Megan Rapinoe criticizes Paul Riley, who briefly coached her on the Philadelphia Independence

It’s been 11 years since Megan Rapinoe played for Paul Riley with the Philadelphia Independence, but she hasn’t forgotten it.

Speaking Thursday in London ahead of the U.S. women’s soccer team’s Friday game against England (3 p.m., Fox29), Rapinoe reflected on the emotional labor of separating the good people from the bad in the sport. She name-checked the three coaches spotlighted in former acting U.S. attorney general Sally Yates’ investigation into abuse in women’s soccer — Riley, Rory Dames, and Christy Holly — and did not hold back.

“Unfortunately, I think we have a lot of practice,” Rapinoe told reporters in a news conference at Wembley Stadium, where Friday’s game will be played before a sellout crowd of more than 80,000 fans.

“Rory has been an a—hole for the entire time that I’ve known him — from the first second that I heard him on the sideline, the first season that ever played,” Rapinoe said. “Paul’s the same. I didn’t know Christy Holly personally, but everything I heard about him was horrible.”

Rapinoe spent the first half of the 2011 Women’s Professional Soccer season with the Independence, playing four games and scoring one goal. She was traded to Boca Raton, Fla.-based magicJack during that summer’s World Cup, where she became a breakout star for her assist on Abby Wambach’s last-minute tying goal in the quarterfinal against Brazil.

» READ MORE: U.S. Soccer promises action after Yates investigation details abuse and sexual coercion in NWSL

Riley has denied the allegations against him, but U.S. Soccer has stripped him of his coaching license. Dames and Holly also have had their licenses revoked.

Dames issued a statement through his lawyer on Tuesday, claiming Yates made “misstatements of fact and false and defamatory statements.” Dames also said he wouldn’t comment further until the conclusion of an ongoing investigation against him by the U.S. Center for SafeSport.

Holly has yet to comment, though Racing Louisville president James O’Connor said in a statement Wednesday that it “was a mistake” for the team to hire Holly as its first manager last year.

“Paul went on and coached a ton of different players and kept doing the exact same thing,” Rapinoe said, alluding to allegations that Riley’s coercion of Havertown native Sinead Farrelly began while Farrelly played for the Independence.

“It’s just impossible to overstate that every single year, someone said something about multiple coaches in the league, about multiple different environments,” Rapinoe said, a point made in the Yates report. “None of those people have shown that they deserve to be around this beautiful game and have a right to be because they can’t even do the basic responsibilities of their job.”

She called on Portland Thorns and Timbers owner Merritt Paulson and Chicago Red Stars owner Arnim Whisler to sell their teams. Both men are under significant pressure from fans and sponsors to do so.

“I don’t think that Merritt Paulson is fit to be the owner of that team; I don’t think Arnim is fit to be the owner of Chicago,” Rapinoe said. “And we need to see those people gone. So people who are fit, who will take care of the game, respect the game, and help the game grow in the best way possible can replace them.”

» READ MORE: U.S. players ‘horrified’ by report of abuse in women’s soccer

In Portland, Paulson said on Tuesday that he has removed himself “from all Thorns-related decision-making” until the NWSL and NWSL Players’ Association have finished their ongoing joint investigation. That report is expected next month.

On Wednesday, Paulson fired president of soccer Gavin Wilkinson and president of business Mike Golub, both of whom are named often (as is Paulson) in Yates’ report. They have long been the target of intense criticism from supporters of both Portland teams.

MLS commissioner Don Garber, who has defended Paulson in the past, called those moves “appropriate initial steps for their organization, their community, and the sport of soccer.“

NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman hasn’t said anything since Tuesday, when she issued an initial statement on the Yates report.

On Tuesday, U.S. captain Becky Sauerbrunn was asked if she has faith in the NWSL’s power brokers to remove team owners shown to be complicit in abuse.

“I don’t know if the right people are in place to do what is needed,” she said. “My hope is that the joint investigation that is coming out [from the NWSL and NWSLPA] will have recommendations for discipline — I hope that U.S. Soccer, in whatever ability that they have, whether that’s enforcing sanctions or whatnot — if teams aren’t complying to any recommendations like the Sally Yates report has put forth, that there will be punishments. But I honestly, I don’t know if I have the faith or not.”

» READ MORE: ESPN’s documentary on abuse in the NWSL told a lot of truths, but there are more still to tell

It’s unclear what mechanisms exist in the NWSL to force an owner to sell a team. The Athletic reported that MLS has the mechanism, but Garber doesn’t have the power to do it unilaterally. There must be approval from 75% of the league’s other owners, and The Athletic’s sources said it’s unlikely that bar will be reached.

In Chicago, Whisler said on Tuesday that he would “remove myself from my governance role within the NWSL board of governors and will hand over operational control of the club to our executive team in Chicago.” On Wednesday, the Red Stars’ board of directors said it had voted “to remove Arnim Whisler as chairman of the board, to transition him out of his board seat immediately … and to codify his removal from any further participation with either club or board operations.”

Amid all this, there will be a game on Friday, and a big one, too. It will be the first U.S.-England meeting since the Lionesses won the European Championship on home soil. All of the tickets available were snapped up within 24 hours of going on sale in early August. The crowd is set to be the second-largest the U.S. women have ever played in front of, behind only the 90,185 attendance for the 1999 World Cup final at the Rose Bowl.

Rapinoe praised U.S. manager Vlatko Andonovski and his staff for “giving us the space and taking the time to acknowledge what we’re going through and understanding that it’s not just something that you acknowledge and move on from.”

Both teams will wear teal armbands during the game in solidarity with survivors of sexual violence, and the programs’ social media accounts are distributing information on how to report abuse. (In the U.S., the phone number is 800-656-HOPE.)

And when kickoff finally arrives, it seems that the players will be ready to put on a show for the world.

“This is a special moment for us all to come together and celebrate women’s football for all of the good that it is,” Rapinoe said, later, adding: “I think the field can often be a place where we can just relax and breathe and enjoy the sport that we love to play so much.”