Recently honored in a farewell match during the United States women’s national team friendly against Iceland, we take a look at the extremely important role Kelley O’Hara has played throughout her career.
The amount of talent littered throughout the United States women’s national team over the past few decades has been remarkable. Whether it’s for an international friendly or a major tournament, every camp roster is littered with stars from some of the world’s best teams and leagues.
However, any team, no matter how talented, only has room for a limited amount of superstar roles. Just ask Real Madrid. This is something that the USWNT understood throughout its peak run that included back-to-back World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019, as well as during its redemption run at the 2024 Olympics that followed a string of disappointing major tournament results.
These teams, like many elite squads, had a cadre of excellent “role” players that executed their jobs to perfection. “Role” is in quotations because these players had the talent to be top-billed attractions, but in the name of the greater good for the team, they put their egos aside and stepped into supporting roles.
There was perhaps no super-role player better than Kelley O’Hara.
While she racked up 160 caps across 13 years with the senior USWNT, in addition to two World Cup titles and an Olympic gold medal, O’Hara wasn’t quite the household name that her peers like Alex Morgan or Megan Rapinoe were.
This was brought to light during a hilarious moment in her “Kelley on the Street” series with Just Women’s Sports, in which she was interviewing various people on the streets of Washington, D.C.
@justwomenssports We gave Kelley O’Hara a mic and took to the streets of D.C. for NWSL Championship weekend. JWS x @ally
She quizzed someone to name a USWNT player, and his friend off camera suggested, “Say Kelley O’Hara.” Naturally, the camera, along with O’Hara, panned to the friend to get him to repeat himself on frame. He went on to say that he went to the same high school as O’Hara, not realizing she was the one conducting the interview.
O’Hara’s effervescent personality has made her a perfect fit for the “Kelley on the Street” series, and she’s a fantastic podcast guest. More importantly however, it has also made her a fantastic locker room presence, as seen during the post-2019 World Cup celebrations.
Hysterical moment @kelleymohara pic.twitter.com/8Vy1cvlNtC
— maria.alexis (@maria___alexis) July 10, 2019
.@kelleymohara asking the crowd for a beer IS EVERYTHING. pic.twitter.com/DFlcOhJzna
— Shannon McLellan (@shannmclellan) July 10, 2019
Prior to the New York City victory parade, O’Hara tweeted for fans to bring her beers — and while most athletes would say this jokingly, she was dead serious. On multiple occasions, O’Hara was seen hopping off the parade float to retrieve beers from the crowd. It was awesome.
She also knows how to make fun of herself, as her current pinned post on her X profile is a GIF of her whiffing a pass down the sideline.
O’Hara wasn’t just a personality hire, however. She had plenty of game. She played a massive role in the 2019 World Cup title, starting six out of seven matches, and scored a banger of a goal four years earlier against Germany in the semifinals of the 2015 World Cup. She was also a mainstay at the 2012 Olympics, playing in every minute of the tournament, all in a new position, as she converted from a forward to an outside back leading into the 2012 games.
Her intensity and competitiveness made her an asset wherever she played on the field, and she repeatedly showed up in big moments. It’s not an accident that she has a pair of NWSL titles to go along with the hardware she’s won with the USWNT, and she also won a title in WPS, the NWSL’s predecessor, with FC Gold Pride as a rookie.
In the 2021 NWSL Championship game, O’Hara scored the game-winning goal in extra time, a fantastic header that left the crowd — and O’Hara herself — stunned.
Time would catch up to O’Hara, as it does with all athletes, and she announced that the 2024 NWSL season would be her last as a professional only how she could — in a “Kelley on the Street” segment.
Chronic knee injuries cut her farewell season short, although she was honored in the USWNT’s recent international friendly against Iceland in Nashville, Tennessee.
O’Hara was the type of player that you had to watch to understand everything that she brought to the table. No advanced analytics, betting apps, or AI could quantify her value on the pitch. There is no stat for grit, and O’Hara had that in droves.
To the casual fan, she might not have been a household name, but the die-hards know — Kelley O’Hara is one of the greats.
