Alex Morgan took the soccer world by storm, becoming a household name as she helped secure back-to-back World Cup wins for the U.S. Women's National Team, but behind the scenes Morgan struggled to balance being a mother and high-performance athlete.
Now, just a few months after she hung up her cleats for good and announced her second pregnancy, Morgan opens up to TODAY.com about the biggest challenges she's faced as both a mom and a star athlete over the course of her 13-year professional soccer career.
Morgan and her husband, Servando Carrasco, welcomed their daughter Charlie into the world on May 7, 2020, with Morgan returning to the field mere months later.
"Just coming back from giving birth alone, like, your body is going through a lot of change, and so that was really difficult," Morgan, who was dubbed "Baby Horse" and "the Fox in the Box" during her career, tells TODAY.com.
On top of the physical struggles she faced, Morgan says that she had to "fight" for basic necessities as a mom: private space to breastfeed, pay during maternity leave and general "support during pregnancy."
During Morgan's time on the team, she says it was uncommon -- sometimes even "unheard of" -- to have a space for moms to breastfeed.
"I think that that was really difficult, just understanding what I went through and wanting it to be better for future moms," she adds.
Morgan also had to overcome the mental hurdle of "thrusting" herself back into professional soccer not long after childbirth.
"It was really mentally draining," she says. "Not really getting a full night's sleep and showing my daughter all around the world while I was having a full-time job while playing for the National Team and for Orlando and just trying to do it all."
While striving for balance, Morgan says she felt stretched too thin.
"Nothing was all happy and roses all the time," she says.
Morgan acknowledges that a lot of moms, whether or not they're athletes, face struggles that go unnoticed.
"I feel like moms just kind of grind through and don't really share," she says, but adds that "having my daughter say she wants to grow up and play professional soccer, and just seeing the happiness that her going to my games brings out in her, just is all worth it."
Morgan's best tip for first-time moms is to find a support system of people who understand what you're going through.
In her case, she looked to former teammates, Sydney Leroux and Christie Rampone, as well as track star Allyson Felix to see how they came back to "competing at such a high level after giving birth," knowing she wanted to do the same.
"Reaching out (to others) it's a big validator to know you're not alone in this, but you can't really relate to someone who hasn't been through it," she says. "So, I think just finding that mom community is extremely important."
After about a year and half of trying to balance a baby, soccer and her mental health, Morgan took a risk and made a "scary" decision. Despite being very worried about potential consequences from her team and brand deals, she took a step back from soccer for about a month to prioritize her own well-being.
"I feel like I did what I needed for me. . . and kind of prioritizing my family first, which was a little different as well, because I prioritized soccer first all the way up until then," she says.
Morgan's fears were not unfounded as she had to fight to get her place on the team back.
This experience made Morgan, who was already a staunch voice in the fight for female equality in soccer, even more passionate to advocate for female athletes.
Now, she's using her retirement days to continue this fight.
Morgan is one of the faces of Powerade's new mental health initiative called The Athlete's Code, which launched Dec. 5.
The Athlete's Code is a commitment Powerade is making in partnership with Morgan and other athletes that "allows athletes to pause their partnership commitments to focus on their mental well-being, without losing their sponsorship," a press release sent to TODAY.com from Powerade reads.
Morgan says she now realizes "how important this contract addendum is."
"Having this be a standard for the industry can just be like a ripple effect in the best way of other brands and leagues and teams seeing someone's mental well-being as such an amount of importance as someone's physical well-being," she tells TODAY.com of her hopes that other brands will implement similar measures.
"I know how much this could have really supported me in times of need," she adds.
Despite the hurdles Morgan faced, she still says one of her biggest career highlights was "becoming a mom and getting back to playing at the highest level while bringing my daughter all around the world."
In September 2024, Morgan announced her retirement ... and some personal news.
"It has been a long time coming and this decision wasn't easy. But at the beginning of 2024, I felt in my heart and soul that this was the last season that I would play soccer," she said in her retirement video announcement posted on Instagram.
In the same video, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child.
"This is also not the retirement video I expected when I initially thought I was going to do this because Charlie is going to be a big sister," she said in the video. "I am pregnant, and as unexpected as this came, we are so overjoyed. To me, family means everything."
Morgan has yet to reveal her second baby's gender but promises TODAY.com that she will share the news "soon, but just not yet."
Despite her final season ending earlier than expected, Morgan says having more kids was always the goal.
"I grew up in a chaotic -- a loving but chaotic -- family with three girls and so I always knew that we wanted a few kids, so I'm really excited to give my daughter a sibling," Morgan says.
Morgan smiles as she talks about the three new strikers on the U.S. Women's National Team -- Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson -- who go by the nickname "Triple Espresso" and are now leading the team's attacks in Morgan's absence.
Morgan says that Rodman is "really fun," referencing her skill at making funny TikToks.
"She loves dancing and has so much personality," Morgan says.
As for Swanson, who joined the team at 16-years-old, Morgan says she's already had a "tumultuous career," noting that Swanson's had to work through multiple injuries.
She "has completely dominated and I think she's only going to go up from here," Morgan adds. "So, I feel like that is something that (I) absolutely love and respect about Mal."
Of the trio, Morgan says she relates to the most to Smith.
"She does what she needs to do ... I feel like Soph is a little bit ruthless in terms of how she plays, but she does it super gracefully, and she's pretty fun with it," Morgan explains. "So, I could see a little bit of myself in Soph."