Ali Krieger Talks Difficultly of 'Falling in Love with a Teammate' While 'Struggling' with Her Sexuality (Exclusive)

The retired USWNT star opens up about her experience dating teammates throughout her career on the latest "Made It Out" podcast

Ali Krieger is opening up about her experiences dating a teammate.

The retired U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team star discusses the pros and cons of dating multiple teammates throughout her career in an upcoming episode of the “Made It Out” podcast with Mal Glowenke, shared exclusively with PEOPLE.

Krieger, 40, was married to her longtime USWNT teammate Ashlyn Harris from 2019 until their divorce in 2023. While discussing coming out during the new “Made It Out” podcast episode, Krieger says she also dated a teammate while playing in Germany.

It was a “difficult” decision to date someone on her own team, Krieger says.

“You’re already struggling with your sexuality at this point and you’re like, I don’t know if I want to tell my teammates or tell my boss that I’m queer and I’m feeling this way, let alone I met someone on the team,” Krieger tells Glowenke during their conversation.

Krieger doesn't mention Harris by name in the clip shared with PEOPLE, however she talks about playing domestically and internationally with the teammate she was dating and says they played on World Cup teams together. Krieger and Harris were both members of the 2015 and 2019 USWNT World Cup-winning teams.

Related: Ali Krieger Reveals She's Dating a 'Wonderful' Person Following Divorce from Ashlyn Harris

“I met her at camp and we built this relationship and it was easy because we were having similar schedules, and with the national team we were together every other month, almost two weeks out of every month,” she says. “It was super consistent.”

Krieger estimates she spent nearly 300 days with her partner each World Cup season.

“It was great,” Krieger says. “I really enjoyed it and I felt confident I always had someone in my corner.”

Krieger says their relationship began as “friends for the first year” and “then ended up turning that emotional connection to physical.”

“I was so attracted to her and what we built, so I was willing to just give it a try,” Krieger recalls. “But then I was like, s---, she’s on my team. But I also dated a woman in Germany who was also on my team, so I was like, is this a theme? Is this a pattern?”

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Related: Ashlyn Harris Responds to 'Unbearably Painful' Cyberbullying Over Ali Krieger Split: 'This Has Been Brutal'

Krieger says she realized that it makes sense to fall in love with a teammate given how intimate and intertwined their schedules are throughout the year.

“You spend so much time with these people,” she says. “You spend so much time together in camps and in training and week-to-week and on games and on weekends and you have a similar schedule and they have an understanding of what you do and how you show up.”

There's also the benefit of a partner being able to easily understand what she was going through on a personal and professional level, Krieger adds.

“The extent of that job in general is so difficult to break down to someone who’s never been in it,” Krieger says. “The professional athlete world is just so different and you have to have a better understanding of the schedule and what you endure mentally, physically and emotionally, it’s just another level. It’s hard to date outside of that, really.”

She adds: “It was really healthy, it was safe, it was good, so I think that’s why we were together for so long too, because maybe football kept us together in a way.”

Earlier this summer, Krieger opened up about dating again after taking time to “grieve” her 2023 divorce from Harris. She and Harris share custody of their two children, Sloane, 3, and Ocean, 2.

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