Rachel Corsie has revealed she has battled through chronic pain to ensure she could end her career with the dream scenario of playing for her country. The 35-year-old Scotland captain will retire after the Women’s Nations League matches at home to Austria on Friday and the away game against the Netherlands in Tilburg on 3 June.
Corsie, who recovered from a knee injury to play her final club game for Aston Villa this month, said: “My body has really wanted this to be my last year but my heart and my head have been stubborn and said ‘I’m not quite ready’.”
“Getting back to playing at the end of the season was a really tough ambition and objective, but we got there. I feel like playing in WSL, playing international football, that is the highest level, and so to be turning 36 in August and know I’ve got to this point, that feels the right place for me [to stop].”
Corsie, who has won 154 caps, said her career has surpassed everything she thought it would. “For the first 20 years of my life, sport was what sport is for the average person; you do it alongside your studies or your schoolwork and you do it with your friends, you do it in the garden, you do it at the park. To get to do that as a professional, I massively treasure that. That’s why I’ve been able to give my all to it, because I have a genuine love for football.”
The former Aberdeen youngster, who missed one club game through suspension in her 19-year career, won seven league titles with Glasgow City, five Scottish Cups and four Scottish league cups, as well as the NWSL Shield with Seattle Reign in 2015. She has also played in Australia with Canberra United and represented Notts County, Birmingham City and Kansas City Current. In 2023-24 she was a regular for Aston Villa in the English top tier but this year she was able to make only two WSL appearances and she explained the day-to-day agony she has endured.
“Over the course of my career, I’ve had six surgeries in total, five on my left knee,” said Corsie, who is a qualified accountant. “This time around, I was sort of told by the surgeon before having the surgery that the condition of my knee was fairly concerning and that surgery would potentially give some relief. But there’s quite a serious likelihood the damage that’s been done over the course of my career is going to be impactful to the rest of my life.
“I wanted to do the surgery because I knew that I couldn’t get back playing leaving it as it was. I was in chronic pain all the time, walking up and down stairs to the house, getting in and out of the shower and having to climb out the bath. You tolerate it in sport. You’re willing to accept some level of pain and discomfort, but it’s the rest of your day where it probably mentally impacts you more because there’s no respite.
“The first half of the season, especially from October through to January, was a much harder journey. It was one I had nothing to relate it to. The emotional stress and knowing potentially this could be your last year and going to not make it back, is something that for any athlete is extremely difficult.
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“It has been a tough journey. But I have made it and it has been worth – I think – all those days in pain. Some days you don’t believe you’re going to do it but the only option is to keep going.”
The centre-back, who has scored 20 times for her country since making her debut in 2009, captained Scotland at their first Women’s World Cup in 2019. “To lead your team out at their first ever game at a World Cup is just a moment that can’t be replicated and that moment probably fills me with the most pride.”
For that reason, she is particularly proud she will conclude her career with a national team camp, which began on Monday, saying it feels almost perfect to finish in this way. “When I got the call to say I was going be in [the squad], I was over the moon. There’s something special about being Scottish and it’s been the one thing, the light, I’ve needed at times to keep going, to want to keep pushing.”