Coming off a tumultuous year where she suffered a season-ending ACL tear, Canadian international Janine Beckie started 2024 with a bang. She netted a brace for the Portland Thorns in their season opener, 366 days after her injury.

Following a year of so much uncertainty, Beckie had a lot to look forward to in 2024 – for both club and country. Canada’s women’s soccer team was preparing for the summer’s Paris Olympics, where they would enter as defending champions for the first time at a major tournament.

But this year has ended up having surprises of its own.

Canada was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Olympics in a tournament that was largely overshadowed by allegations of spying by members of the Canadian staff. Bev Priestman, the team’s head coach, was suspended for a year.

And just over two weeks after Canada’s Olympic run ended, Beckie was traded by Portland to Racing Louisville.

“It was obviously a shock to me,” Beckie said about the trade. “But I think when I moved past the shock, I really am happy, and I think it ended up being a really good move for me, which I know for a lot of players is not always the reality.”

Beckie, a versatile forward, admits she had mixed emotions about the trade initially and how everything came to be. Her contract with the Thorns was set to expire at the end of this year, but there was an option to extend for the 2025 season. Beckie was still unsure whether she would take it or if the Thorns would choose to exercise it.

Before she left for Paris, she told her agent didn’t want to have any further conversations regarding her contract until she was back in Portland. After the Olympics, Beckie took some time off and vacationed in Mexico with her fiancé.

She received a text from her agent during that vacation, saying a potential trade was in the works. The day before she was set to fly back to Portland, she spoke to her agent and Karina LeBlanc, the Thorns’ general manager, about the move.

She returned to Portland on Saturday, Aug. 17. By early next week, the league had approved the trade, which was around the same time Beckie had first spoken to personnel with Racing. By Thursday, she was in Louisville.

“It all happened really fast, and I did not anticipate that it would happen as fast as it was going to happen,” Beckie told TSN. “I think it was just an accumulation of bad timing off the back of a tough summer, like there wasn't really a lot of time to communicate the situation to me.”

A day after Beckie’s trade was officially announced, the NWSL Players Association also released details about the new collective bargaining agreement. Part of the terms for this CBA include protection against trades without a player’s consent.

While this was not in place for Beckie’s situation, she said the Thorns did ask for her agreement to the trade before finalizing it, and she does believe that the club would have honoured her wishes if she had declined.

Despite the fact that she ultimately agreed to the trade, Beckie clarified that it was not her request to leave Portland during the season. Her frustration stems from the feeling that the decision........

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