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Ali Kriger learned that her ex Ashlyn Harris had filed for divorce while she was at practice.

In a cover interview with Self magazine, the 39-year-old retired soccer champion admitted to the outlet that she learned about Harris’s divorce filing while on the field. Krieger recalled, “I found out at training. I was on the field. And I came off the field, in the locker room, and I was obviously devastated.”

A month after Harris, 38, filed for divorce on 19 September with the Seminole County Clerk in Florida, the news made headlines. The former US women’s national soccer team players had been married for almost four years after tying the knot on 28 December 2019. They share two children: daughter Sloane, 2½, and son Ocean, 14 months.

Throughout Krieger’s interview, she credits her friendship with her NY Gotham teammates as a silver lining throughout the divorce proceedings, noting that they had been there for her when she needed them.

She told Self that she cancelled a press conference and clothes fitting that day to process the news, later that day her team tried to lift her spirits. “My entire team came over for a dance party the night the news broke,” Krieger shared. After the news of her divorce broke, she said her teammates “just started walking through the door.” She added, “All of them. At different times. Until 2 in the morning, we were there, just hanging out, dancing, putting music on YouTube.”

“They didn’t even think twice,” she recalled. “They didn’t have to ask; they just showed up. They just kept coming in—from right after training, after their meetings, through 2 a.m. My kids were there, we were all there.”

Krieger reflected, “Through these past five months, my friends have shown up in ways that I will cherish and remember forever. They are my true people. It’s been so rewarding to see that, because you don’t know how much of an impact you have, even on your personal friends, and when they show up for you, you’re just like, ‘Whoa — thank God.’ ”

She also noted that her brother, Kyle, and best friend, Liz Mumley, also stepped up to the plate to support the soccer star through her tough breakup, with the two of them checking in on her “every day.” Mumley reportedly travelled to New York from Virginia Beach immediately to stay with her for a week and a half.

Although the soccer player “never thought” she would “be in this position,” but told Self she’s finally gotten to “a healthy space” after months of therapy and prioritising her mental health.

“I’m in this transitioning phase, so I’m unarmoring myself,” she explained. “I have been bare, basically, for the past five months. Walking through it — not around it, over it, under it — literally walking through, feeling all the things, and learning and gaining those tools to be the woman that I’ve always known was there.”

However, she admitted she’s “not there yet” in terms of dating, but she’s hopeful that 2024 will be about “continuing to put myself first, and work on myself so that I am a complete Ali — so that I don’t carry all of this past trauma into that next relationship.”

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