Two-time Soccer World Cup winner and Olympic gold medalist Alex Morgan has retired from skilled soccer.
Alex Morgan, a two-time FIFA Girls’s World Cup winner and an Olympic gold medal who’s retiring from skilled soccer as one of many U.S. nationwide crew’s most prolific scorers and a driving power within the combat for equal pay necessary figures.
Morgan, 35, introduced the information on social media on Thursday, saying she was pregnant along with her second youngster. Morgan got here near tears at instances whereas delivering her heartfelt message.
“The choice was not straightforward, however at the start of 2024, I felt deep down that it will be my final season of soccer,” she stated. “Soccer has been part of me for 30 years, it was considered one of my first passions. I gave every little thing to this sport and I bought again greater than I might have ever dreamed of.
Morgan will play her ultimate sport in opposition to her membership crew, the Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League (NWSL) San Diego Waves, on Sunday at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, California.
Two-time Girls’s World Cup champion and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Alex Morgan has introduced her retirement from skilled soccer.#ThankYouAlex
— U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Soccer Crew (@USWNT) September 5, 2024
Throughout a 15-year profession with the U.S. Nationwide Crew, Morgan made an impression each on and off the sphere, combating for equal pay and talking out on social justice points.
Along with the 2015 and 2019 World Cup titles, Morgan received a gold medal with Crew USA on the 2012 London Olympics and a bronze medal on the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Morgan performed 224 video games for the nationwide crew (ninth in historical past), scoring 123 targets (fifth in historical past) and 53 assists (ninth in historical past). She was named U.S. Soccer Participant of the 12 months in 2012 and 2018.
Her ultimate sport with Crew USA will probably be in opposition to South Korea on June 4, 2024. She just isn’t on the checklist of gold medalists on the Paris Olympics.
Morgan was considered one of 5 gamers who complained of wage discrimination to the U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Fee in 2016. In 2019, the gamers sued U.S. Soccer, citing unfair pay and remedy in comparison with the boys’s nationwide crew. The lawsuit was settled, and the 2 sides reached a collective bargaining settlement in 2022 to pay each groups equal wages.
“The definition of success to me is rarely giving up and giving it your all, and that is what I did,” Morgan stated. “I give my all on the court docket every single day and I give my all in my relentless drive to put money into girls’s sports activities as a result of we deserve it.”
Morgan has been enjoying for the San Diego Waves since 2022. In 2022, she turned the Golden Boot winner with essentially the most targets within the league. She has additionally performed internationally for Lyon and Tottenham Hotspur.
Morgan and her husband, Servando Carrasco, have a daughter, Charlie, born in 2020.
“Charlie got here to me someday and stated she wished to be a soccer participant when she grew up,” Morgan stated. “It makes me very proud, not as a result of I need her to develop as much as be a footballer, however as a result of there’s a path that even a four-year-old can see now. We’re altering lives and our imaginative and prescient for the following era. The impression is irreversible, and I am pleased with reaching that, transferring the sport ahead, and getting it to a spot that I really feel actually comfortable and happy with.
