One of many best U.S. ladies’s nationwide staff gamers will hold up her cleats and say farewell on Sunday. Lengthy-time ahead Alex Morgan introduced her retirement in a farewell video on Thursday and the Wave FC striker will play her last recreation towards North Carolina Braveness at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, California. Morgan will depart behind a virtually 15-year skilled profession the place she earned a number of championships, titles, and private accolades. 

She made her senior nationwide staff debut in 2010 and went on to make 223 appearances, scoring 123 objectives, good for fifth all-time. She’s a two-time FIFA Girls’s World Cup champion (2015 and 2019) and earned Olympic gold and bronze medals. She’s as completed on the membership degree too, with a 2011 WSP Championship, 2013 NWSL Championship, 2017 UEFA Champions League title, and a 2024 NWSL Protect.

Her massive moments have been felt throughout the globe, each on and off the pitch, and he or she made most of them carrying her iconic No. 13. So let’s check out 13 prime moments of her profession:

13. California child makes a snowy senior debut

Morgan made a memorable senior debut in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah towards Mexico on a snow-covered pitch. It was an look off the bench and he or she was repping No. 21 on the time, but it surely was the looks that began all of it. 

12. 2008 U-20 World Cup champion

The youth staff that launched Morgan, Sydney Leroux, and Alyssa Naeher into the highlight. Morgan was a key determine for the staff and scored 4 objectives within the run to the second-ever U20 World Cup title. Her performances earned her future call-ups to senior-level coaching camps. 

11. Clutch objective to advance into the 2011 World Cup

After making her senior staff debut, Morgan was rapidly acclimated into this system’s plans as a next-gen participant. The senior squad made an prolonged qualifying effort after not sealing their place within the 2011 World Cup by way of preliminary Concacaf qualifiers with a third-place end. They met Italy for a two-leg intercontinental playoff. Morgan delivered the lone objective within the first leg that finally sealed the squad’s place within the 2011 event.

10. 2011 World Cup debut

If the 2008 U20 World Cup was a sneak peek on the future, the 2011 World Cup was the official unveiling of Morgan as the subsequent star striker of the staff. She was an added increase off the bench all through the competitors, scored two objectives, and delivered one help in her first senior degree World Cup. The nationwide staff settled for runners-up towards Japan, however Morgan made historical past as the primary participant to ever rating and file an help in a ladies’s World Cup last. 

9. First membership title with Western New York Flash

Morgan’s era was additionally the ultimate draft class for the now-defunct WPS (Girls’s Skilled Soccer) league. The NWSL’s predecessor was solely round for 3 seasons, however Morgan’s arrival to WNY Flash was a historic one. She featured in 14 video games and scored 4 objectives and the membership ran away with the common season title and championship title. 

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8. Helped launch three NWSL golf equipment

After WPS folded, many gamers affiliated with the nationwide staff have been a serious a part of planning the subsequent iteration of a professional ladies’s soccer league. Because the NWSL ready to launch, it did so with the assistance of U.S. Soccer and the dedication of the gamers. There was an allocation system in place, and several other golf equipment have been new franchises, whereas others have been current membership manufacturers. 

Morgan was allotted to Portland Thorns FC in the course of the allocation draft forward of the inaugural 2013 season — one of many new ladies’s soccer franchises to launch the league. Because the league expanded, Morgan ultimately discovered herself on different inaugural rosters in NWSL. She helped launch Orlando Delight forward of the 2016 season, and later, San Diego Wave FC forward of the 2022 season.

7. Profitable on the membership degree

She gained the 2013 NWSL Championship with the Thorns throughout their first-ever season, a season the place she shared team-leading objective scorer honors with teammate Christine Sinclair, and delivered an help within the championship last. She gained the league’s Golden Boot in 2022 with San Diego throughout their inaugural season and gained the 2023 NWSL Protect with the Wave — awarded to the staff with probably the most factors within the common season. 

6. European stints

The membership degree additionally consists of quick loans abroad in Europe. In 2017, Morgan joined Olympique Lyon and scored 5 objectives in eight appearances with the staff. Although she navigated a hamstring damage whereas with the squad, and it restricted a few of her performances, Morgan’s time with the staff led to extra {hardware} as Lyon went on to safe the treble profitable the home league, the Coupe de France Female, and the UEFA Girls’s Champions League title.

She additionally hung out in England with Tottenham. Her first and solely stint within the WSL got here throughout a time of uncertainty. With leagues affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, enjoying alternatives within the NWSL throughout 2020 seemed totally different than they might have throughout a conventional season. For Morgan, who was additionally returning to play after giving start in Could 2020, it was a brief mortgage expertise, from September to December. Her greatest impression got here within the type of notoriety and affect, by getting the franchise to alter their subpar coaching grounds and transfer over to the lads’s coaching fields. 

5. Olympic 2012 semfinal towards Canada

In what is usually labeled as the best soccer recreation ever performed, long-time rivals Canada and america met within the London Olympic semifinal at Outdated Trafford. The 2 sides performed to a wild 3-3 scoreline in regulation, whereas a tense interval of additional time was wanted to find out who would advance. 

It was arguably the sport that solidified Morgan’s place because the “current” striker of the staff as an alternative of the longer term participant. With time winding down in second additional time, Heather O’Reilly whipped a ball into the field and Morgan was there, able to rise and head the ball into objective as the sport clock expired. 

4. Championing others within the recreation

Morgan’s legacy expands past the pitch for a lot of. She’s been vocal about efforts to develop the sport and broaden alternatives for women within the recreation. She was from a era of gamers who developed the idea of utilizing one’s private platform for one thing larger. She has usually advocated for bettering the ladies’s recreation, allyship for the LGBTQ neighborhood, and girls’s fairness.

In 2023, because the staff held friendlies in Florida and Texas, Morgan was vocal about defending trans youth in sports activities.  

“Taking a look at these video games in Florida and Texas respectively, we’ll must proceed to step it up, and have inner discussions as nicely with the staff, as a result of we’re not ones to shrink back from onerous dialog or taking a stand for what’s proper,” Morgan informed reporters on the time.

3. Trusted Teammate

In maybe the most important instance of championing others, Alex Morgan was considered one of a handful of gamers who made repeated efforts to attempt to advocate for teammates who have been experiencing various ranges of abuse and misconduct within the league.

In a 2021, report exposing sexual misconduct allegations by former Portland Thorns teammates Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly towards former head coach Paul Riley, Alex Morgan was named as a participant who Shim and Farrelly turned to when their considerations have been brushed apart by former Thorns executives. The story made nationwide headlines, positioned a highlight on the league, and led to almost year-long investigations in misconduct by U.S. Soccer, and a joint staff investigation between the NWSL and NWSL Gamers Affiliation. 

Previous to the story coming to mild, Morgan, Shim, and Farelly found there have been no functioning protocols for participant safety within the participant handbook. There was additionally no anti-harassment coverage in place previous to the 2021 story. Morgan helped change that, as she led 240 gamers to signal a letter to former NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird asking for processes for participant safety within the league. 

2. Semifinal tea sip celebration towards England

Whereas Morgan has a whole trophy case filled with {hardware}, her celebratory pop in the course of the 2019 World Cup will stay on for eternity. As america confronted England within the semifinal, Morgan scored the game-winning objective within the thirty first minute and instantly ran to the nook flag successful a “tea sipping” celebration. It was witty and iconic. and feather ruffling — and it was the best stuff American goals are manufactured from. 

Whereas she caught some criticism for it, Morgan defended her celebration telling media,  “I really feel that there’s some type of double-standard for females in sports activities, to really feel like we’ve got to be humble in our successes and must have a good time, however not an excessive amount of or in a restricted vogue,” she mentioned on the time. 

The USWNT gained the semifinal 2-1 and went on to win the 2019 World Cup with a 2-0 win towards the Netherlands within the last. England went on to earn fourth-place.

1. Equal pay battle

Morgan was one of many faces, and names, on a lawsuit towards the U.S. Soccer Federation because the staff navigated the 2019 FIFA Girls’s World Cup. After an prolonged battle from their preliminary EEOC submitting, the group was navigating uncharted waters however held the facility of information and historical past of prime performances within the briefcases that aided them within the courtroom of public opinion and all through authorized classes that lasted a number of years.

It was a battle that was years within the making, with lawsuits and litigation a near-constant carousel, however lastly paid off in February 2022. The nationwide staff reached a $24 million settlement with the federation that included World Cup backpay prize cash and a dedication that each the ladies’s and males’s groups would obtain equal pay. The 2 nationwide groups signed a historic collective bargaining settlement that runs by way of 2028 and options equal compensation for all competitions, World Cups, and a income sharing mechanism. 

The bigger scale, very public battle, had a ripple impact. Because the NWSL was within the midst of ongoing investigations into the misconduct in ladies’s home soccer, the NWSL Gamers Affiliation was additionally actively negotiating their very own, first ever, CBA, which was signed in ratified in January 2022.