Alex Morgan Announces Retirement From Professional Soccer Following Sunday’s Match

SAN DIEGO (Sept. 5, 2024) — San Diego Wave FC and U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Staff icon Alex Morgan has introduced at the moment her choice to retire from skilled soccer. Morgan, widely known as one of many best gamers within the historical past of the game, will shut her outstanding profession this Sunday, Sept. 8, at Snapdragon Stadium with San Diego Wave. 

• Buy tickets to see Alex Morgan play in her remaining match this Sunday right here.

“I’m retiring. I’ve a lot readability about this choice,” mentioned Alex Morgan in her retirement video. “It has been a very long time coming, and this choice wasn’t straightforward, however originally of 2024, I felt in my coronary heart and soul that this was the final season that I might play soccer. The affect we now have on the subsequent technology is irreversible, and I’m pleased with the hand I had in making that occur, pushing the sport ahead, and leaving it in a spot that I’m so pleased and pleased with.”

Morgan, 35, has had an illustrious 13-and-a-half yr profession that noticed her function within the prime divisions in the USA and Europe, in addition to develop into an icon of the USA Girls’s Nationwide Staff, amassing over 200 targets and 88 assists throughout 337 appearances. Morgan will shut her legendary profession with San Diego because the all-time targets (28) and help chief (11). Internationally, Morgan ranks within the prime 10 in U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Staff historical past for targets, assists and multi-goal video games.

The ahead’s intensive listing of profession accolades additionally consists of numerous particular person recognitions being named U.S. Soccer Feminine Athlete of the Yr twice (2012, 2018), FIFA FIFPRO Girls’s World 11 choice (2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022) and CONCACAF Participant of the Yr 4 instances (2013, 2016, 2017, 2018). Morgan additionally captured an NWSL Championship, NWSL Defend, NWSL Problem Cup and Champions League, amongst others. 

On the worldwide stage, Morgan has starred for the U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Staff since 2010. The ahead made 224 appearances for the USWNT and scored 123 targets throughout all competitions, the fifth-most of any participant within the nation’s historical past. She appeared in matches at 4 editions of the FIFA Girls’s World Cup, together with capturing the titles in 2015 and 2019, whereas additionally changing into a gold medalist (2012) and a bronze medalist (2020) on the Olympic stage. Following a 2012 season that she completed with 28 targets and 21 assists, Morgan joined Mia Hamm as the one American girl to attain 20 targets and supply 20 assists in the identical calendar yr. In 2019, the two-time World Cup champion gained the Silver Boot on the 2019 World Cup, scoring six targets and three assists. 

On the membership stage, Morgan signed for San Diego Wave on July 24, 2022 earlier than happening to make 50 appearances and tallying 23 targets and 9 assists in NWSL motion. She led the staff in scoring in 2022 with 16 targets, incomes NWSL Golden Boot within the membership’s inaugural season. The Wave captain led San Diego to unprecedented success, because the membership grew to become the primary enlargement staff in league historical past to make the playoffs in its inaugural season. The membership adopted that by lifting their first trophy – the 2023 NWSL Defend – in San Diego’s second season of play. 

Earlier than becoming a member of San Diego Wave, the American star ahead featured for Orlando Pleasure throughout a number of stints, first becoming a member of the enlargement aspect in October 2015. Throughout her time with Orlando, Morgan scored 23 targets in 66 appearances (64 begins). In 2017, she briefly performed for Olympique Lyonnais, the place she helped lead the staff to the UEFA Girls’s Champions League and the French Cup. 

Morgan was one of many league’s unique allotted gamers in 2013, transferring to the Portland Thorns the place she led the staff in scoring and helped the aspect safe the inaugural NWSL Championship. She started her skilled profession because the primary total decide within the 2011 WPS Draft by the Western New York Flash, the place the membership captured the WPS Championship. 

Morgan’s affect extends past her taking part in profession via her philanthropic efforts, together with the launch of the Alex Morgan Basis in 2023, which focuses on supporting and empowering younger women in sports activities. The muse’s work is deeply rooted to Morgan’s long-standing advocacy for gender equality, impressed by her personal expertise as knowledgeable athlete and mom. Morgan has additionally been a co-founder of Togethxr, a media platform that amplifies the tales of ladies in sports activities and past. 

Morgan introduced on Thursday morning that she is pregnant together with her second youngster with husband Servando Carrasco. The couple welcomed their first youngster, Charlie, in Could 2020. 

San Diego Wave FC will have a good time Alex Morgan’s storied profession throughout the membership’s remaining house match on Sunday, November 3 at Snapdragon Stadium. Tickets for the match will be bought right here.