to perform at a high, high level and she does. She’s about to retire from one of the best careers I’ve ever seen and she still shows up, today, trying to drag us through these games. It epitomizes who we are to this group and how, I think, lucky people are to be able to watch this and feel it and see it. She still does it for us and we do it for the group and that’s our job and I think that today really epitomized that, also, more than anything.”