2024-09-06 01:20:02
CHICAGO (Sept. 5, 2024) – Alex Morgan, one of the greatest goal scorers and winners in U.S. Women’s National Team history and one of the most popular women’s soccer stars in the history of the global game, has officially announced her retirement from professional soccer.
Morgan, who announced today that she is pregnant with her second child, will suit up for a final professional match on Sunday, Sept. 8 when the San Diego Wave takes on the North Carolina Courage at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, Calif.
“I grew up on this team, it was so much more than soccer,” said Morgan, who came into her first USWNT training camp at the end of 2009 at age 20. “It was the friendships and the unwavering respect and support among each other, the relentless push for global investment in women’s sports, and the pivotal moments of success both on and off the field. I am so incredibly honored to have borrowed the crest for more than 15 years. I learned so much about myself in that time and so much of that is a credit to my teammates and our fans. I feel immense pride in where this team is headed, and I will forever be a fan of the USWNT. My desire for success may have always driven me, but what I got in return was more than I could have ever asked and hoped for.”
Morgan, 35, concludes a legendary 15-year professional career in which she scored a voluminous number of important goals for the U.S. Women’s National Team and rose to become one of the most famous female players in the world due to her prolific scoring exploits, dynamic personality, off the field work for women’s sports and equality and non-stop winning. Her cultural impact on women’s soccer is matched by only a select few players in sports history and her inspirational interactions with her fans were second to none.
She finished her USWNT career with 123 goals, good for fifth all time, along with 53 career assists, which is ninth all-time in U.S. history. The USA’s record in matches in which Morgan played stands at 177W-15L-32D. She scored in 86 of her 224 international appearances (good for ninth all-time in U.S. history), while making 158 starts, and she captained the USA 23 times during that span. In the 86 matches in which Morgan scored the USWNT never lost, going 76W-0L-10D.
Morgan’s 176 combined goals and assists rank fifth all-time in USWNT history behind only Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Kristine Lilly and Carli Lloyd.
Since scoring her first career goal in 2010 (it came against China PR), Morgan scored against 32 different countries, with the most coming against Japan (12 goals). She scored 10 goals against Canada, nine against Mexico, eight against New Zealand, seven against both France and Thailand and six each against Costa Rica, Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago.
Morgan’s last game in a U.S. uniform was June 4, 2024, against the Korea Republic. Her final goal came against Argentina on Feb. 23, 2024, in the Concacaf W Gold Cup. Appropriately, the goal came in Carson, Calif., just 40 miles from the SoCal native’s hometown of Diamond Bar.
Morgan’s penultimate USWNT goal came against the Dominican Republic on Feb. 20, 2024. It was her 27th career USWNT goal as a reserve, nine more than any other player in team history.
Morgan finishes her international career third in U.S. history in two-goal games (23), behind only Wambach (37) and Hamm (28). Her 29 career multi-goal games also trail only Wambach (45) and Hamm (38). Of Morgan’s 123 international goals, only five were from the penalty spot.
Nicknamed “Baby Horse” early in her career for her blazing speed and jaunty running style, she scored her first four USWNT goals in 2010 and soon out-grew that moniker as she became one of the most prominent faces of the U.S. team and the women’s game.
Morgan scored her first USWNT goal on March 31, 2010, but really announced her presence on Nov. 20 of that year when she scored in stoppage time against Italy in Padova at the end of the first leg of the Women’s World Cup playoff, giving the USA a 1-0 win and a key advantage heading back to Chicago for the second leg, which the USA won 1-0 to qualify for the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
It was in Germany at that tournament that Morgan truly burst onto the international stage, coming off the bench in five of the six games and joining Wambach as the first two U.S. players to score in a World Cup Semifinal and Final. The USA lost the World Cup Final in a penalty kick shootout, but there would be more world championships in Morgan’s future.
A year later at the 2012 Olympics, Morgan scored three goals with four assists and produced one of the most epic and important goals in U.S. history in the semifinal when she looped in a header in the 123rd minute against Canada to give the USA a dramatic 4-3 win. It still is the latest goal scored ever in a FIFA women’s world championship.
In 2012, Morgan had one of the greatest scoring years of any player in U.S. history when she pounded in a remarkable 28 goals with 21 assists. Mia Hamm is the only other U.S. player to have a year in which she scored at least 20 goals and had at least 20 assists, hitting those exact marks in 1998. Morgan’s 2012 goal total was third most in USWNT history in a calendar year and her assist total tied for second most ever in a year.
Morgan won the first of her two U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year awards in 2012. She would also win in 2018. She was named to the FIFA FIFPRO World XI six times, the second most of any player in history thus far. She twice finished second in voting for FIFA Women’s Player of the Year and finished third once. Morgan was named Concacaf Female Player of the Year four times, including winning the inaugural award in 2013.
Morgan played a major part in helping the USA win back-to-back FIFA Women’s World Cups, playing in 13 of the 14 matches over the 2015 and 2019 tournaments while scoring seven goals with four assists. In 2019, she scored a crucial header goal in the semifinal against England, followed by her now-famous “sipping tea” celebration, and earned a penalty kick in the World Cup Final against the Netherlands that Megan Rapinoe converted for the 1-0 lead. In the opening game of the 2019 World Cup, she tied a U.S. and World Cup record with five goals against Thailand.
Morgan played in 22 World Cup matches and scored nine goals. She played in 16 Olympic matches and scored six goals.
She scored one of the biggest goals of 2022 when she converted from the penalty spot to defeat Canada, 1-0, in the title game of the Concacaf W Championship to help the USA earn a berth to the 2024 Paris Olympics after clinching a spot in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup earlier in that tournament.
Her goal against Nigeria on Sept. 3, 2022, gave her goals against teams from all six FIFA Confederations, the 14th U.S. player to accomplish that feat.
In 2008, Morgan helped lead the USA to the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup title in Chile on a team coached by the legendary Tony DiCicco. Morgan scored four goals in that competition, including what turned out to be the game-winner in the World Cup Final, a 2-1 win over Korea DPR. She won the Silver Ball as the second-best player in the tournament – behind teammate Sydney Leroux – and won the Bronze Shoe as the third-leading scorer.
Morgan gave birth to her first child, daughter Charlie, on May 7, 2020, and would come back to play in the 2021 Olympics and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Morgan was the 14th mom to play for the USWNT, and with her goal against Brazil on Feb. 22, 2023, she moved past Joy Fawcett to become the all-time leader in USWNT goals as a mom with 14. She finished her career with 16 goals as a mother
At the professional club level, Morgan was one of the pioneers of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), playing in the league every year of its existence. Her club career also included brief stints in Europe at Olympique Lyon in 2017, when she helped the club win the treble – the league, French Cup and UEFA Champions League — and for Tottenham Hotspur in 2020. She started her NWSL career with the Portland Thorns (2013-2015), winning the inaugural NWSL title, and then played for the Orlando Pride (2016-2021) before playing her last two and a half seasons with the San Diego Wave, for whom she scored 22 goals. She won the NWSL Golden Boot in 2022 with 15 goals.
Morgan also played one season in the short-lived Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) league after being taken #1 in the 2011 WPS Draft by the Western New York Flash. She helped the Flash win the WPS regular season and league titles that year.
Alexandra Patricia Morgan was born in San Dimas, Calif. and grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Diamond Bar, where she attended Diamond Bar High School. She joined Cypress Elite at the age of 14 and, despite suffering an ACL tear as a teenager, worked herself up through the ranks to the U.S. U-20 WNT while earning a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, where she would score 45 goals for the Golden Bears and become a four-time All-Pac-10 selection and a First-Team All-American.
In college, she met her future husband, Servando Carrasco, also a Cal soccer player who would go on to play nine years in Major League Soccer, Morgan appeared on the cover of numerous major magazines during her career, including Time, Adweek, Sports Illustrated, SI for Kids and Glamour, to name a few. She is a best-selling author of a children’s book series and co-stared in a feature film “Alex and Me” in 2018.
In 2023, she launched the Alex Morgan Foundation to create equity and opportunity for girls and women on and off the field while focusing on sports equity and support for moms. It was another step in a long career of charity work, service and advocacy.
Her impact on and off the field will no doubt be felt for years to come.
