Editor’s Notice: USWNT Footnotes takes you inside the key speaking factors across the U.S. girls’s nationwide staff, the NWSL, European leagues, and all throughout American girls’s soccer.
Alex Morgan might have retired from taking part in soccer final yr, however she hasn’t stepped away from the sport by any means. This week, the two-time World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist turned the latest minority investor in her former membership, San Diego Wave FC.
“San Diego is the place I’ve constructed my dwelling, the place I’m elevating my kids, and located a function past my taking part in profession,” Morgan mentioned in an announcement. “I believed in Wave FC earlier than a single match was performed, and I nonetheless consider this membership has the ability to vary the way forward for girls’s sports activities. I’m proud to put money into that future and never simply as a participant, however now as an investor.”
Morgan, 35, is from Southern California and lives within the San Diego space along with her household. She not too long ago gave beginning to her second baby. She gained the NWSL’s Golden Boot within the membership’s inaugural season with 16 objectives and led the Wave to turn into the primary growth staff in league historical past to qualify for the 2022 playoffs. In 2023, Morgan helped the Wave win the NWSL Defend.
Morgan has all the time been advocate for girls’s sports activities and rising the sport. She mentioned in an interview launched by the staff that discussions about investing within the Wave started final yr.
The USWNT legend can also be an entrepreneur and has made purposeful investments in different sects of girls’s sports activities. She’s a part of a robust group of traders in Unequalled, the 3-on-3 girls’s skilled basketball league that began earlier this yr. And earlier than Morgan retired, she launched the Alex Morgan Basis and co-founded TOGETHXR, a media firm devoted to the following era of girls’s sports activities.
Savy King ‘steady’ after collapsing on the sphere
There was a scary second within the NWSL over the weekend when Angel Metropolis defender Savy King was carted off the sphere and brought to a hospital after taking place and requiring medical consideration throughout a recreation vs. the Utah Royals.
On Saturday, the NWSL mentioned in an announcement that King, 20, was in steady situation.
“Savy left the sphere in steady situation, and at present stays steady and shall be present process additional analysis,” the league mentioned. “League protocols had been adopted from each a medical and recreation operations perspective. We’re grateful to the Angel Metropolis medical employees in addition to to native paramedics who dealt with this troublesome scenario seamlessly. As all the time, the NWSL will assessment and decide if adjustments to that protocol should be made.
“We share everybody’s concern about Savy, and our ideas are along with her, her household, the Utah Royals gamers and employees, and the Angel Metropolis gamers, employees and group. Please respect her privateness.”
After the match concluded – Angel Metropolis gained 2-0 – each groups gathered on the sphere and Utah defender Alex Leora (who beforehand performed with King at Bay FC) led the group in what gave the impression to be a prayer.
Royals coach Jimmy Coenraets informed reporters later that maybe the match mustn’t have resumed after King collapsed.
“In these moments, I’m undecided if we must always have continued the sport,” Coenraets mentioned. “Our gamers had been simply scared. That’s not the best scenario to be in however ultimately, we performed on. That’s the choice different individuals have taken, which is okay. It was a very robust second.”
King performed one yr for the North Carolina Tar Heels earlier than being drafted second general by Bay FC in 2024. She joined Angel Metropolis forward of the 2025 season and has performed for U.S. youth nationwide groups together with final yr when she helped the U-20 staff win bronze on the 2024 Girls’s World Cup. She participated within the USWNT ‘Futures Camp’ in January.
Girls’s World Cup growth
The Girls’s World Cup will increase from 32 to 48 groups for the 2031 match after a proposal was unanimously authorized throughout a FIFA Council assembly final Friday. The 2031 World Cup shall be hosted by america.
The 2026 Males’s World Cup, which shall be co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada, can even function 48 groups. The 2027 Girls’s World Cup in Brazil will nonetheless have 32 international locations competing.
“This isn’t nearly having 16 extra groups taking part in within the FIFA Girls’s World Cup, however taking the following steps in relation to the ladies’s recreation normally by guaranteeing that extra FIFA Member Associations have the possibility to profit from the match to develop their girls’s soccer buildings from a holistic perspective,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino mentioned in an announcement.
“The FIFA Girls’s World Cup 2023, the primary during which groups from all confederations gained no less than one recreation and groups from 5 confederations reached the knockout stage, amongst many different data, set a brand new normal for world competitiveness. This determination ensures we’re sustaining the momentum when it comes to rising girls’s soccer globally.”
FIFPRO supported the growth, and U.S. Soccer CEO J.T. Batson informed reporters beforehand that the federation could be in favor of it as properly.
Chelsea wins one other WSL title
Chelsea clinched its eighth WSL title – and sixth in a row – over the weekend following a 1-0 win over Liverpool. In doing so, the Blues additionally turned the primary membership in league historical past to go unbeaten, successful 22 straight video games this season.
Whereas successful titles is nothing new for Chelsea, it was the membership’s first with coach Sonia Bompastor. The previous Lyon coach took over the Blues after Emma Hayes left to turn into the USWNT supervisor.
“As a supervisor, gamers and employees, you solely dwell these moments perhaps as soon as in your life,” Bompastor mentioned after the match. “It’s troublesome to consider, however it’s essential take pleasure in it as a result of it’s a nice achievement.”
Hayes congratulated her former staff on social media, whereas present Chelsea and USWNT gamers Naomi Girma, Catarina Macario and Mia Fishel celebrated their victory on the pitch.
Chelsea was eradicated from Champions League competitors after dropping to Barcelona 8-2 on mixture, however nonetheless has an opportunity to win extra trophies this yr when it faces Manchester United within the FA Cup remaining on Could 18.
Laken Litman covers faculty soccer, faculty basketball and soccer for FOX Sports activities. She beforehand wrote for Sports activities Illustrated, USA At this time and The Indianapolis Star. She is the creator of “Sturdy Like a Lady,” revealed in spring 2022 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX. Observe her at @LakenLitman.
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