When the U.S. Women’s National Team opens the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup on Tuesday in France against Thailand, the defending champions, ranked No. 1 in the world, will look to the face of U.S. soccer to lead them.
And to nobody’s surprise, that face is 29-year-old striker Alex Morgan, arguably the most popular and well known U.S. player over the last decade.
Morgan is one of three women’s soccer players along with Canada’s Christine Sinclair and Australia’s Steph Catley to appear on the cover of FIFA video games in 2015 and appeared alongside Lionel Messi on the cover of FIFA 16 sold in the United States.
She also starred in a film about her, Alex & Me, which was released last year in where she plays a fictionalized version of herself.
But for all her stardom, Morgan has yet to have the type of dominating World Cup or Olympics than some of the greats before her, and that opportunity is here and the baton is there for her to take.
The U.S. team are the betting favorites to win their fourth World Cup that starts this weekend, and Morgan, according to most bookmakers, is one of the three leading favorites along with France’s Eugenie Le Sommer and Australia’s Sam Kerr to finish the World Cup with the Golden Ball as the best player and Golden Boot, which goes to the top goal scorer.
It’s the kind of pressure that’s been building for over a decade since Morgan crashed onto the scene as a late-blooming teenager that graduated at Diamond Bar High School and went on to play at the Cal.
Morgan has an incredible resume that includes an Olympic Gold Medal (2012) and World Cup (2015) and her 101 career goals for the national team is second only on the active roster behind Carly Lloyd with 108.
She’s on an elite list of players with more than 100 goals that includes Americans like all-time scoring champion Abby Wambach (184) and Mia Hamm (158), among others.
But for Morgan, the next few weeks aren’t just about goals, it’s about an opportunity for a legacy-defining moment.
When Morgan was the youngest player on the team during the 2011 World Cup, nothing was expected from her behind other established stars such as Wambach and Heather O’Reilly and she was a substitute who never started a match.
But she busted through television sets and into the hearts of fans with two goals off the bench, including one during the semifinals against France. But the U.S. team eventually lost in the finals against Japan in penalties.
A year later, Morgan took on a bigger role during the 2012 Olympics, scoring twice in group play, then scoring one of the most memorable goals of the tournament. She out-jumped the Canadian defense for an incredible 123rd minute goal that led to a 4-3 semifinal victory in a game in which the Americans came back three times to win it.
The U.S. went on to defeat Japan 2-1 for the Gold Medal behind a pair of goals from Lloyd, but Morgan’s semifinal goal sent her on to stardom and it earned her the nickname, “Baby Horse.”
“I can’t remember ever feeling this way,” Morgan said then. “I’ve never wanted to cry on a field after scoring a goal.”
Morgan was poised to take the mantle passed from Mia Hamm to Wambach to Lloyd in the 2015 World Cup, but she was never healthy, suffering a knee injury before the tournament and scored just once against Colombia. The U.S. went on to win the World Cup and Lloyd had one of the greatest tournaments ever, scoring a hat trick in the final on their way to a 5-2 win over Japan.
Lloyd is now 36 and plans to retire after the 2020 Olympics, so once again, this is Morgan’s time to shine, and she’s never been more ready for it.
“In a lot of ways, being the No. 9 in the formation we play, I’m looked at to score goals, to lead the team, to be that presence,” Morgan said recently during a group interview. “We have a lot of leaders on this team. I wouldn’t say that I necessarily feel like I’m the only one leading this team. But I do feel like I have a larger presence with this team than I have ever had before.”
Morgan has had flashes of greatness on the biggest stage and has been a great pro, but she hasn’t owned or dominated a major tournament. This is one is there for the taking.
MORGAN HAS FANS BACK HOME
Nobody will be rooting for her more than her hometown.
It’s all too surreal for those who remember Morgan growing up like like Matt Brummett, who was the coach at Diamond Bar in 2012 when Morgan returned to the school after winning the Gold Medal over the summer to visit with his team.
Local news stations were all over the campus to share it.
“It was incredible because for our team having someone like Alex Morgan come back and talk to them was wild because she was at the height of her fame and popularity,” Brummett said. “You just watched her play so dynamically in the Olympics and she’s on the cover of every paper and magazine and doing television shows and then she shows up at Diamond Bar and is working with your girls, giving them tips, sharing her experience. I’ll never forget it.”
Morgan was a multi-sport athlete as a youngster and didn’t start playing organized soccer until she was 14, something unheard of during a time when athletes are thrown into club programs as soon as they can walk. She played AYSO until she was in high school.
“I tried out for a club but I wasn’t on the team,” Morgan said during a 2011 article with Soccer America. “I was able to go to practice with them but the coach was just messing with me, so it was a bad first year of club. The next year, I found my team, Cypress Elite, when I was 14. That was my first club team.”
At Diamond Bar, Morgan was a three-time all-league selection, but she never led her school to league or CIF championship.
Kemp Wells was the coach at Diamond Bar when Morgan graduated in 2007 and he remains at the school. Wells has an interesting perspective, because he watched her blossom before his eyes.
“Look, to think someone would go on to have the professional career she’s had with all the stardom is just beyond your imagination,” Wells said. “If you watch a video compilation on YouTube of Alex’s goals, I’ll put that up against anyone. It’s not just that she scores, she does it in just an exciting way and with a skill level and athleticism that just makes you go, ‘Wow!’
“Did I see that coming? Did anyone see that coming? No, but she was a great athlete and had one of the best attitudes and was a relentless worker, so that was there and she’s made the most of all those qualities.”
Wells said that prior to Morgan’s senior year, she was named captain and he thought she was ready to lead them to a championship and would have one of those magical senior seasons. But just a couple games into the season, she tore her ACL during an Olympic Development Program (ODP) training session and was done for the season.
“By her senior year she was becoming a next-level player and you could sense something great was coming,” Wells said. “I remember a pre-season game against Mayfair, they were triple teaming her and she was making passes out of it and having a great game. It’s too bad, I’ve always wondered how that season would have gone because she put in so much work and was so fun to be around. She was all about the team, not a selfish player at all for someone who was going to play at Cal.”
Morgan got healthy and right away began her ascent to stardom, leading the U-20 Women’s World Cup team, scoring the winning goals against North Korea in the 2008 final.
But that was 11 years ago, and there is still so much room for her legend to grow.