Soccer legend Alex Morgan retires and says goodbye to the NWSL, the league she helped build

Alex Morgan said farewell to a storied career spanning over a decade on Sunday, playing 13 minutes in the San Diego Wave's 4-1 loss to the North Carolina Courage. When the U.S. women's national team forward announced her retirement on Thursday, it closed another chapter in one of the greatest stories ever told in women's soccer. She told the media ahead of her last game she'd play "limited minutes" as her retirement news also included a pregnancy announcement. In another memorable moment, she was subbed out of her final game during the 13th minute, in honor of the iconic number she wore throughout her career.

She said goodbye as a member of her third NWSL team and to a league that may not have existed if Morgan and her generation of teammates were not there to help its very foundation. Her achievements are plentiful across the game and her impact was reflected on the last day of her career. Her commercial influence is as vast as ever, as her final game was broadcast across multiple platforms, and the sport and league are in a completely different place than when she first started her career. 

Morgan's departure is just the latest in a slew of farewells by players who were key players during the 2011 to 2019 era for the U.S. women's national team. A generation that saw three consecutive FIFA Women's World Cup finals, won two World Cups, a 2012 Olympic gold medal, and helped kickstart the NWSL.

Saying farewell to another culture changer

Megan Rapinoe and Ali Krieger stepped away from the game in 2023, as did Julie Ertz, and eventually Sam Mewis. Earlier this year, Kelley O'Hara announced her retirement from the game at the conclusion of her 2024 NWSL season. Former USWNT World Cup winners Sydney Leroux, Christen Press, and Becky Sauerbrunn are among others navigating the later phase of their careers.

It's a natural progression of the life of a professional athlete. Eventually, through long careers or injuries, they retire from playing their respective sport, but few can truly say they changed the trajectory of the Game in their lifetime. 

That's not necessarily the case in Morgan's generation. Whenever casual fans or new followers of women's soccer look back on this specific time in American women's soccer history, the names of these players will be there as ones who helped redefine and evolve women's soccer in America and across the globe. In a time when it was common for women's domestic leagues to fold, with little to no minimum standards, or even a liveable wage for some players -- that's not the case in 2024 as Morgan departs from the game.

"I look at overlapping with the legends like Abby Wambach, Shannon Boxx, Christie Rampone, Lauren Holiday - so many players that had such a huge impact on women's soccer globally and here domestically. That's what I wanted. They talked about passing the torch. I took that, and was I ready for that? I have no idea but I helped carry that for a long time on the national team, and in doing so I felt like I had a responsibility," she told media during pregame availability.

"Not only a responsibility to fight for equal pay, to fight for sports equity, to do different things in the sport to uplift and protect players, but also to make the game an avenue to be able to play and making a living from, from whatever age you want to -- 16, 18, 21 -- I wanted players to have that avenue and feel like they have the resources to be their best selves from that age. I feel like I've done my part."

When the NWSL was founded in 2012, it so did with a handful of clubs carried over from the folded Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) and new franchise brands. It was set to launch with a different approach, with downsized financial operations to start, and with U.S. Soccer as a managing partner. It led to an allocation system that ultimately distributed USWNT players across the league (along with Canada Soccer and Mexico Football Federation players) whose salaries were covered by the governing body. 

The NWSL of 12 years ago was far from the one that exists today. At its start, there were the ever-present growing pains, the evolution of a league that still included franchises that folded or ceased operations, differences in clubs as haves and have-nots, a lack of vetting when it came to coaches and executives, and players had little say in the trajectory of their careers or how they were treated. 

"Some of these younger players who have been able to just focus on themselves, focus on their teams, get better every day, have a pathway to be able to do that, have the resources to do that, that's what I fought for," she said.

Measuring success through impact

The on-field achievements for Morgan will eventually see her through to the National Soccer Hall of Fame. She has a nearly endless list of accolades to go along with her two World Cups and Olympic gold medal. They also include title wins in multiple leagues, because once upon a time in America, women's pro soccer in the United States was tragically unstable.  

It's not some new or even bold thing to say that there would be no NWSL without Alex Morgan. On an episode of "Snacks" hosted by her former USWNT teammates Lynn Williams and Sam Mewis, Williams expressed gratitude to Morgan, saying that she believed there'd be no league anti-harassment policy or NWSL without her. 

The 35-year-old forward played a key role in supporting NWSL club teaMMAtes Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly during her time in Portland where they were allegedly experiencing sexual harassment and coercion by former head coach Paul Riley. The findings of an investigation soon after revealed that sexual misconduct and emotional abuse were systemic in the sport.

The groundbreaking reporting was a catalyst of change, led to extensive internal investigations by U.S. Soccer, the league and NWSL Players Association and sweeping changes to NWSL protocols and processes. 

"Abuse in the NWSL is rooted in a deeper culture in women's soccer, beginning in youth leagues, that normalizes verbally abusive coaching and blurs boundaries between coaches and players," former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates wrote in her report on the investigation.

Morgan has won club titles with the 2011 Western New York Flash in WPS, the 2013 Portland Thorns, and even a Champions League title in her first European stint with Olympique Lyonnais in France. The awards are as long for club as they are on the international level but her role in leading off the pitch, by example and humanity, has set her apart from others before her time. 

Expanding access to the game

When she takes the pitch on Sunday, no matter the minutes, Morgan's impact will be reflected in the thousands set to attend Snapdragon Stadium, and the thousands more who will tune into not one, but six different ways to watch her. Expanded media coverage of women's soccer is and will be a long-lasting part of her legacy.

Morgan quipped about how she learned she was first drafted in the WPS by Western New York Flash. It wasn't a major televised event and she was simply told by the USWNT press officer after the team landed in China. It was the early days of social media and service on planes was what it is today. Now people get their news easily on phones or their preferred social channels -- even Morgan shared her retirement announcement on her personal social media accounts, a normal everyday engagement by today's standards. 

"Women's soccer has come an incredible way, but just coverage in general -- I'm floored by how well covered this sport is, and all of the reporters and people that dug in at little or no salary to cover women's soccer for so long. When they did it for the passion. Because that's what we did, growing on the national team, and early on with the WPS and the end of the NWSL. We played soccer because we were passionate about playing. We didn't play for the money. There was no money, trust me," Morgan said on the evolution of women's soccer coverage. 

Growing the game through major international wins, multiple leagues, a fight for equal pay, and influencing on not one but two collective bargaining agreements -- for USWNT Players Association and the NWSL Players Association -- is as important as any achievement. The latest NWSL CBA, renegotiated two years ahead of its initial expiration date, includes a wide variety of expanded benefits. 

It abolished all forms of drafts in the league, setting the league on course with FIFA regulations and the rest of the global soccer landscape, and increased wages and salary caps. 

"It is just so incredible to see the new broadcasting rights deal, the new CBA taking place with NWSL in terms of a new revenue share model that really has never been done before. It's unprecedented. All of these things that women's soccer is making, a market, building a new pathway, that never existed before, and it makes me so just happy.

"We have gone down a path that women's sports have accelerated in such a fast way and progressed over the last five or 10 years, and I've had a front seat at it these last 10 years. And I hope to continue my part in women's sports, but just to literally be at the front seat and watch and be a part of this all unfold is it's really amazing."

What's next

San Diego Wave FC couldn't send out Morgan with a win, and are still in playoff contention, but have a steep hill to climb with just seven games left in the season.

The legendary striker will now step away into retirement life that will immediately shift into mom-mode as she, her husband Servando Carrasco, and four-year-old daughter Charlie prepare to welcome a new baby to their family.  The USWNT icon also told media she's ruled out any type of future on the coaching sidelines, and will instead continue to focus on elevating women's sports through investment and her own media endeavors with her company Togethxr.