When I stopped by the San Diego Wave’s sprawling practice facility last month, I wasn’t looking for Alex Morgan. I wanted to talk to Landon Donovan, the other national team legend who had just been named the Wave’s interim coach.
But Morgan stopped by after practice anyway and chatted for about twenty minutes. She chatted about her daughter Charlie, who has been the subject of most of Morgan’s conversations over the past four years. But she also talked about her charitable foundation, the businesses she wants to start, her husband, Servando Carrasco, and the home-cooked meals she makes for her two dogs.
What she didn’t talk about was football. And if there was ever a sign that Morgan was ready to leave the sport that had long defined her life behind, it was that conversation on a windswept cliff above Highway 5.
On Thursday, Morgan made it official, announcing her retirement from professional soccer in an emotional 4 1/2-minute video posted on social media. Her final game will be Sunday in San Diego, her new hometown, against the North Carolina Courage.
“I’m retiring,” she said in the video, in which she also announced that she is pregnant again. “And I’m so clear about this decision. It’s been a long time coming and this decision was not easy.”
“Football has been a part of me for 30 years,” she continued, pausing frequently to take a deep breath and calm herself. “It was one of the first things I ever loved. I gave everything to this sport and what I got in return was more than I could have ever imagined.”
Morgan, 35, who learned the game on the AYSO teams in Diamond Bar, will retire as one of the greatest players of all time. Morgan, a two-time world champion, Olympic gold medalist and NWSL champion, was also a three-time finalist for FIFA’s World Player of the Year. Her 123 international goals – 14 more than Lionel Messi – rank her ninth all-time, regardless of gender.
But she wasn’t just a scorer, she was also a winner: In the 86 international matches in which she scored a goal, the USA never lost and achieved a record of 76-0-10.
“In a prestigious USWNT program, Alex was one of the best players ever to wear the jersey,” said Jill Ellis, who coached Morgan to her two World Cup titles and then made her the centerpiece of the expansion team’s first roster as president of the Wave.
Wherever she went during her 15-year professional career, Morgan was accompanied by a legion of young fans, their hair pulled back into a tight ponytail like Morgan and their petite bodies draped in Morgan’s No. 13 jersey. A typical home game ended with Morgan patiently walking the stands, signing autographs and posing for photos.
This is one of the reasons why Morgan became one of the most popular players in the world and the USWNT became the most popular women’s national team in the country. In Morgan’s first season, the team averaged fewer than 6,000 fans at eight home games; in their last full season, the number was more than three times that.
“She grew into the role. I think she saw what it meant to the girls,” said her father, Mike, one of her first coaches and still her biggest cheerleader.
U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan holds her daughter Charlie as she listens to U.S. Soccer Federation President Cindy Parlow Cone speak about equal pay.
(Julio Cortez/Associated Press)
But off the field, she has done even more to change soccer. She has been a tireless and vocal advocate for women’s sport, suing FIFA over the use of artificial turf pitches at the 2015 World Cup and then serving as lead plaintiff in the national team’s lawsuit against her own federation, which led to a historic settlement with U.S. Soccer that will see the men’s and women’s national teams paid equally.
Morgan was once the “It Girl” of US soccer and made the cover of Sports Illustrated in both a swimsuit and a soccer jersey. She has since been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people twice.
“Her influence goes beyond medals and trophies,” Ellis added. “Her legacy to the game will be the doors she opened and the young players she inspired.”
But like all great players, Morgan couldn’t run away from time. After taking time off to give birth to Charlie, Morgan had to fight her way back into the national team for the Tokyo Olympics. A year later, she turned in her last dominant international performance, scoring a tournament-best three goals – including the decisive one in the final – to lead the USA to the CONCACAF Women’s Championship in Mexico.
She also won her first NWSL Golden Boot that year, scoring a league-leading 15 goals in the process. However, injuries and poor form have meant she has scored just 10 goals for club and country over the past two years. She failed to score at last summer’s World Cup and failed to make the squad for this summer’s Olympics, the first major tournament she will miss since 2008.
In their absence, strikers Mallory Swanson, Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith – all three are no older than 26 – scored ten goals between them, giving the USA its first Olympic title since 2012. Morgan acknowledged that the torch had been passed.
In her farewell video, which she ended with a thank you to fans, Morgan discussed her impending transition from soccer superstar to soccer mom and the role she played in opening that door.
Alex Morgan signs autographs for fans after an international friendly against Wales in San Jose on July 9, 2023.
(Doug Zimmerman/USSF / Getty Images for USSF)
“Charlie came to me the other day and said she wants to be a soccer player when she grows up,” Morgan said. “That just made me so proud. Not because I want her to be a soccer player when she grows up, but because there is a path that even a four-year-old can see right now.”
“We are changing lives. The impact we have on the next generation is irreversible and I am proud to have played a part in making that possible and moving the game forward and getting it to a place that I am both happy and proud of.”
