Alex Morgan, one of America’s most decorated soccer players, announced her retirement Thursday. Morgan spent over 14 years as a key player on the U.S. Women’s National Team.

Morgan, 35, also spent 11 seasons in the National Women’s Soccer League and currently plays for the San Diego Wave since 2022.

The star forward recorded her first cap for the USWNT in March 2010.  Since then, Morgan has been a vital part of the front lineup, helping the U.S. win two consecutive World Cups in 2015 and 2019, gold at the 2012 London Olympics and bronze at the Tokyo Games in 2021. 

Moran ranks in the top 10 in USWNT history in goals, assists and multi-goal games.

Morgan’s soccer career by the numbers

Additional career highlights for Alex Morgan

13th player in USWNT history to reach the 200-cap milestone.
Twice named U.S. Soccer’s Female Athlete of the Year (2012, 2018).
Four-time Concacaf Player of the Year (2013, 2016, 2017, 2018).
Five-time FIFA FIFPRO Women’s World 11 selection (2016 ,2017, 2019, 2021, 2022).
Three-time finalist for FIFA World Player of the Year (2012, 2019, 2022).
Won the Silver Boot at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, scoring six goals and three assists.
Tied the USA’s single-game scoring record with five goals in the opening match against Thailand for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

How to watch Alex Morgan’s last soccer game

Morgan plays her last game Sunday at 8 p.m. ET against the North Carolina Courage. You can watch the match by downloading the NWSL+ app, with a Paramount+ account or on CBS Golazo.

Morgan also announced she is pregnant with her second child. She gave birth to her 4-year-old daughter, Charlie, in May 2020 and is married to former MLS player Servando Carrasco. 

“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,” Morgan said in a video message uploaded to her social media. “I’m so grateful that I’ll get one last game to put on the boots.”

SOURCES U.S. Soccer, FB reference, USA TODAY research.

The Washington Commanders have fired their vice president of content a day after the team suspended him for making offensive comments about NFL players, fans and others. A team spokesman confirmed the firing to USA TODAY Sports on Thursday.

Rael Enteen, who had been with the Commanders for four years, was recorded making the remarks during dates with a woman who was working for the O’Keefe Media Group. The undercover videos of Enteen were shared on social media.

According to the Associated Press, James O’Keefe, who founded the group, said the interviews took place during two dates in June in Washington DC after Enteen met the woman, whose name was not disclosed, on the dating app Hinge.

Enteen said in the videos that NFL fans were “high school-educated alcoholics” and also disparaged players, commissioner Roger Goodell and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

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Ugandan marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics, has died from burns four days after police say her former boyfriend poured gasoline on her and set her on fire.

The death of Cheptegei, 33, who was taken to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya with burns over more than 75% of her body on Sunday, was announced by the hospital’s director and the Ugandan Athletics Federation.

Cheptegei, who was in the hospital’s intensive care unit, ‘passed today morning at 5:30 a.m. after her organs failed,’ Owen Menach, the hospital’s senior director of clinical services, told Reuters. A full report regarding the circumstances of her death would be released later in the day, he said.

‘We have learnt of the sad passing on of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei … following a vicious attack by her boyfriend,’ Uganda Olympics Committee president Donald Rukare said in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. ‘May her gentle soul rest in peace and we strongly condemn violence against women.’

2024 Paris Olympics: Follow USA TODAY’s coverage of the biggest names and stories of the Games.

Who was Rebecca Cheptegei?

Cheptegei, who was born and raised in Cheminy, Uganda, had been training in Trans-Nzoia County in western Kenya. She had purchased and developed land there in Kinyoro, Kenya, to make it easier and less costly to train in Kenya, the Kenyan newspaper The Standard reported.

Cheptegei made her Olympic debut at the Paris Olympics, finishing No. 44 in the women’s marathon. 

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She began her career in 2010 and competed in 1,500 meters, 10,000 meters, half-marathons and marathons. She represented Uganda in the 2011 and 2013 World Cross Championships in Punta Umbria and Bydgoszcz, The Standard reported.

In 2022, she won the Padova marathon in Italy, according to Kenyan online news site TUKO.co.ke. Cheptegei also won gold at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022, The BBC reported.

Her mother, Agnes Ndiema-Cheptegei, described her daughter as ‘a good child, very polite and she didn’t have a lot of issues,’ Reuters reported.

What happened to Rebecca Cheptegei?

Police said Cheptegei was attacked by a boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, who snuck into Cheptegei’s home in Endebess in western Kenya ahead of the attack while she and her two children were at church, Kenyan and Ugandan newspapers reported.

‘Upon returning, Dickson, who had procured petrol, began pouring it on Rebecca before he set her ablaze,’ Trans-Nzoia County police commander Jeremiah Ole Kosiom told The Star newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya. “The two were rescued by neighbors who put out the fire and rushed them to hospital.’

Marangach was also burnt in the attack, which police described as a domestic dispute. He is still in intensive care but is improving and stable, the BBC reported.

Joseph Cheptegei, Cheptegei’s father, said her daughter and Marangach had been separated for a long time and were involved in a land dispute involving her land in western Kenya. The two were scheduled to appear before the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in Kenya, The Standard reported.

‘The land … has brought problems,’ he told reporters Thursday, adding that he was asking the government to protect her children and properties ‘so that no one will get into her home and take anything.’

Kosiom confirmed Rebecca Cheptegei and Marangach had quarrels over her land and said police are continuing to investigate.

Rebecca Cheptegei is third woman athlete to die in Kenya in 3 years

Cheptegei was the third elite female athlete killed in Kenya since October 2021.

Peter Ogwang, Uganda’s minister of state for sports, said Kenyan authorities were investigating the killing, which has shone a spotlight on violence experienced by women in the East African nation.

Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described her death as a loss ‘to the entire region’.

‘This tragedy is a stark reminder that we must do more to combat gender-based violence in our society, which in recent years has reared its ugly head in elite sporting circles,’ he said in a statement.

Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to Kenyan government data from 2022. The survey also found that 41% of married women have faced violence.

African countries collectively recorded the largest number of killings of women, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the continent’s female population, according to a 2022 report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

In April 2022, Kenyan-born distance runner Damaris Muthee, who competed for Bahrain, was found strangled in the house in Iten, Kenya, where she was training, the BBC reported. 

In October 2021, Olympian runner Agnes Tirop, 25, a rising star in Kenya’s highly competitive athletics scene, was found dead in her home in the town of Iten, with multiple stab wounds to the neck. Her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, was charged with her murder and has pleaded not guilty. That case is ongoing.

After Tirop’s murder, athletes set up the group Tirop’s Angels to combat domestic violence. One of its founders, Joan Chelimo, told Reuters that female athletes were at high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their money.

‘They get into these traps of predators who pose in their lives as lovers,’ she said.

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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United States women’s national team soccer star Alex Morgan announced her retirement Thursday after over 14 years as a key player on the team. 

Morgan, 35, made 224 appearances with the USWNT, scoring 123 goals and recording 53 assists to make her the fifth most prolific goal scorer in USWNT history. The star forward recorded her first cap in March 2010.  Since then, Morgan has been a vital part of the front line-up, helping the U.S. win two consecutive World Cups in 2015 and 2019, gold at the 2012 London Olympics and bronze at the Tokyo Games in 2021. 

“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,” Morgan said in a video message uploaded to her social media. “Soccer has been a part of me for 30 years and it was one of the first things that I ever loved. And I gave everything to this sport and what I got in return was more than I could have ever dreamed of.” 

Morgan will play her last game with her NWSL side, the San Diego Wave, on Sunday, Sept. 8, against the North Carolina Courage. 

“I’m so grateful that I’ll get one last game to put on the boots,” Morgan said in the video. 

Morgan also announced that she is pregnant with her second child. She gave birth to her four-year-old daughter, Charlie, in May 2020 and is married to former MLS player Servando Carrasco. 

“As unexpected as this came, we are so overjoyed,” Morgan said. ‘To me, family means everything. I wouldn’t be here without my husband and my family.”

Throughout her career, Morgan also played a central role in the USWNT’s campaign for equal pay and resources. 

“Charlie came up to me the other day and said that when she grows up she wants to be a soccer player and it just made me immensely proud […] because a pathway exists that even a four-year-old can see now,” Morgan said. ‘We’re changing lives and the impact we’ve had on the next generation is irreversible and I’m proud of the hand I had in making that happen and pushing the game forward and leaving it in a place that I’m so happy and proud of.

“I just want to thank the fans for always supporting us, for always just using what we’re saying and making it magnified. Being there and showing up day in and day out, supporting not only the teams I’ve played on but the player and human I am as well.”

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall, who was also a math teacher at the school, along with math teacher Christina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14 years old, were also killed in the shooting.

‘He was a great dad, man, and a great father. He loved his two girls and he loved his wife. He did happen to love the game of football and he was well respected around this area,’ Apalachee head football coach Mike Hancock said to the Athens Banner-Herald.

‘He worked his tail off. He coached old-school ways, but he loved those kids. It’s heartbreaking really for our kids, but for his wife and his two daughters…’

Nine others, one teacher and eight students, were also injured in the shooting.

The shooter, Colt Gray, 14, was booked, will be charged with murder and prosecuted as an adult.

Aspinwall worked at Mountain View High School in Lawrenceville, Georgia, before working at Apalachee.

‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of former Mountain View High School teacher and coach Ricky Aspinwall, who lost his life at Apalachee High School today,’ the Mountain View High School athletics department said in a statement. ‘Mountain View extends its deepest condolences to the entire Apalachee High School community.’