“I have no desire to be a head coach at this point. It looks like it causes way too many grey hairs,” said Christine Sinclair.
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Christine Sinclair was in a chatty mood.
The interview was set up so that the 41-year-old soccer icon from Burnaby could promote the launch of her community channel on SportsShare, the Vancouver-based sports online training hub.
Sinclair hit on various other topics, too. That included hyping up the Vancouver Rise, the new pro women’s soccer team. At the same time she also maintained that she won’t be playing for them when they kick off the Northern Super League in April 2025.
“As much as Steph Labbé wants me to play, I had to say no,” Sinclair explained.
Labbé is sporting director for the Rise. She’s the former Canadian national team goalkeeper and was a longtime teammate of Sinclair’s with that squad. Diana Matheson was a midfielder with those teams, too, and she’s the founder of the NSL, which starts off as a six-team loop.
Sinclair says she’s been asked about playing in the circuit since its earliest concepts, but international soccer’s all-time leading scorer remains steadfast. She insists her final competitive games will be with the Portland Thorns of the National Women’s Soccer League.
The 5-foot-9 forward re-signed for one year with the Thorns in January, just a few weeks after her international farewell game with the Canadian squad against Australia at B.C. Place. Sinclair has been with the Thorns since the league’s inception in 2013, and she had two goals through 18 games this season at last count.
The Thorns’ Instagram feed posed the question: “Are you ready for one more year, Portland?” with the Sinclair re-signing announcement, but Sinclair isn’t offering a timeline for when she might call it quits.
“The Thorns have been my team since Day 1. When I’m done playing, I will retire as a Thorn and not play again. I will not Tom Brady it,” Sinclair said, pointing to the star NFL quarterback who both changed teams at the end of his career and had a 40-day retirement before his final season in 2022.
The Thorns, oddly enough, are coming to play the Whitecaps FC League1 team at B.C. Place on Oct. 15 as part of the CONCACAF Women’s Champions Cup. Sinclair thought that friendly against the Aussies on Dec. 5 — a night when the downtown dome was renamed Sinclair Place and the announced attendance was 48,122 — was going to be her last ever match there and she’s elated with the opportunity to show her Thorns teammates who have never been to Vancouver her hometown.
Sinclair’s ties to Portland run deep. She played collegiately at the University of Portland and has long listed the late Clive Charles as one of her greatest influences. He was the coach who recruited her there. In her sophomore season in 2002, she scored both goals, including the winner in double overtime, in a 2-1 decision over Santa Clara that landed Portland its first NCAA national title in any sport.
Charles died in 2003. He was 51. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer two years earlier.
When the NSWL formed, league officials went to the Canadian players they wanted to be a part of it and asked them to list three cities that they were willing to play in.
Sinclair answered: 1. Portland, 2. Portland, 3. Portland.
The league went back to her and asked her to rethink her stance, but she wouldn’t relent.
“The impact that Clive Charles had on me, the impact that the University of Portland had on me, everything that this city and community has given me and the support I’ve had from the club … I love this city,” Sinclair said of Portland.
The idea that there’s a formal connection between Sinclair and the Rise certainly got a boost when the Rise posted a picture last month on its feed on X of Sinclair wearing a team hoodie and carrying a team scarf and featuring the caption “something BIG coming soon.”
Sinclair played coy when asked about it.
“I mean, I was given gear and I took a photo,” Sinclair said, chuckling all the while.
She then continued.
“Look, obviously Vancouver is my home town. If I’m supporting one team, it’s going to be Vancouver and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure they’re successful and that they’re the No. 1 team in the league,” she said. “My support is behind Vancouver and we’ll see what happens when I’m done playing soccer.”
She then added a “dot, dot, dot,” keeping her coyness going.
Reading between the lines, it feels like she’ll be involved here in some facet at some point. It’s a matter of when. For her part, Labbé didn’t divulge too much when asked about any official role for Sinclair just yet.
“We have seen and heard tremendous excitement since we officially launched Vancouver Rise FC last month and now that our season ticket deposits are available, we can feel the momentum building towards 2025. Christine Sinclair is the GOAT, and the support she’s shown for the Northern Super League and our club in Vancouver is fantastic,” Labbé explained by text.
Sinclair is keen on talking up, too, what Matheson has spearheaded so far, explaining that “when she decides to do something, she does it and she’s almost singlehandedly created the NSL.”
Sinclair has long maintained that the lack of a credible pro league for women in this country was going to hamstring the national program, fearing that “our country would be passed on, passed over and passed by” in women’s soccer.
“I’m so excited. I can not be more proud of the work that’s been put in,” she continued. “I was part of the NWSL when it first formed and there are growing pains starting a new league from scratch and sustaining it.
“I have no doubt this thing is going to succeed but it’s going to take time and it’s going to take Canadians supporting their women’s professional teams. We’ll see how that goes. It’s going to take fans coming to games and that’s going to keep the league going and sustainable.
“Just the fact that a league is starting in Canada, I’m amazed. I didn’t know it was actually going to happen until Dee decided it was going to happen. It’s going to take all of Canada rallying behind it. Bring your kids. Bring your soccer teams. That’s how this things grows.
“There’s a lofty ambition to make this one of the top five leagues in the world. I have no doubt it can be done. It needs people to buy tickets, watch it on TV, buy the merchandize. Just show your support. And not just on opening night but in Week 10 as well.”
As for the national program, Sinclair said that it was “sad,” what the women’s players went through with the drone scandal at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and called it a “dumb mistake in a country where it’s actually illegal to fly drones” over certain prohibited areas.
Joseph Lombardi, who was an unaccredited analyst with the Canadian team in France, was given an eight-month suspended sentence from a French prosecutor. He was detained by police on July 22 after a training site supervisor had called them to say that a drone was filming over a New Zealand practice. It came out later that Lombardi had also filmed a July 20 New Zealand practice.
Lombardi and assistant coach Jasmine Mander were both sent home by the Canadian Olympic Committee before the opening game against New Zealand. Head coach Bev Priestman voluntarily sat out the New Zealand game, but she wound up being sent home as well and Canada was docked six points in the tournament as a penalty.
FIFA wound up suspending Priestman, Lombardi and Mander each for a year.
There have been various reports that this spying on opponents’ practices wasn’t a first for the Canadian program. Sinclair has maintained that she was never shown or discussed drone footage in team or individual meetings during her 23 years with the squad.
“At some point in time, I hope these players just get to play and aren’t dealing with drone scandals and staff issues and contract disputes and strikes and lawsuits,” Sinclair said, pointing to the various controversies that have plagued both the women’s and men’s national soccer teams over the past few years.
“These players need to be able to just play and compete because — having gone through it —it’s exhausting. It’s hard enough to win on the world stage, but when you’re having to deal with all these distractions on the outside, it’s exhausting and unfortunate. Hopefully it all disappears and the players can just play and have the support that they need and the financial backing that they need.”
Coaching is a possibility whenever she is done playing. Sinclair did make it sound like it wasn’t something she would do immediately after hanging up her playing cleats for a final time though.
“Soccer has been very kind to me. I can choose what I want to do,” Sinclair said. “It recently dawned on me that I haven’t had a summer vacation since I was a 10. That was the last year there wasn’t a provincial team for me. When I’m done playing, I’m going to need some time away without having a job, without having commitments. I need to be able to spend some time with my family, spend some time at my cabin. Things like that I’ve missed out on for the past 30 years.”
All that brings us back around to SportsShare. This foray is “like dipping my toes into” coaching while still playing. SportsShare currently has a free, 14-day trial, and subscriptions per sport are listed at US$3.99 a month.
“I have no desire to be a head coach at this point. It looks like it causes way too many grey hairs,” Sinclair said. “I look at the role of assistant coach or attacking coach, which more and more pro teams are starting to have. I like the connection you can have as an assistant coach to the players. A head coach can’t have those connections. They’re making decisions about lineups and who’s playing. It’s a different type of dynamic there. As an assistant coach, you can impact individuals in a different way.”
When starting out on SportsShare, Sinclair thought she would have benefited from such a platform as a youngster “with a soccer ball in my backyard or basement just making up stuff with no direction.”
Her initial videos for SportsShare feature drills on dribbling and shooting, but she’s also worked on a session about the mental side of the game, and dealing with making mistakes in particular.
“When I was growing up, there was never any mention of things like that,” Sinclair relayed. “I’ve always been my own harshest critic about making mistakes. There are times it has devastated me, to the point that when I was younger I’d be in tears at home. It’s important for kids to learn the skills but it’s important for them to learn things like you’re going to make mistakes and it’s going to be OK. It’s OK to lose games. It’s OK.”
She’s keen on SportsShare because they’re promising to bring in “vetted professionals,” in her words.
“It’s not the random people you see on TikTok or YouTube who have touched a ball maybe three times in their lives and they’re claiming to know what’s best,” Sinclair continued.
She also appreciates that it’s available to anyone. You don’t have to be in a major city centre with a celebrated sports club nearby.
“It doesn’t matter where you live. You have dreams,” she said. “Hopefully this can help. That’s all I’ve wanted to do — leave the sport in a better place.”