Tag: Alex Morgan

USWNT striker Morgan limps off for San Diego with ankle injury

The Wave and USWNT will face a nervous wait on the striker’s injury

Alex Morgan limped out of the San Diego Wave’s match at the Orlando Pride on Friday after suffering an apparent ankle injury.

The forward was involved in a goal-mouth scramble late in the match, and appeared to roll her left ankle while fighting for the ball with Pride defender Emily Sams and goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse.

Morgan was down for several minutes and recieved treatment on the pitch before slowly limping off. The Wave were out of substitutions at the time of the injury, and were forced to play out the final minutes of the match with 10 players.

Orlando would win the game 1-0 at Inter&Co Stadium thanks to a 26th-minute goal from Summer Yates.

After the game, Wave head coach Casey Stoney said that she didn’t have much information other than the location of the injury.

“Just briefed on it, something to do with her ankle,” Stoney said in her press conference. “I’ve not heard anything more than that at the moment.”

The Wave and the U.S. women’s national team will now face a nervous wait to learn the extent of Morgan’s injury.

The 2024 Olympics kick off in three months, with Morgan recently playing her way back into a prominent role for the USWNT after being initially left off the roster for the W Gold Cup.

Morgan played in all six Gold Cup games, scoring two goals, before she started both SheBelieves Cup matches for the U.S. earlier this month.

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Morgan and Horan make statement on ‘extremely sad’ Albert controversy

The two USWNT leaders addressed the midfielder’s anti-LGBTQ+ social media activity

U.S. women’s national team pair Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan made a brief statement to media on Wednesday addressing the ongoing controversy surrounding midfielder Korbin Albert.

Albert was forced to apologize last week after fans discovered that her TikTok account had either shared or reposted a host of anti-LGBTQ+ content. The 20-year-old also appeared to like an Instagram post celebrating Megan Rapinoe’s injury in last year’s NWSL championship game.

The midfielder was named to the SheBelieves Cup squad, with the USWNT set to play Japan on Saturday before facing either Brazil or Canada on Tuesday.

Albert’s presence has created a number of questions around how the USWNT would deal with the situation. In a brief statement, two of the team’s leaders said they were both saddened by her actions and that internal conversations among the team had taken place.

“Al and I just want to address the disappointing situation regarding Korbin that has unfolded over this past week,” Horan began.

“We’ve worked extremely hard to uphold the integrity of this national team through all of the generations and we are extremely, extremely sad that this standard was not upheld. Our fans and our supporters feel like this is a team that they can rally behind. And it’s so important that they feel and continue to feel undeniably heard and seen.”

Morgan continued: “We stand by maintaining a safe and respectful space, especially as allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community. And this platform has given us an opportunity to highlight causes that matter to us.

“It’s something that we never take for granted and we’ll keep using this platform to give attention to causes that are important to us. It’s also important to note we’ve had internal discussions around the situation, and that will stay within the team. But one thing also to know is that we have never shied away from hard conversations within this team.”

Neither Morgan nor Horan took questions about the situation. Mallory Swanson would later decline to answer a question, saying that the team would allow the statement from Morgan and Horan stand on its own.

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Morgan’s company takes indirect shot at Albert with Instagram post

The USWNT legend hasn’t commented directly on the controversy, but her company said plenty

Korbin Albert clearly has some work to do when it comes to winning over her teammates on the U.S. women’s national team.

The 20-year-old midfielder was forced to apologize on Thursday after fans discovered that her TikTok account had either shared or reposted a host of anti-LGBTQ+ content.

In a separate but perhaps equally damaging discovery, Albert was also found to have liked a post that celebrated Megan Rapinoe’s injury in her final career game.

Rapinoe slammed Albert in a post on Instagram, which was quickly reshared by a number of current and former USWNT players including Alana Cook, Sam Mewis, Kristie Mewis and Lynn Williams.

Alex Morgan hasn’t yet commented directly on the controversy, but appears to have done so in an indirect way through an Instagram post from Togethxr — the company she co-founded with other sports stars Sue Bird, Chloe Kim, and Simone Manuel.

Rather than attack Albert directly, the post highlighted “a few times USWNT players have made spaces safer, more inclusive, more whole, entirely better, and brought out the best in people.”

Some of the photos spotlighted the team’s fight for equal pay, its support for the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as its support for transgender rights.

It concluded: “That is the legacy of this team, past, present, and future.”

The USWNT will gather next week for the SheBelieves Cup. Both Morgan and Albert were named to the 23-player roster.

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Alex Morgan reps Caitlin Clark jersey before San Diego Wave opener

Game recognize game

Caitlin Clark will have a lot of eyes on her this month, including some big names from the world of women’s soccer.

The University of Iowa basketball sensation began her final NCAA tournament on Saturday, leading the top-seeded Hawkeyes to a 91-65 victory over Holy Cross in the first round.

After the game, San Diego Wave and U.S. women’s national team star Alex Morgan showed up for her side’s match wearing Clark’s No. 22 jersey.

Morgan posted a picture of herself on social media repping the all-time record holder for career points in Division I college basketball, with the striker doing Clark’s famous “you can’t see me” celebration.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C44OV4YRwbF/

Morgan has previously shown her admiration for the basketball star, congratulating her last month upon breaking the all-time scoring record.

The San Diego striker went on to play 82 minutes as the Wave began their regular-season campaign with a 2-1 defeat to the KC Current.

Morgan wasn’t the only player from the NWSL to wear Clark’s jersey on Saturday, with Chicago Red Stars pair Ally Schlegel and Sophie Jones doing the same.

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Alex Morgan chalks NWSL Challenge Cup-winning goal to ‘longest offseason I’ve had’

Morgan said focusing on her craft in an unusually long offseason helped her get the winner for the San Diego Wave

HARRISON, N.J. — Even at this point in a glittering career dating back over a decade, Alex Morgan is preaching the values of good old-fashioned practice.

Before a crowd of 14,000 at Red Bull Arena on Friday, Morgan’s late header gave the San Diego Wave a smash-and-grab 1-0 win over NJ/NY Gotham FC in the 2024 NWSL Challenge Cup.

The U.S. women’s national team star was part of the side that won the inaugural Concacaf W Gold Cup just five days before the Challenge Cup, which is now a one-off curtain-raiser between the defending league champions (Gotham) and the NWSL Shield winner (San Diego) held a day before the NWSL regular season commences.

Between some early-season imprecision and the heavy legs of national team players on both sides (Morgan was one of nine USWNT players to suit up on the day), it was a game long on defensive organization and grit, and short on attacking threats at either end of the pitch.

San Diego ended up being credited with just seven shot attempts, but Morgan used a combination of strength and veteran savvy to shed her markers on an 88th minute corner, heading home the game’s only goal.

Speaking to reporters in a post-game mixed zone, Morgan insisted that one could draw a direct line between her game-winner and what she called “probably the longest offseason that I’ve had.”

“Just personally, I feel like I worked really hard this offseason,” said the 34-year-old striker. “Took the rest I needed, and then really built from that, worked on the things I wanted to — I needed to — work on, that I don’t get to throughout the season. So it feels good, being able to execute the things that I wanted to, and go out and help my team.”

Morgan was open about focusing on a lifting program designed for injury prevention after missing time in 2023. That was followed by position-specific work that came even as she was left off of the USWNT’s December roster and was only a late call-up for the W Gold Cup after Mia Fishel suffered a torn ACL.

“It was a lot of back-to-goal stuff, quick release, in and around the box,” said Morgan. “Things like a fake shot, or getting a couple inches in the box and and taking advantage of that.

“And then, a lot of crosses. I trained a lot with Kristen McNabb and some other [Wave] teammates in the offseason, they were whipping in a lot of crosses. And so, on the corner, the goal tonight, [it] was just a result of a lot of the heading that I was doing in the offseason.”

If you ask Morgan, all that work sharpened her in front of goal, but also kept her ready for the surprise U.S. recall.

“Going into the [W Gold Cup] last minute definitely put a little bit of a kink in things, but I felt really ready. I felt game-fit and ready to play,” explained Morgan.

“As much as it seemed like a whirlwind from the outside, I just felt like it was just something that I needed to kind of expect. You know, expect the unexpected. So, just having an opportunity to win two championships and being able to accomplish that in one week? I mean, it’s pretty wild.”

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Rapinoe backs Hayes to take her place as USWNT media spokesperson

“Alex and I are very talented with the media …. that’s sort of a tough act to follow”

Megan Rapinoe has backed incoming U.S. women’s national team coach Emma Hayes to pick up the slack from her and Alex Morgan as the team’s main representative with the media.

Rapinoe took on the mantle as the USWNT’s de facto spokesperson prior to her retirement last year. Along with other stars like Alex Morgan, Rapinoe championed the team’s favored social causes, served as an advocate for the team during its lawsuit against U.S. Soccer, and also acted as a shield for its many critics.

Speaking to Sam Mewis on her podcast on The Women’s Game, Rapinoe said that Hayes could help ease the burden on a new generation of USWNT stars who may not be as keen to be in the media spotlight as their predecessors.

“I think she’s really talented at [dealing with the media],” Rapinoe said of Hayes, who will take over as USWNT head coach in May following the conclusion of Chelsea’s season.

“I don’t think we often think of interactions — whether it’s players or coaches — as an actual talent with the media. I think Emma is very talented. She’s charismatic, she speaks very well. She’s cheeky. She’s going to have a sense of humor in there. It seems like she handles herself really well in England, which is traditionally a very tough media.”

“I think the team has also come off a period that had me and Alex. I think Alex and I are very talented with the media. I really don’t want to toot my own horn here, but that’s sort of a tough act to follow when the media is maybe looking for someone just like that, and that’s not how all players are. And I feel like this might be a time to let the coach take some of the heat for all of this.”

Rapinoe added that she welcomed the increased media scrutiny the USWNT has been dealing with in recent years, saying that has to come with the territory in a growing women’s sports landscape.

“I always say if we are going to say we want the sport to grow, you have to take the smoke,” Rapinoe said. “And I think that Emma’s going to be really good at doing that. And I always say the media is not the enemy. I feel like you can always weaponize media and always use them to your advantage and I think she’s going to be really good at that. And I think it might take a little bit of the pressure off the players, so they can just go do their thing.”

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Alex Morgan clapped back at other players when the USWNT played Colombia, and fans couldn’t get enough of it

A very spicy Alex Morgan has soccer fans ready for more shenanigans.

After a wild six-plus months stretch, Alex Morgan is back and she is feisty. Her dominant play and fiery aurora during the Concacaf W Gold Cup have the attention of soccer fans, and they are loving it.

If you’ve been paying attention, the USWNT didn’t look so hot in the 2023 World Cup, and amid their early exit, Alex Morgan didn’t look so great either. It’s probably a huge reason why she wasn’t on the initial roster for the Concacaf W Gold Cup. However, after Mia Fishel suffered a torn ACL, Alex Morgan was asked to step in.

Morgan’s presence was unexpected, but she was a delightful surprise on Sunday as the USWNT beat Colombia 3-0. Morgan was all over the field, helping her teammates and trash-talking Colombian defenders.

Fans loved a spicy Alex Morgan. Here’s what they had to say about her presence on the field:

Alex Morgan, Angel Reese and more congratulate Caitlin Clark on breaking NCAA women’s scoring record

Messages for the Iowa star also came from Sue Bird and Billie Jean King.

A whole lot of people were tuned into Peacock on Thursday night to witness a bit of history.

In case you haven’t heard, Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark is now the all-time leading scorer in the history of Division I women’s college basketball. Clark entered the Hawkeyes’ games against Michigan needing just eight points to pass the mark set by Washington’s Kelsey Plum and wasted no time getting after it.

Clark sank a layup, swished a 3-pointer, and then hit another – the record-breaking shot – nearly from Iowa’s logo at midcourt in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. She scored Iowa’s first eight points, and a total of 23 in the first quarter.

And when Clark broke the record, messages of congratulations poured in from all over, including a few from women’s sports legends.

Morgan snaps career-long scoring drought in Wave win over Thorns

The USWNT striker had gone 15 games overall without a goal

Alex Morgan is once again among the goals.

The San Diego Wave striker broke a drought for club and country that spanned more than four months, scoring her side’s second in a 2-0 win over the Portland Thorns on Saturday night.

After Kyra Carusa had given the Wave a 20th-minute lead, Morgan got on the end of Christen Westphal’s long cross and saw her header barely trickle past the outstretched Bella Bixby in Portland’s goal.

Morgan’s 38th-minute header would be the final goal on the night, as the Wave earned a 2-0 away win that saw them become the first NWSL team this season to clinch a playoff berth.

Prior to Saturday night, the last time Morgan scored came all the way back on May 20, as San Diego beat the Houston Dash 3-0. The eight-game NWSL drought marked the longest streak of the striker’s NWSL career.

When factoring in U.S. women’s national team matches, Morgan’s header at Portland snapped a run of 15 games overall without a goal.

Morgan has gone nine games in a row without a goal for the USWNT, last scoring in February’s 2-1 SheBelieves Cup win over Brazil. Since then, she’s gone scoreless in two friendlies against Ireland, five World Cup games, and then two more friendlies against South Africa last month.

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USWNT star Morgan invests in new Woods-McIlroy golf league

Morgan and her husband Servando Carrasco have joined the ownership group of Los Angeles Golf Club

Alex Morgan has announced she and her husband Servando Carrasco have joined the ownership group of Los Angeles Golf Club (LAGC), a franchise in TGL, the new golf league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

Billed as a “tech-infused golf league,” TGL will begin in January 2024 in conjunction with the PGA Tour, with matches to take place in prime time on Monday nights.

LAGC was confirmed as the league’s inaugural team, and features an ownership group that includes Alexis Ohanian, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

That franchise has since been joined by teams in New York, Boston and Atlanta, each with high-profile owners (Steve Cohen, Fenway Sports Group and Arthur Blank, respectively). Two more franchises are set to be announced before the TGL begins.

Morgan has taken up golf in recent years, and even starred in a golf-themed Super Bowl commercial this year for Michelob Ultra.

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TGL is aiming to attract younger audiences to golf, and will feature players hitting shots into a virtual screen before moving to “a data-rich, virtual course complete with a tech-infused, short-game complex.”

The matches will take place at a custom-built venue in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

“We all know what it’s like to be in a football stadium or a basketball arena where you can watch every play, every minute of action unfold right in front of you,” Woods said in a release when TGL launched. “It’s something that inherently isn’t possible in traditional golf — and an aspect of TGL that will set it apart and appeal to a new generation of fans.”

TGL will feature six teams with three-player rosters, with 12 pros already confirmed: Woods, McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose, Adam Scott, Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Xander Schauffele and Matt Fitzpatrick.

The inaugural season will feature a 15-match schedule followed by semifinals and a championship game.

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