United States striker Alex Morgan mentioned an emotional goodbye to skilled soccer on Sunday, because the two-time World Cup winner performed her ultimate recreation within the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League.
Morgan, 35, introduced her retirement final week after studying she is pregnant along with her second little one.
She captained the San Diego Wave in a 4-1 house defeat by North Carolina Braveness.
Morgan, whose daughter Charlie was born in 2020, missed a Tenth-minute penalty earlier than being substituted three minutes later to a standing ovation by the 26,516 followers in attendance.
Addressing the gang after the sport, she mentioned: “What a journey it’s been.”
Morgan has performed on the prime stage of the ladies’s recreation for 15 years and was a part of the USA groups that received two successive World Cups in 2015 and 2019.
She additionally claimed a gold medal along with her nation on the 2012 London Olympics.
“I need to thank my team-mates who’ve continually challenged me every single day and made me higher,” she added.
“There have been so many unimaginable moments in my profession however this final second I share on the sector with you I’ll cherish eternally. So from the underside of my coronary heart, thanks.”
Morgan made her worldwide debut in 2009 and has performed 224 matches for the USA, scoring 123 targets – the fifth-best of all time. Nevertheless, she was not included in new supervisor Emma Hayes’ squad for the 2024 Paris Video games, the place they received gold.
She has been a powerful advocate for gender equality in soccer and in 2019, along with different gamers within the nationwide group, filed a discrimination lawsuit in opposition to US Soccer relating to equal pay, with an settlement reached in 2022.
In her membership profession, she received a league title with Portland in 2013 earlier than becoming a member of Lyon in January 2017, the place she helped the French membership win a treble, together with the Ladies’s Champions League.
She additionally had a quick three-month spell with Tottenham within the Ladies’s Tremendous League in 2020.