Photo: Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images; Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Carli Lloydis ready for her next chapter.
The 39-year-old legendannounced her retirement from soccerin August after playing out her remaining games with the U.S. women’s national soccer team and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) before officially walking away from the game for good.
Of course, such a milestone in the twilight of her career has led some people to question whether Lloyd may be leaving too early.
But on a recent episode of GOAL podcastAll of US: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Show, Lloyd set the record straight when asked if she should keep playing into her 40s, much like NFL starTom Brady.
“Well,Tom Bradydoesn’t have to have kids,” Lloyd replied. “That’s the one thing for starters. My husband, Brian, and I are eventually going to start a family so the clock’s kind of ticking on that.” (Brady has three children.)
Carli Lloyd.Omar Vega/Getty Images
Lloyd went on to explain that there is a positive note to retiring before she can no longer physically play — she gets to go out on her own terms.
“I don’t think every athlete gets the opportunity to dictate when they go out, to dictate if they’re happy or not, to dictate if they’re on top or not,” she toldGOAL. “I’ve always wanted my career to be dictated on me making the decisions. This just felt time for me.”
“It gets to be a little tiring, you know? Being away from home, the travel and, to be quite honest, having to stay at the top and prove people wrong. It is exhausting,” she added. “It takes endless work, day in and day out and I’m just ready to kind of shift gears and start this next chapter and live my life and do a lot of things that I’ve put on hold for so many years.”
source: people.com
