U.S. Women’s Soccer Star Alex Morgan Is Retiring

U.S. women’s soccer star Alex Morgan is officially retiring. In an emotional announcement posted Thursday, she told fans that “this decision wasn’t easy, but at the beginning of 2024, I felt in my heart and soul that this was the last season that I would play soccer.”

She went on to share another piece of life-changing news: She’s pregnant! “As unexpected as this came, we are so overjoyed,” she said. “To me, family means everything.” Morgan married soccer player Servando Carrasco in 2014, and they had their first child, daughter Charlie, in 2020.

Morgan’s professional career started in 2011 with the Western New York Flash after playing at UC Berkeley with the California Golden Bears. She went on to become one of the United States’s most decorated soccer players, representing the country internationally at the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics multiple times. At the London Olympics in 2012, she scored a match-winning goal against Canada in the semifinals, and she’s been named U.S. Soccer Female Athlete of the Year and won the Silver Boot at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2019. She has been playing for the San Diego Wave since 2022.

She has also spent her career advocating for gender equality in sports. In the announcement video, she expressed her pride in having opened doors for future generations. “Success for me is defined by never giving up, and giving your all,” she said. “I did that, giving my all in the relentless push for global investment in women’s sports because we deserve that.” When the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was founded at the start of Morgan’s career in 2012, there were eight teams in the league. Today, there are 12. She teared up when she described the moment when her 4-year-old daughter told her she wanted to be a soccer player: “It just made me immensely proud, not because I wish for her to become a soccer player when she grows up, but because a pathway exists that even a 4-year-old can see now. We’re changing lives, and the impact we have on the next generation is irreversible.”

Morgan’s final match will be this Sunday against the North Carolina Courage.