Alex Morgan - Road to Tokyo
Alex Morgan had an aggressive plan for the year 2020: give birth to her first child in the spring, spend the next three months training like she never trained before, compete in the Tokyo Olympics on the U.S. Women’s Soccer team in the summer, and of course, bring home gold.
In a way, it’s serendipitous that it didn’t happen that way. For all of the bad that the global pandemic brought, being able to give birth to her first child and NOT have to get back into the best shape of her life and travel halfway around the world to compete in the Olympics, leaving a 3 month old newborn at home is a good thing.
That’s not to say that she couldn’t have done it. She could’ve. And she was prepared to do just that. After all, setting goals and then achieving them is kind of Alex Morgan’s M.O. She was a multi-sport athlete growing up and began playing soccer at an early age with AYSO, but she did not begin playing club soccer until age 14.
By age 17, she had joined the United States under-20 women’s national soccer team. An ACL injury sidelined her in 2006, but she bounced back and won the Silver Ball award en route to helping her team win the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.
The momentum has never really stopped. In 2012, she was named U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year and Women’s Sports Foundation Sportswoman of the Year for a team sport. That same year, she was a finalist for the FIFA World Player of the Year and an ESPY nominee for Best Breakthrough Athlete.
The next year, in 2013, Alex led her team to victory in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) championship. She also won the CONCACAF Player of the Year while becoming the youngest member of the United States Women’s National Team All-Time Best XI, sharing the honor with legends like Mia Hamm & Joy Fawcett.
The list of accolades & accomplishments goes on until the present day, and includes a growing list of achievements off the pitch. From penning a series of books geared towards middle schoolers (which would later spin off a live action series on Amazon Prime) to brand ambassadorships and endorsement deals with some of the world’s biggest companies, Morgan has had no trouble staying busy.
If you’re worried about family time or her personal life, don’t be. She’s been married to fellow professional soccer player Servando Carrasco since 2014 (they met at UC Berkeley where they both played soccer), and in 2017 the pair traveled to Tanzania as Sports Envoys with the U.S. State Department’s Sports Diplomacy Office.
But Alex Morgan’s career has not been without setbacks. Various injuries to her knees, hamstrings, and ankles have cost her months of recovery and missed opportunities in competition.
Despite it all, here she is on the cusp of her third Olympics and hopefully, her second gold medal. Whatever the outcome, we’re going to be rooting for her and the rest of the USWNT in Tokyo.
The 2021 Olympics Women’s Soccer Tournament will be held from July 21st to August 6, 2021.
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