CHICAGO (Sept. 5, 2024) – Alex Morgan, one of many biggest objective scorers and winners in U.S. Ladies’s Nationwide Crew historical past and one of the widespread girls’s soccer stars within the historical past of the worldwide sport, has formally introduced her retirement from skilled soccer.
Morgan, who introduced at present that she is pregnant together with her second little one, will swimsuit up for a ultimate skilled match on Sunday, Sept. 8 when the San Diego Wave takes on the North Carolina Braveness at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, Calif.
“I grew up on this workforce, it was a lot greater than soccer,” mentioned Morgan, who got here into her first USWNT coaching camp on the finish of 2009 at age 20. “It was the friendships and the unwavering respect and assist amongst one another, the relentless push for world funding in girls’s sports activities, and the pivotal moments of success each on and off the sector. I’m so extremely honored to have borrowed the crest for greater than 15 years. I realized a lot about myself in that point and a lot of that could be a credit score to my teammates and our followers. I really feel immense delight in the place this workforce is headed, and I’ll perpetually be a fan of the USWNT. My want for achievement could have at all times pushed me, however what I bought in return was greater than I might have ever requested and hoped for.”
Morgan, 35, concludes a legendary 15-year skilled profession by which she scored a voluminous variety of essential targets for the U.S. Ladies’s Nationwide Crew and rose to turn out to be one of the well-known feminine gamers on the planet as a result of her prolific scoring exploits, dynamic persona, off the sector work for ladies’s sports activities and equality and continuous profitable. Her cultural affect on girls’s soccer is matched by solely a choose few gamers in sports activities historical past and her inspirational interactions together with her followers had been second to none.
She completed her USWNT profession with 123 targets, good for fifth all time, together with 53 profession assists, which is ninth all-time in U.S. historical past. The USA’s document in matches by which Morgan performed stands at 177W-15L-32D. She scored in 86 of her 224 worldwide appearances (good for ninth all-time in U.S. historical past), whereas making 158 begins, and he or she captained the USA 23 instances throughout that span. Within the 86 matches by which Morgan scored the USWNT by no means misplaced, going 76W-0L-10D.
Morgan’s 176 mixed targets and assists rank fifth all-time in USWNT historical past behind solely Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Kristine Lilly and Carli Lloyd.
Since scoring her first profession objective in 2010 (it got here towards China PR), Morgan scored towards 32 completely different international locations, with essentially the most coming towards Japan (12 targets). She scored 10 targets towards Canada, 9 towards Mexico, eight towards New Zealand, seven towards each France and Thailand and 6 every towards Costa Rica, Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago.
Morgan’s final sport in a U.S. uniform was June 4, 2024, towards the Korea Republic. Her ultimate objective got here towards Argentina on Feb. 23, 2024, within the Concacaf W Gold Cup. Appropriately, the objective got here in Carson, Calif., simply 40 miles from the SoCal native’s hometown of Diamond Bar.
Morgan’s penultimate USWNT objective got here towards the Dominican Republic on Feb. 20, 2024. It was her twenty seventh profession USWNT objective as a reserve, 9 greater than some other participant in workforce historical past.
Morgan finishes her worldwide profession third in U.S. historical past in two-goal video games (23), behind solely Wambach (37) and Hamm (28). Her 29 profession multi-goal video games additionally path solely Wambach (45) and Hamm (38). Of Morgan’s 123 worldwide targets, solely 5 had been from the penalty spot.
Nicknamed “Child Horse” early in her profession for her blazing pace and jaunty working type, she scored her first 4 USWNT targets in 2010 and shortly out-grew that moniker as she grew to become one of the outstanding faces of the U.S. workforce and the ladies’s sport.
Morgan scored her first USWNT objective on March 31, 2010, however actually introduced her presence on Nov. 20 of that 12 months when she scored in stoppage time towards Italy in Padova on the finish of the primary leg of the Ladies’s World Cup playoff, giving the USA a 1-0 win and a key benefit heading again to Chicago for the second leg, which the USA gained 1-0 to qualify for the 2011 FIFA Ladies’s World Cup.
It was in Germany at that match that Morgan actually burst onto the worldwide stage, coming off the bench in 5 of the six video games and becoming a member of Wambach as the primary two U.S. gamers to attain in a World Cup Semifinal and Closing. The USA misplaced the World Cup Closing in a penalty kick shootout, however there can be extra world championships in Morgan’s future.
A 12 months later on the 2012 Olympics, Morgan scored three targets with 4 assists and produced one of the epic and essential targets in U.S. historical past within the semifinal when she looped in a header within the 123rd minute towards Canada to present the USA a dramatic 4-3 win. It nonetheless is the newest objective scored ever in a FIFA girls’s world championship.
In 2012, Morgan had one of many biggest scoring years of any participant in U.S. historical past when she pounded in a exceptional 28 targets with 21 assists. Mia Hamm is the one different U.S. participant to have a 12 months by which she scored at the least 20 targets and had at the least 20 assists, hitting these precise marks in 1998. Morgan’s 2012 objective whole was third most in USWNT historical past in a calendar 12 months and her help whole tied for second most ever in a 12 months.
Morgan gained the primary of her two U.S. Soccer Feminine Participant of the Yr awards in 2012. She would additionally win in 2018. She was named to the FIFA FIFPRO World XI six instances, the second most of any participant in historical past to this point. She twice completed second in voting for FIFA Ladies’s Participant of the Yr and completed third as soon as. Morgan was named Concacaf Feminine Participant of the Yr 4 instances, together with profitable the inaugural award in 2013.
Morgan performed a significant half in serving to the USA win back-to-back FIFA Ladies’s World Cups, taking part in in 13 of the 14 matches over the 2015 and 2019 tournaments whereas scoring seven targets with 4 assists. In 2019, she scored an important header objective within the semifinal towards England, adopted by her now-famous “sipping tea” celebration, and earned a penalty kick within the World Cup Closing towards the Netherlands that Megan Rapinoe transformed for the 1-0 lead. Within the opening sport of the 2019 World Cup, she tied a U.S. and World Cup document with 5 targets towards Thailand.
Morgan performed in 22 World Cup matches and scored 9 targets. She performed in 16 Olympic matches and scored six targets.
She scored one of many greatest targets of 2022 when she transformed from the penalty spot to defeat Canada, 1-0, within the title sport of the Concacaf W Championship to assist the USA earn a berth to the 2024 Paris Olympics after clinching a spot within the 2023 FIFA Ladies’s World Cup earlier in that match.
Her objective towards Nigeria on Sept. 3, 2022, gave her targets towards groups from all six FIFA Confederations, the 14th U.S. participant to perform that feat.
In 2008, Morgan helped lead the USA to the FIFA Beneath-20 Ladies’s World Cup title in Chile on a workforce coached by the legendary Tony DiCicco. Morgan scored 4 targets in that competitors, together with what turned out to be the game-winner within the World Cup Closing, a 2-1 win over Korea DPR. She gained the Silver Ball because the second-best participant within the match – behind teammate Sydney Leroux – and gained the Bronze Shoe because the third-leading scorer.
Morgan gave delivery to her first little one, daughter Charlie, on Could 7, 2020, and would come again to play within the 2021 Olympics and 2023 FIFA Ladies’s World Cup. Morgan was the 14th mother to play for the USWNT, and together with her objective towards Brazil on Feb. 22, 2023, she moved previous Pleasure Fawcett to turn out to be the all-time chief in USWNT targets as a mother with 14. She completed her profession with 16 targets as a mom
On the skilled membership degree, Morgan was one of many pioneers of the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League (NWSL), taking part in within the league yearly of its existence. Her membership profession additionally included transient stints in Europe at Olympique Lyon in 2017, when she helped the membership win the treble – the league, French Cup and UEFA Champions League — and for Tottenham Hotspur in 2020. She began her NWSL profession with the Portland Thorns (2013-2015), profitable the inaugural NWSL title, after which performed for the Orlando Delight (2016-2021) earlier than taking part in her final two and a half seasons with the San Diego Wave, for whom she scored 22 targets. She gained the NWSL Golden Boot in 2022 with 15 targets.
Morgan additionally performed one season within the short-lived Ladies’s Skilled Soccer (WPS) league after being taken #1 within the 2011 WPS Draft by the Western New York Flash. She helped the Flash win the WPS common season and league titles that 12 months.
Alexandra Patricia Morgan was born in San Dimas, Calif. and grew up within the Los Angeles suburb of Diamond Bar, the place she attended Diamond Bar Excessive College. She joined Cypress Elite on the age of 14 and, regardless of struggling an ACL tear as a teen, labored herself up by the ranks to the U.S. U-20 WNT whereas incomes a scholarship to the College of California, Berkeley, the place she would rating 45 targets for the Golden Bears and turn out to be a four-time All-Pac-10 choice and a First-Crew All-American.
In school, she met her future husband, Servando Carrasco, additionally a Cal soccer participant who would go on to play 9 years in Main League Soccer, Morgan appeared on the quilt of quite a few main magazines throughout her profession, together with Time, Adweek, Sports activities Illustrated, SI for Children and Glamour, to call a number of. She is a best-selling writer of a youngsters’s guide collection and co-stared in a characteristic movie “Alex and Me” in 2018.
In 2023, she launched the Alex Morgan Basis to create fairness and alternative for women and girls on and off the sector whereas specializing in sports activities fairness and assist for mothers. It was one other step in a protracted profession of charity work, service and advocacy.
Her affect on and off the sector will little question be felt for years to come back.