Alex Morgan

... is it maybe time to ramp down her minutes or dare I say retire, too? She's not as sharp as she used to be and we have youngsters chomping at the bit for minutes that need to play to build experience. I'm not just talking about her performance last night v Colombia, but maybe the last 5 or 10.

I'm fully ready for downvotes!

I’m so exhausted by the Morgan conversation. Everyone seems to be willing to acknowledge that Vlatko didn’t set the team up the succeed, but somehow, the fact that Morgan didn’t excel is her own particular problem. She and she alone of the attackers should have risen above the circumstances created by her coach and pulled a miracle out of her ass.

It just seems like there’s a segment of the fandom that can’t wait to see her retire, that’s looking for any hint of regression from her so they can discount her history (no matter how recent, looking at you 2022) and point to her age. It’s so tiring.

Vlatko created an attack where the central striker scoring was an afterthought, but Alex is still being hung out to dry for failing to score. Notably, not one forward on the roster scored after the Vietnam game (Horan was actually the only player that scored period after the Vietnam game).

Sophia winning the NWSL MVP last year comes up all the time as some sort of dispositive fact to show she deserves the benefit of the doubt. Alex has a decade plus long career and last year alone, these were her accolades: NWSL golden boot, Concacaf MVP, Balon D’or nominee, FIFA best first runner up, NWSL mvp runner up. She’s still one of the best pure strikers in the world if you don’t crush her confidence and you put her in a position to succeed.

There’s a chart that shows a regression in her scoring form for the national team after 2019, and people want to point to her age, but it also perfectly maps onto Vlatko’s tenure (a period where she scored 6 goals in 6 games for Orlando after returning from pregnancy and won the NWSL golden boot).

I’m just so tired of this. It feels like we had the same exact conversation after Tokyo where Vlatko set the team up to fail, but it was really the veteran attackers that were the problem. And now, even after all of the roster turnover and all the minutes Smith and Rodman got, people can’t resist the urge to put this failure at the feet of the veteran attackers.

The 92 Morgan card is such a beast hardly seen any of them in rivals or wl, I play her as lone striker, she’s phenomenal literally one of the only reasons I’m still playing this game.

Curious as to other peoples thoughts on her card and if anyone else has a similar opinion ?

Full transparency I only watch the USWNT and not NWSL.

Like most people who are watching, Alex Morgan has been a foundation of this team forever. I also understand Father Time comes for everyone.

That being said, are there really better players to take her spot? I get there are younger players with more potential, but who is even producing for the the national team better than Morgan right now? I get Smith is elite in league play, but she has not translated that at all to the world stage. Rodman sometimes appears to just be doing cardio out there.

I also understand Morgan was not impactful during the WC, but I think that can be said of most of that team.

If the argument is planning for the future (not only in wins, but also future marketing of stars), I get leaving her off the roster, but even then I would just make her a super sub. If the argument is win now, I don’t understand who has a better proven record right now to take her spot.