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Former Angel City FC captain Ali Riley excited about new career path

March 18, 2026

A new NWSL season has started and Ali Riley finds herself in a different place.

Instead of preparing for training camp and running out on the field Sunday at BMO Stadium in Angel City FC’s season opener, Riley was shown on the videoboard, attending the game as a fan.

Riley, who was Angel City FC’s inaugural captain, retired after last season. Up nex has been the early steps of a media career.

Riley has already worked as an analyst for CBS Golazo Network and a commentator during the SheBelives Cup. The next step is a weekly podcast with former Stanford teammate Kelley O’Hara called “Time Wasting” on the Just Women’s Sports feed. The first episode was released Tuesday.

“It’s an evolving emotion and phase of my life,” said Riley, an L.A. native and Harvard-Westlake High alum. “It’s the first time in a very long time that I haven’t had an offseason, it was just off, no preseason. I spoke to so many former athletes and they’ve all been such important mentors for me. I’ve had a great support system.

“It is so different (not playing). It really is a loss of identity. You go through a grieving process for sure and to have this opportunity to be covering the game, I didn’t know if that would make me feel more sad, but it actually made me feel so grateful and really proud and optimistic about the future of the game and that’s something I dedicated so much of my career to was making sure the young players, the next generation would have it even better than I did. Being in this role now, I get to have this front-row seat to the growth and this next era.

“I’m not on the field, but through covering the game and being in sports media like this, it still makes me feel like I’m part of it and makes me so happy.”

Riley made her professional debut in 2010. In 2022, she joined Angel City and was the club’s first captain. Last season, after overcoming injury, she returned to the field for one final game in the final home game of the season. Days after the end of the regular season, Riley jumped right into her media career.

“The morning after our end-of-the-season banquet, I took off for Connecticut to cover (UEFA Women’s) Champions League. I was there for over a week and then I did the NWSL semifinal and then flew straight to San Jose to cover the NWSL championship,” she said. “Then went right into World Sevens with TNT to cover that. That was a whirlwind … it was challenging because I hadn’t really processed that my career was over, but I got this amazing feeling of camaraderie and the interaction I had with players in all of those experiences made me realize that I could still be really close to the sport.”

Riley and O’Hara were teammates at Stanford and won a championship together back in 2010 in the WPS with FC Gold Pride. O’Hara, a two-time World Cup champion, also made the transition to media and content creation after retiring from the U.S. Women’s National Team and the NWSL.

“Kelley and I have obviously been friends for a really long time. I forced her to make YouTube videos with me when we were drafted together to FC Gold Pride in 2010,” Riley said. “Our paths went really separate, different directions after that first year when we got drafted together. We played against each other in the WPS, then I went to Europe and she stayed here (In the U.S), but we’ve maintained this friendship, this relationship. When I retired, it felt like, if there was someone that I could cover this sport with, that would get the best out of me and challenge me and someone I could debate things with and someone I could also empower other players and the next generation with, it would be Kelley O’Hara.

“We have so much fun together and I think that’s the kind of content that’s engaging. These are the conversations, the perspectives we have is going to be different than other people covering the game. Just Women’s Sports has invested in coming up with a soccer vertical that would be focused on covering women’s soccer, especially the NWSL, and this was just a perfect partnership.”

Orange County Register

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Former Angel City FC captain Ali Riley excited about new career path

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