Alex Morgan to Retire After Reshaping U.S. Women’s Soccer

Alex Morgan is hanging up her cleats. 

One of the greatest soccer players in U.S. history, the 35-year-old announced her retirement in an emotional video posted Thursday morning. She also said she was pregnant with her second child. Her last NWSL game will be Sunday with the San Diego Wave. 

“It has been a long time coming, and 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,” Morgan said in the announcement. 

Morgan helped lead the U.S. women’s national soccer team to a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics and two World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019. She was both an influential figure in the growth of American soccer and one of the most marketed athletes in U.S. sports. She also led the Portland Thorns to the NWSL title in 2013, the league’s first season. 

She had endorsements with major companies such as Nike, Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s, and she was often reported to be the highest-paid American women’s soccer player, largely because of her endorsements. Like many star athletes of her generation, Morgan turned entrepreneurial later in her career, cofounding the women’s media company Togethxr and investing in an array of companies.

While Morgan racked up deals off the pitch, she was enormously influential in the improvement of working conditions both on the USWNT and in the NWSL. The lawsuit started in 2016, and, during its six years of legal battle, Morgan became co-captain of the women’s team alongside Carli Lloyd and Megan Rapinoe from 2018 to 2020. After a years-long legal battle, U.S. Soccer now pays its men’s and women’s teams equally.

“I think it was just extremely motivating to see organizations and employers admit their wrongdoing, and us forcing their hand in making it right,” Morgan said when the settlement was announced. “The domino effect that we helped kick-start — I think we’re really proud of it.”

In December, Morgan was highly critical of the NWSL expansion draft, saying it “should not exist.”

“If you reach free agency and choose the club and city you want to play for, you deserve the [opportunity] to see that through,” Morgan said on her Instagram story at the time. 

The NWSL recently announced it was abolishing its draft and limiting trades in its new CBA, which showed the power of Morgan’s influence, even in her career’s twilight. Morgan hailed the new CBA as the first of its kind in North American sports and was one of five players in the room for the negotiations. 

“Not having a draft, although exciting in the moment, to be able to choose where you want to live, where you want to play, with all considerations of reproductive rights, tax laws, culture and facilities and everything within a team in a state that’s provided, it’s so important for the player to have that power back and to be able to choose,” Morgan told Good Morning America.