Alex Morgan retires as an all-time great, not just for her USWNT and NWSL success, but for the fights she had off the field.
There is no weight like the expectation of being the next star of the U.S. women’s national team.
Alex Morgan shouldered that as a 20-year-old in 2009, when she joined her first senior training camp with the team. She hadn’t yet debuted for the U.S., and already she was drawing comparisons to Mia Hamm, the legend who won a pair of World Cups and Olympics and served as the face of the first generation of American women’s soccer players.
On Thursday, 15 years later, Morgan has announced she will retire after one final match on Sunday with the San Diego Wave FC, bringing an abrupt ending to a career that somehow managed to exceed astronomically high expectations on the field, all while redefining the sport off it.
Morgan finishes her career with 123 international goals, which ranks fifth in a decorated pantheon of USWNT goal-scorers. She won a pair of World Cups and played in another final, and her breakout 2012 for the national team was an integral ingredient to U.S. women winning the Olympic gold medal that year.
Her club career includes an NWSL Championship, an NWSL Shield, and a Golden Boot, in addition to another title won in the predecessor league, Women’s Professional Soccer.
On the field, Morgan lived up to the hype that preceded her. Her form ebbed and flowed throughout her international career — she never grabbed hold of the title of world’s best player, reaching the shortlist several times. But she largely remained the centerpiece of the USWNT’s attack throughout that time and maintained a standard few could match.
Each time her incumbent status was challenged in recent years, she responded with an uptick in form and a reminder of why she was still needed for club and country — up until recently, at least.
Morgan was left off the USWNT’s 2024 Olympic roster, marking the team’s first major tournament without the star striker since the 2008 Olympics. It was a bold decision from new USWNT head coach Emma Hayes in her first months on the job, but the Americans went on to win gold at the Olympics in August thanks in part to a new, young forward line.
For all the on-field accolades, Morgan cemented her unique legacy with what she did away from the pitch.
She began her career as a quiet rookie playing in relative anonymity in Rochester, New York.
