Nothing is harder than the expectation of becoming the next star of the US women’s national team.

Alex Morgan faced this challenge in 2009, when she was 20 years old and attended her first senior national team training camp. She had not yet made her debut for the United States, but she was already being compared to Mia Hamm, the legend who won two World Cups and an Olympic gold medal and was considered the face of the first generation of American women’s soccer players.

On Thursday, 15 years later, Morgan announced she would retire after one final game with the San Diego Wave FC on Sunday, abruptly ending a career in which she somehow managed to exceed astronomically high expectations on the field and redefine the sport off it.

Morgan finishes her career with 123 international goals, ranking fifth on the decorated list of all-time U.S. women’s goalscorers. She won two World Cups and played in another final. Her 2012 breakthrough for the national team was an integral part of the U.S. women winning the Olympic gold medal that year.

During her club career, she won an NWSL championship, an NWSL Shield and a Golden Boot, as well as another title in the predecessor league, Women’s Professional Soccer.

On the field, Morgan lived up to the hype that preceded her. Her form fluctuated throughout her international career – she never claimed the title of world’s best player, but was shortlisted several times – but she remained essentially the heart of the USWNT’s attack throughout that time, maintaining a level that few could match.

Every time her status as incumbent has been questioned in recent years, she has responded by stepping up her performance and reminding people why she was still needed for her club and her country – until recently, that is.

Morgan was not included in the USWNT’s 2024 Olympic roster, which was the team’s first major tournament without the star striker since the 2008 Olympics. It was a bold decision by new USWNT head coach Emma Hayes in her first months on the job, but the Americans won gold at the Olympics in August thanks in part to a new, young attacking line.

In addition to all the accolades on the field, Morgan cemented her unique legacy with what she accomplished off the field.

She began her career as a quiet rookie, playing in relative anonymity in Rochester, New York. The spotlight often came to Morgan on the national team, but it wasn’t something she immediately embraced, like Hamm’s label decades earlier as “the reluctant star.” Just as Morgan’s game matured from an athletic turn-and-run forward to an accomplished player with her back to the goal, her desire to progress off the field grew.

Morgan has been the sport’s poster child for most of the past decade and a central figure in the USWNT’s fight against the U.S. Soccer Federation for equal pay, a six-year battle that ended with an agreement and the players declaring victory in 2022. The fight resulted in equal pay structures for the U.S. men’s and women’s teams, as well as revenue sharing and a fair distribution of World Cup prize money between the teams.

The USWNT players’ long battle with their employer came at a time of increasing global push for gender equality across all industries and served as a catalyst for further change across women’s sports.

When Morgan spoke, people listened. She knew the power of her voice and the importance of her subject matter, beyond the national team spotlight – including in the National Women’s Soccer League.

Morgan was a driving force behind the 2021 revelations that led to the firing of former head coach Paul Riley over alleged sexual assault of former players. The report also exposed several executives at the league and club level for misusing allegations first made seven years earlier by Morgan’s former teammates at the Thorns, Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly. Morgan used her platform to denounce those who ignored Shim and Farrelly’s concerns.

This sparked a league-wide investigation into abuse – “systemic abuse,” as former U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates later called it in an investigation. Four coaches, including Riley, were banned from the NWSL for life, others were suspended and two team owners were forced out of the league for allegedly supporting bad behavior.

As a result, the NWSL developed an anti-harassment policy and other safeguards, such as an anti-fraternization policy and a coaches’ code of conduct. The league and the NWSL Players Association ratified their first collective bargaining agreement in early 2022, which increased salaries and established minimum standards for female players.

Although Morgan has largely shrugged off credit for her role in bringing about change, she has been an outspoken voice for the voiceless in a league where power has historically rested almost exclusively with employers, using her celebrity to win allies, not to enrich herself. Last month, that dynamic shifted even further in the other direction when a new collective bargaining agreement was ratified that will further raise minimum salaries and give all players full freedom of action after their contracts expire.

Morgan’s commitment to the NWSL – which includes her work on the negotiating committee for the latest CBA – is remarkable given that until a few years ago, US players were mainly employed by the national team.

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Kassouf: Morgan’s absence at the Olympics is a “big decision” for Hayes

Jeff Kassouf reacts to the news that Alex Morgan will not be part of the USWNT Olympic squad in Paris.

“I am so proud of my achievements on the pitch,” Morgan said in a statement on social media on Thursday. “From a young age, it was my dream to become a professional footballer. I have achieved more through the game than I could have ever imagined and as proud as I am of my football career, I am equally proud of what I have fought for and built off the pitch. Pay equity. Player safety. Visibility and storytelling.”

Morgan’s career is coming to an abrupt end, even though the end was already foreseeable for the 35-year-old. She and her husband, former professional player Servando Carrasco, are expecting their second child, Morgan announced on Thursday.

Morgan is arguably the most influential figure in a generation of USWNT players who continued the program’s relentless success story. Her retirement marks the formal end of an era for the USWNT, which has already begun its next chapter with an Olympic gold medal.

A world-class player on the field and a transformative person off it, Morgan is in a category few others can match. Just as Hamm became known simply as “Mia,” Morgan is known to most as “Alex,” no further qualifications needed.

Athletes often talk about the cruelty of most not being able to choose how their careers end. Morgan would likely have chosen a different ending on the field than a mid-season exit after a disappointing World Championship and a pre-Olympic exit, but the choices she made during her nearly 15 years at the highest level are what will define her legacy.

She wasn’t exactly reluctant and in the end she wasn’t “next” to anyone. Morgan was a revolutionary.