Cal Sports Report

U.S. Wins Olympic Soccer Gold Without Alex Morgan

Former Cal star Morgan was left off the U.S. roster, but it seems now it was the right decision

Jake Curtis

San Diego Wave forward Alex Morgan
San Diego Wave forward Alex Morgan / Craig Mitchelldyer-USA TODAY Sports
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Controversy accompanied Emma Hayes’ decision to leave former Cal star and long-time American standout Alex Morgan off the U.S. women’s soccer team for the Olympics.

Well, apparently she made the correct choice.

The 35-year-old Morgan has scored 123 international goals, the most of any active American and the eighth-most of any woman in history. She was a member of the U.S. team for three World Cups and three Olympic Games, and her veteran leadership was considered a reason to keep her on the United States’ young, 18-player roster for the Olympics. 

That leadership wasn’t needed. The Americans held their poise throughout the Olympic tournament, including the gold-medal game, when Mallory Swanson scored 12 minutes into the second half for the only goal of the match against Brazil.  It was the U.S. women’s first Olympic gold medal since 2012, something Morgan was unable to do in the 2020 Olympics (bronze medal) and the 2016 Olympics, when the Americans lost in the quarterfinals to Sweden. Morgan scored the Americans’ only regular-time goal against the Swedes, but she failed to convert her attempt in the penalty-kick shootout.

Morgan showed her support with her tweets during Saturday’s gold-medal game

Of course, the U.S. might have won the gold medal with Morgan on the roster. Maybe the Americans would have been even more dominant. But it's hard to argue with the result.

The shortcoming for Morgan in her bid to play in the 2024 Olympics was that she has not been the goal-scorer this year that she’s been in the past.  And goal-scoring is what she does.

Morgan had been a member of the 23-player roster for U.S. Women’s National Team in every match in 2024 leading up to the naming of the Olympic roster and had been a starter in most of them. However, she scored just two goals this year, and one of those came on a penalty kick.  Her last goal came in February in a 4-0 victory over Argentina in the Concacaf Gold Cup.

Morgan missed a month of action as the result of an April 19 ankle injury, but the bottom line is that she has not scored a single goal for the San Diego Wave, her National Women’s Soccer League team.  That includes no goals for the Wave in its three games during the Summer Cup, which was held during the NWSL’s break for the Olympics.

Morgan led the NWSL with 15 goals in 17 games in 2022, and she had seven goals in 2023.

But none this year.

The question now is whether Morgan will be announcing her retirement soon. She is still a quality soccer athlete.

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Jake Curtis

JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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