As Abby Wambach nodded the ball downwards in the penalty area at Subaru Park 15 years ago, Alex Morgan – in her trademark pink, DIY pre-wrap headband – made a well-timed run and came through with a simple finish, a perfect set-up for her first international goal. In retrospect, Morgan described it as “the start of something great,” almost an understatement for what came next.
Morgan went on to score 123 goals for the U.S. women’s national team, earn 220 caps over 14 years, win two Women’s World Cups and an Olympic gold medal along the way – and those are only her accolades on the international stage. Her on-field accomplishments are just one aspect of the collection of great moments that made up her USWNT career, though. Morgan will return to the stadium where she scored her very first international goal on Thursday nearly 15 years to the day, taking part in one final retirement ceremony after she hung up her cleats last year. Instead of the 2,505 who filled the venue the day of her debut USWNT goal, though, Morgan will likely be greeted by a full house, the legacy she leaves behind in full view.
“I think for everyone on this team, she’s just a hero for all of us and I think is someone who epitomizes what it means to leave something better than you found it,” midfielder Sam Coffey, whose USWNT rise came towards the end of Morgan’s national team career. “I grew up watching her. I think every young girl growing up and playing, you’re like, ‘I love Alex Morgan!’ I had a poster of her up on my wall. I had to take it down recently in my childhood bedroom.”
Morgan will be a spectator to a new-look version of the USWNT on Thursday in a friendly against Portugal, the first game in head coach Emma Hayes’ preparation for next year’s Women’s World Cup qualification tournament. Hayes’ youth-skewing team is made up of players who had her example to follow growing up, supported by a handful of veterans who have been tasked with instilling the USWNT’s longstanding competitive and winning culture to the newcomers. Before Coffey and Rose Lavelle became the players responsible for passing on wisdom, there was Morgan and an entire generation of stars who shared the tricks of a very unique trade with them.
“I’ve been saying she and all these players that have been retiring recently, that’s who taught us how to be excellent in this environment and I think that’s what we try to consistently match and uphold,” Lavelle, a member of the 2019 World Cup-winning team, said. “I think it’s the reason that this this program has been in such a good spot, is because of that legacy on the field that they’ve all left so I think she’s taught me so much and I think now being in a position where I’m now a veteran leader, having her to look up to and learn from leading up to this moment has really been huge and has put all of us in a better position to be the best version of ourselves.”
It is almost difficult to recall a time when Morgan was not a larger-than-life figure in women’s soccer. She went from a player on the rise to a bonafide star in almost no time, breaking out during the 2011 Women’s World Cup, the team’s run to the final commanding a new level of attention that has not waned since. Morgan inherited the attention Mia Hamm left behind, becoming not only the face of the team but of the sport as a whole less than a year after scoring her first international goal in the Philadelphia suburbs. She was the rare professional women’s soccer player who became a household name, always boasting the on-field credentials to back it up.
“There was nothing she didn’t achieve,” Hayes, who worked with Morgan briefly as the USWNT coach, said. “She was a player that epitomized what this program is about. An unbelievable credit to her family because her drive, her desire, her determination to prove herself at the highest level is second to none. You can’t go anywhere in this country without them talking about Alex Morgan and I think this sport should show a lot of gratitude to that because it’s important for our players to be recognizable and she is, without question, one of the most recognizable faces in our sport. … She’s got so many telling moments that were difference-making moments in her career and the impact she’s had on this team is immeasurable.”
Morgan’s true greatness, though, lies in the fact that she coupled her unprecedented profile with the will to create meaningful change. Her legacy will always be two-fold, impressively becoming a rare athlete to leave such an indelible mark on the sport they played. She was not only the face of the USWNT as they won two World Cups; she was one of its faces as they waged an equal pay battle with the U.S. Soccer Federation that finally ended in a hard-fought victory with a historic settlement in 2022. Many of the players on the current roster have only ever known the pleasure of sharing equal working conditions with their USMNT counterparts and full stadiums, the potential of what women’s soccer now fully visible for anyone to see.
“I think what she’s done and continued to do for women’s sports in general has been huge,” Lavelle said, “and I think we’ve all benefitted greatly from that and hopefully we can continue to pass on that legacy in the same way but it’s huge shoes to fill.”
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