Alex Morgan’s Career in Review: The Athlete, the Fighter, the Human Being

SAN DIEGO — Last week I ditched my plans to be in Washington, D.C., for another NWSL game and booked a last-minute flight to San Diego. I found myself standing on the field at Snapdragon Stadium staring down my camera lens at Alex Morgan, the athleteone more time. I watched every micro-expression flash by, every smile, every time she blinked away tears, and the times she didn’t. I pressed the button every time something felt like it could somehow capture the magnitude of the moment, yards away but able to close the distance between us with the simple turn of the lens.

There was also distance – there had to be – between Alex Morgan, the image, and Alex Morgan, the human being.

When Morgan stepped off the pitch in her socks on Sunday, her football boots in hand, it was just three days since she announced her retirement from professional football at the age of 35.

The lack of announcement, and Morgan’s lengthy video explaining her decision, in which she announced that she and husband Servando Carrasco were expecting their second child, meant there would be no lengthy farewell tour. Fans would have days, not months, to ponder what women’s football would look like without Morgan on the pitch.

Her abrupt retirement set in motion a struggle, all the emotions of saying goodbye to one of the game’s greatest players, struggling to define a legacy — or better yet, a first act. Morgan doesn’t push it too far, just as most female footballers of her generation haven’t. They’re builders. Fighters. Morgan is no different, and she is willing to invest in the second act.

Morgan in her last match (Meg Linehan/The Athletics)

Morgan has been excellent at curating what she presents and why for over a decade. She came into the game as social media was changing the way people engaged with women’s football, from the then-niche #WPSChat to Twitter, then Instagram, then TikTok, allowing players to tell their own stories. A weekly online topic chat feels outdated now that women’s football has finally entered mainstream culture (outside of the World Cup hurdles) in recent years. Before all that happened, Morgan was the one making the biggest breakthrough.

Part of this was because she, in many ways, fit a stereotype: a pretty, white girl next door who could score goals and sell Nikes. But what has made Morgan so fascinating to watch over the past decade is how she has harnessed that particular image; the way she has garnered goodwill, recognition and power, and then used it to push for equal pay, better working conditions and protections for players across the country and at every club.

Morgan wasn’t just an image or a mouthpiece for labor battles. She immersed herself in policy work and organizing in both the USWNT and NWSL player associations. She knew the power of her platform, her image, her name, and how to extend that to others. She knew when to step back, when to step forward, when to stand with someone. When Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly shared their stories of abuse in the NWSL, Morgan put her name to her quotes — not just because she knew she likely wouldn’t face retaliation, but because she knew she could amplify their voices.

On Sunday, Shim was with Morgan’s family as they watched her final moments on the field. On the other coast, just hours earlier, Gotham FC honored Farrelly for her retirement — also from her own hand, due to the cumulative impact of head injuries she suffered throughout her career.

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It was fitting that these three were connected once again.

“It’s just incredible what you can do when you listen to players, when you value players, when you pay players, when players have autonomy over where they want to live and what team they want to play for. The longevity of our careers grows with everything I’ve just mentioned, and Sinead was a crucial part of that,” Morgan said in her post-match press conference on Sunday. “So to share the same retirement date with her, because even though we’ve had very different journeys, we’ve been fighting for the same thing, and the league is in a better place because of her.”

That’s not to say that Morgan was always all business.

Morgan was slyly good at being online without actually being online. She knew when a post addressing an issue could have an impact, and she didn’t mind embracing a meme or two. (Did she ever fully embrace the nickname “Baby Horse”? Probably not, but she also ate carrots and a real baby horse fed (He was on camera for US Soccer content, so there was at least some reluctance to accept him.) And no one enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how many drinks could fit into a new trophy.

(Meg Linehan/The Athletics)

But when you’re the face of something, there are definitely going to be consequences.

In her farewell speech, Morgan thanked fans for their criticism. For years, teams had sold tickets based on Morgan’s fame, and it worked — sometimes to the chagrin of her opponents’ fans. She could spark entire news cycles by deciding to play overseas as people wondered what that meant for the NWSL, first with Lyon in France and then a brief stint with Tottenham Hotspur during the height of the pandemic. (As we discovered, it meant little for the NWSL, but thanks to Morgan, Spurs players did have better training conditions.)

While Morgan wasn’t the only one making deals and building a loyal fan base, she was one of the best.

Luckily for Morgan, she was also pretty good at soccer. Some of her fondest memories, she said before Friday’s game, were of winning. Winning offered a respite from the burden of work.

“You’re on autopilot. The way you feel when you have blinders on and you’re just looking forward,” Morgan said. With winning came celebrations. With celebrations, humanity:

“You get to be a human being again, you’re not just an athlete. That’s the best part. We’re all human, and we all have emotions, and we all have vulnerabilities. And in sports, you’re often so disconnected from that, you’re so disconnected from your emotions, from the real world, because you’re so driven.”

Morgan said she sometimes felt like she hadn’t laughed for weeks, only to realize it when the end had already come.

Those moments of laughter and celebration, the ticker-tape parades down Broadway in New York City, were the moments she felt most human. Not, as she said Friday, “this robotic thing on this platform. But I am a sister, I am a daughter, I am a friend.”

On Sunday, Morgan finally had a moment to let those two worlds collide, to be an athlete and more. To have her daughter Charlie with her for the walkouts and the national anthem, and to stand on the field with her family and soak up all the sounds of the adoring San Diego crowd, scattered by people who had traveled from across the country on short notice.

“There have been so many incredible moments, but this one, this last moment that I share with you on the field, I will cherish forever,” Morgan said, mostly holding back tears. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.”

(Top photo: Jose Breton / Pics Action / NurPhoto; design: Dan Goldfarb)