On Sept. 5, Alex Morgan announced that she would be retiring from women’s soccer. In a video posted on X, titled “Thank You,” Morgan said that her decision “ha[d] been a long time coming and [it] wasn’t easy.” She would play one last game for the San Diego Wave Fútbol Club, which took place last Sunday, Sept. 8. Morgan recounted that at the beginning of 2024, she “felt in her heart and soul that this was the last season” of her professional career. For Morgan, “success … is defined by never giving up and [she] did just that” throughout her 30 years of playing soccer. She aims to keep this mentality as she begins a new phase of her life.

Family is motivation for Morgan and she thanked her family for “uplifting, motivating, and encouraging” her for “the last 15 years as a professional athlete.” She also said that her four-year-old daughter, Charlie, told her recently that she wants to be a soccer player when she grows up. Smiling, Morgan said that she feels proud of this, not because her daughter wants to follow in her footsteps, but because “the pathway [to be a successful women’s soccer player] exists … [and] even a four year old can see [that] now.” The immense development that women's soccer has seen in the United States during the past two decades has “changed lives,” and is due in large part to her trailblazing career.  

As one of the most popular and recognizable female athletes of the last 20 years, Morgan’s retirement signals the end of an era in women’s soccer. Other U.S. Women’s National team legends of her generation — Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe and Julie Ertz — have also retired in the last five years, as a younger wave of women’s soccer stars have started to take over. The most recent national team was the youngest American team sent to the Olympics since 2008. 

 Morgan’s retirement announcement was abrupt, but it was not a surprise. Ending her career during the middle of the National Women's Soccer League season, Morgan said in her video that she had “so much clarity about this decision, and [that she was] so happy to be able to finally tell [her fans].” During her final game, Morgan ended her time at the San Diego Wave with a nod to her iconic jersey number, making an exit not long after the 13-minute mark of the game. As a member and captain of the Wave since their inaugural season as an expansion club for the NWSL in 2022, Morgan led the team to the playoffs during the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Morgan also won the NWSL Golden Boot Award after scoring 15 goals in 17 games during the 2022 season. The Wave lost in the semifinals during the playoffs in both 2022 and 2023. 

Morgan said that at the beginning of 2024, she had higher aspirations for her NWSL season and was not planning on cutting things short. “Unfortunately plans don’t always go the way you draft them up,” she explained during an emotional press conference hosted by the San Diego Wave. For women’s soccer fans, the end of Morgan’s career was foreshadowed by her absence from the United States Women's National team during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. She stated that although her decision to retire was not made out of the blue, “letting [her] teammates know [and] letting the world know ... is an emotional rollercoaster.” In response to a question about her hope for the legacy she has created, Morgan said that she wants people to know that she “pushed the game forward, that [she] gained respect for the women’s game … and that [she] helped players and [herself] not only be respected but have better resources … and be protected.” Moving on from her athletic career, Morgan has found her calling in “investing in women’s sports … and giving a platform [to female athletes].” 

Morgan has already cast a wide net in her efforts to bolster women's sports: she co-founded the media company Together along with Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel and Sue Bird, which focuses on covering exclusively women’s athletics; she launched the Alex Morgan Foundation last year to invest in equitable opportunities for girls’ sports specifically in San Diego; and through personal investments such as her support for Unrivaled, the new 3v3 women's basketball league, she has contributed to not only the development of women's soccer in the United States but to development of women's sports as a unique industry. 

Morgan said that she felt fortunate to end her career in San Diego as she pivots to focusing on her second pregnancy and raising her family. Morgan herself grew up in Southern Los Angeles before going on to play soccer at the University of California at Berkeley, while also competing for the USWNT U20 National team. After graduating in 2010 with her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Economy, Morgan was selected as the number one draft pick by the New York Flash, a former competitor of the Women's Professional Soccer League, which folded in 2012 and was succeeded by the NWSL.

Playing women’s soccer at a professional level in the early 2000s centered more on being called up to play for the national team than focusing on league play. Morgan had an objectively strong professional start as she led the Flash to win the league championship during the 2011 season. However, the real test of success and stardom for her and all women's soccer players was on the world stage. Today, the NWSL garners significantly more attention in terms of viewership, investment and media coverage, now including 14 teams. At the same time, the Women’s Premier Soccer League struggled to maintain its mere seven teams and the average annual base salary for players was $27,000. U.S. Women's National players easily made double that at the time and were also incentivized by bonuses awarded for strong international competitiveness. Playing for the USWNT was not only the ultimate goal because it meant representing one’s country, but it was arguably financially necessary to justify a career in soccer for women. 

After already demonstrating star potential for the United States during the 2008 International Federation of Association Football U-20 Women’s World Cup in Chile, she scored four goals including one that won the U.S. the tournament. Consequently, Morgan was capped by the senior national team in 2010 after graduating early from U.C. Berkeley. She appeared in her first few games for the USWNT as a substitute, but decisively made her mark in the game that qualified the United States for the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Coming off the bench, Morgan scored in the 86th minute to beat Italy 1-0. Thus, her flair for pulling off gritty game-winning moments under pressure was cemented as a staple of the American roster.

In the 2011 Women’s World Cup, Morgan was the youngest American player. She achieved the distinction of being the first player ever to score a goal and record an assist in a World Cup final. Despite ultimately losing the match, Morgan had found her momentum, quickly earning herself a starting position for the team. Contributing impressively to the USWNT’s gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics, Morgan scored 10 goals, tying with established players Megan Rapinoe and Abby Wambach, and leading the team with four assists. Overall in 2012, she led the American team with 28 goals scored, nine multi-goal matches, 21 assists and was honored by the U.S. Soccer Federation as the 2012 Female Athlete of the Year.

Over the next few years Morgan led the USWNT to two more successive FIFA Women’s World Cup victories in 2015 and 2019. While the national team dominated international competition and earned more viewership in their World Cup final (20.3 million) than the World Series, Stanley Cup Final and National Basketball Association Finals, behind the scenes its players were left undeservingly underpaid and unappreciated. In 2016, Morgan was one of six players from the USWNT to file an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint “over inequality in pay and treatment in U.S. women’s soccer.” Women’s soccer was turning into a symbol of inspiration and cultural pride in the United States, bringing soccer to the forefront of youth sports and becoming especially influential for young girls as 2016 saw record numbers that went beyond athletic success and stars of the sport argued that they deserved support that matched their caliber of play. 

The fight for equality took Morgan and her teammates six years of speaking truth to power and often to deaf ears. Statistically, the women’s national team has been far superior to the men’s national team in the last thirty years. However, as cited in the EEOC filing, the bonus female players received for making the ultimately victorious 2015 World Cup team was a meager $30,000 compared to their male counterparts’ $68,750 each for their 2014 World Cup in which they did not make it out of the round of 16. As the women’s team — helmed by Morgan — started to generate welcome revenue for the U.S. Soccer Federation after its back-to-back world cup titles in 2011, 2015 and 2019; its Olympic Gold in 2012 and bronze in 2020; SheBelieves Cup titles in 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2022; and CONCACAF championships in 2014, 2018 and 2022; the USWNT’s status as an American cultural zeitgeist in the 2000s was in obvious disparity with the lack of appreciation from the U.S. Soccer Federation for what was becoming a great asset. 

Morgan was an outspoken critic during this legal battle happening off the field, and said that it was “like a second job” working to manage legal negotiations and advocating for the support and resources she and her teammates should have already been receiving. In 2022, Morgan and the USWNT became the first female athletes in the U.S. to successfully sue their employers. The results of the filing required that men and women playing for the U.S. national teams be paid an equal rate for all international competitions and tournaments. This was a massive victory for women's soccer players in the United States and Morgan summed it up  best, saying, “our goal was to have acknowledgment of discrimination from U.S. Soccer, and we received that through back pay in the settlement. We set out to have fair and equal treatment in working conditions, and we got that through the working conditions settlement.” Her work to achieve these settlements on behalf of herself and the USWNT was a testament to her dedication to the sport, in addition to the legacy of outspoken and fierce activism that became synonymous with the team. The USWNT’s very public legal battle arguably led to a worldwide domino effect as other national teams began to follow suit and reform the wage disparities between their men’s and women’s teams. It was a “huge win” for Morgan and her team and as she said, “it set up the next generation [of soccer players] for something [they] could’ve only dreamed of.”

Because of her actions, Morgan became a celebrated figure in American pop culture. Even as the legal fight to receive equal pay trudged on despite unwavering pressure from herself and her teammates, Morgan kept climbing higher: she racked up multiple Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards nominations and wins, notably Best Female Athlete in 2019; U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year awards in 2012 and 2018; Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football Player of the Year Awards in 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2018; SheBeliev

es Cup Golden Boot and Golden Ball awards in 2016; the FIFA Women’s World Cup Silver Ball award in 2019; and the NWSL Golden Boot in 2022, to name a small portion of her staggering achievements. Over the course of her career, she has played for a total of eight professional teams across the United States and in Europe and has contributed to six various league titles for these clubs.

Morgan's career off the field has already begun to flourish as her titular Alex Morgan Foundation has taken off. In 2023, the foundation distributed $188,500 in grants supporting charities and grassroots organizations focusing on local community outreach programs for moms, such as the Casa Familiar-Promotoras program, which "consists of a dedicated group of women, mostly moms, who serve as community advocates across the border community of San Ysidro." She continues to inspire the next generation of women's soccer players, hosting youth clinics and funding the first ever Soccer Empowerment Camp in South Bay, aiming to combine soccer training with mental health outreach.

Despite this long list of accomplishments, it is Morgan’s words that best capture her career: “[soccer] was one of the first things I ever loved and I gave everything to this sport and what I got in return was more than I ever dreamed of.” Morgan was unable to find the back of the net for the past 14 regular season games, despite scoring the wave’s first goal this season. However, she will be remembered for ending her prolifically successful career on a positive note, leaving the pitch to applause from her teammates and a 200,000 plus crowd who assembled to see her one last time in the 101 degree California heat. Walking back on the field to address the crowd at the end of the game, accompanied by her daughter Charlie, Morgan tearfully thanked her teammates and fans: “this last moment on the field with you, I will cherish forever.” 

A household name and a hometown hero. A beloved star and beholden to nobody. Alex Morgan charted her own career and was revolutionary in her ability to combine and collectivize her own success and stardom while generating inspiration, growth and improvement for the future generations of women's sports.