Alex Morgan reminisces before final game: ‘I hope my legacy is that I pushed the game forward’

After 13 years of professional soccer, soon-to-be-retired San Diego Wave forward Alex Morgan said she hopes young players watching her will benefit from the work she and her teammates have done in the sport.

“I hope my legacy is that I pushed the game forward,” Morgan said in a news conference Friday. “That I helped gain respect for the women’s game, that I increased the value and the investment in the women’s game, that I helped players and myself not only be respected in the game but have better resources, be protected, have player safety be at the forefront. Have women’s soccer players just play soccer, not have to fight for so much, so many other things that we’ve had to continually fight for.”

Morgan pointed out that young players on the national team are already benefiting from the growth of women’s soccer, praising recent Olympians Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, Croix Bethune and Wave teammate Naomi Girma for winning gold medals and being part of the next generation of star players.

“For some of these younger players who have been able to just focus on themselves, focus on their teams, get better every day, have a pathway to be able to do that, have the resources to do that, that’s what I fought for,” Morgan said. “And I’ve known that I wouldn’t always benefit from all the things that I fought for, but in fighting for equal pay and attaining that, finally, was such a pivotal moment in the history of women’s soccer. It created this sort of butterfly effect throughout women’s soccer globally, that is irreversible, and that I only see continuing to grow.”

On Thursday, Morgan posted a video on her social media platforms announcing her retirement from soccer and that Sunday’s Wave game against North Carolina Courage would be her last. She also announced that she is pregnant with her second child.

The announcement came as a surprise in terms of the timing; Morgan just played 69 minutes for the Wave on Sunday against the Washington Spirit.

Morgan said Friday she unexpectedly discovered she was pregnant “a few weeks ago.”

“I was so happy because this was what our family wanted a couple months sooner than expected,” she said. “But nonetheless, we were very overjoyed. So I think the last couple of weeks was very stressful, but it was consulting with my doctor, talking with my husband, understanding when could be the last game that I could (play) or when I could play up until safely.”

Morgan said she informed her teammates Wednesday morning of her earlier-than-expected retirement. Her original plan, which she decided at the beginning of 2024, was to retire after the season, hopefully after a playoff run and a championship game in November.

Morgan will play limited minutes this weekend against the Courage; she did not specify, but said it “might only be a few minutes.” As is custom for retiring players, Morgan will substitute out early to accept a last round of applause from fans.

“I just want to take in every moment of the game on Sunday,” Morgan said. “From stepping into the locker room, getting ready with my teammates, getting my ankle taped for one last time, warming up one last time, and seeing the national anthem on the field with my daughter right there with me. She’ll be there with me. So I’m very excited about that. “It’s just all the little moments. It’s the accumulation of those little moments that you sometimes just take for granted.”

Morgan has struggled on the field this season. Despite leading the Wave in shots and shots on goal, she hasn’t scored in 12 games. In 2023, Morgan was the Wave’s leading goalscorer with seven goals in 19 games; she also led the team with five assists. Still, her veteran presence was never a question, though the 35-year-old noted with humor that “some players are closer in age to my daughter than they are to me.” (Morgan’s daughter, Charlie, is 4 years old.)

Morgan’s professional career began in 2011 in the previous professional women’s soccer league in the United States, WPS. She reminisced about the progress in the game since that time.

“I learned that I was drafted to Western New York Flash in 2011 from our press officer when we landed in China with the national team because Twitter wasn’t really a big thing,” she said. “It definitely wasn’t broadcasted. There’s clearly no service on planes back then. We’ve come a long way where we actually won’t have a draft moving forward there. Yeah, women’s soccer has come an incredible way.”

In terms of her post-playing career, Morgan pointed to her ongoing work as an investor in women’s sports, including Togethxr, the media and commerce company she founded with Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, Olympic swimmer Simone Manuel and former WNBA player Sue Bird. Morgan was quick to rule out coaching as a path, saying that she has not taken any coaching licenses.

The news conference wrapped with final questions from Girma, who joined the packed room in the back. Girma asked Morgan if her daughter Charlie could still join the Wave on away games, and for Morgan’s favorite soccer memory. (Morgan gave a maybe on Charlie.)

“Some of my best memories are when we won at the Olympics and the two world championships,” Morgan said. “It wasn’t the winning. I mean, it the winning. But it was just the fact that we were so focused and — it’s not robotic, but you’re just like, in it, and you’re on, I don’t know, auto-drive. You feel like you have the blinders on, and you’re just looking forward. And then when you win it, you get to celebrate with your friends and family, you get to be human again. You’re not just an athlete.”

She added: “Winning those, you feel like you can be human, you can celebrate and you can actually just enjoy and be vulnerable and smile. Sometimes you don’t smile for weeks at a time. You just don’t realize it until you finally get to that end point. I think just being able to do that and just go down, what was it, Broadway? Or New York (in 2019). Celebrate with fans and actually just be a human and not the athlete that everyone is seeing you as, like this robotic thing, this thing on this platform.”