Latest news with #AlexMorgan
Bloomberg
20 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Roger Federer Becomes a Tennis Billionaire
Roger Federer's long-term deals and sharp investments have made him a tennis billionaire - with a net worth of around $1.3 billion. Alex Morgan explains. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alex Morgan's Emotional Response After Former Club's Big Announcement
Alex Morgan's Emotional Response After Former Club's Big Announcement originally appeared on Athlon Sports. U.S. soccer legend Alex Morgan called it a career on Sept. 8, 2024, stepping onto the pitch for the final time. She did it in a San Diego Wave FC kit, starting the match and then being subbed out in the 15th minute after receiving a massive standing ovation from the home crowd. Advertisement While the Wave lost that game 4-1 to the North Carolina Courage, the night will always be remembered for Morgan. The 5-foot-7 striker played all three seasons in the club's existence, joining in a trade from the Orlando Pride ahead of its inaugural season. She started 44 matches and appeared in 48 during her time with the Wave, scoring 22 goals and adding eight assists. Morgan also helped San Diego win the 2023 NWSL Shield and the 2024 NWSL Challenge Cup. After all the 35-year-old has given to the club, Tuesday brought a big announcement to honor her contributions forever. On Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. ET, the Wave will retire Morgan's No. 13 jersey at Snapdragon Stadium. "there will never be another 13," the Wave posted on social media. Morgan reposted the Wave's post, sharing a message to the city of San Diego. Advertisement "See you there San Diego 🩷," she said. Alex Morgan's Instagram story.@alexmorgan13/Instagram Morgan isn't just held in high regard by the club—she's also considered one of the greatest women's soccer players of all time. She began her career with the Western New York Flash before moving on to the Portland Thorns, Orlando Pride and Tottenham Hotspur. At the international level, she made 224 appearances, scored 123 goals and added 53 assists. Morgan also helped the U.S. win two FIFA Women's World Cups (2015 and 2019). Related: FIFA's One-Word Response to Alex Morgan's Post Says It All This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 24, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Caitlin Clark Loses Major Award Amid Indiana Fever Season
Caitlin Clark Loses Major Award Amid Indiana Fever Season originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever have struggled to begin the 2025 WNBA season, falling to 6-7 over their first 13 games. Advertisement Still, despite recent challenges, Clark has already established herself as one of the WNBA's top players. Since joining the league in 2024, she has broken numerous records on and off the court, while collecting accolades such as the 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year and All-WNBA First Team honors. But there's one award the former Iowa Hawkeyes star hasn't been able to win, despite earning nominations in each of the past two years. On Saturday, Nickelodeon hosted the 2025 Kids' Choice Awards, an annual awards show where kids vote for their favorites in various categories. Indiana Fever guard Caitlin ClarkDarren Yamashita-Imagn Images For the second straight year, Clark was nominated for the Favorite Female Sports Star award. And for the second straight year, she lost to Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. Advertisement Clark and Biles were joined by six other nominees, including: Soccer legend Alex Morgan Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese Tennis star Coco Gauff USA gymnast Jordan Chiles Tennis star Naomi Osaka USA sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson Although Clark didn't win the Favorite Female Sports Star at the 2025 KCAs, she's still earned numerous accolades over the past year outside of the WNBA. In 2024, she won two ESPY awards and was named TIME Magazine's 2024 Athlete of the Year. Biles, on the other hand, has had a solid year herself. Performing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Biles helped Team USA secure four medals, including three gold and one bronze. This brought her total Olympic medal count to 11. Clark has played well in eight games during the 2025 WNBA season, missing five with a quad strain. She is averaging 19.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 8.9 assists, well on her way to another All-Star appearance. Advertisement Related: Caitlin Clark Rejected Spot on Team USA for 2024 Olympics This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 23, 2025, where it first appeared.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
How Much Damage Has Really Been Done to Iran's Nuclear Sites?
President Trump claims US strikes inflicted "monumental damage" on Iran's nuclear sites - but the true extent of the destruction isn't yet clear. Alex Morgan explains what this means for Iran's nuclear capabilities. (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Emma Hayes and Mauricio Pochettino face different challenges with their U.S. teams
It's less than a year out from the 2026 men's World Cup, hosted in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and there's suddenly plenty of drama happening with the U.S. men's national team that isn't about their recent form. The back and forth between captain Christian Pulisic and head coach Mauricio Pochettino over the Milan forward's decision to sit out the Concacaf Gold Cup this summer has earned plenty of headlines and sustained a couple of weeks' worth of podcast episodes. It has been fascinating to watch from a distance via the lens of covering the U.S. women's national team. Advertisement Having reported on the USWNT at the World Cups in France in 2019 and Australia/New Zealand in 2023, and at the Olympics in France last year, I have never seen anything like this on the women's side of the sport. There will always be tensions between players and a head coach to varying degrees. The closest comparison I could come up with was Ali Krieger's long call-up drought before suddenly coming back into the fold for the 2019 World Cup, though it's not a perfect comparison, as public comments from either side stayed polite. Even new head coach Emma Hayes' surprising decision to leave Alex Morgan off the 2024 Olympic roster was largely covered as a pure soccer decision (and rightly so). With the men, there are some inciting factors ramping up the heat. And the two former Chelsea colleagues, as managers of the London club's men's and women's teams during the 2023-24 season, find themselves in opposite scenarios. An imminent World Cup being played largely on American soil, increasing workloads for players, the changing media landscape and the weight of former player voices, and even the high-profile nature of the men's head-coaching role for U.S. Soccer, are all escalating this from a single player's choice to contentious national discourse. Advertisement On the field, the USMNT's recent form — Gold Cup opener aside — has been lackluster, and the pressure is on to not just be prepared for a home World Cup but to perform well in it. Meanwhile, for the USWNT, 2025 has been a rare release of the pressure valve that's usually on the women's game's perennial winners. This year is a slow build into World Cup qualifiers next summer, and the team is at the start of a new cycle leading into the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil and 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. For the women, the pressure is to win. For the men, it feels like something much closer to avoiding embarrassment on the international stage. The long shadow of Couva and the failure to qualify for the 2018 men's World Cup still lingers, even as the player pool has largely turned over in the years since. Playing at home in a World Cup now less than 12 months away has cranked up pressure on the USMNT program to a level they've never actually experienced before. Workload is also a factor. Advertisement It is not new or unique to Pulisic, to the USMNT or to men's soccer — but it does feel like players in general are beginning to reach a breaking point with the combined demands of club and international football, and are more willing to acknowledge their own need for rest as they put more and more minutes on their bodies. There are legitimate concerns about player workload, something FIFPro, the sport's global players' union, has made a top priority, and the idea that footballers should feel enabled to take breaks for their physical or mental well-being is valid. Maybe we're just more used to these ideas on the women's side, since so much of the discussion around that branch of the game has come through the lens of players battling for better conditions, especially here in the United States. It's not perfect yet by any stretch, but from the equal-pay fight to the NWSL abuse scandal, every person in the women's game has needed to grapple with player health and safety in a way the men's side has yet to be faced with. After criticism over his decision to rest — including from former USMNT players such as Landon Donovan and Tim Howard — Pulisic wanted to clarify he was open to playing in two of the recent warm-up matches, but not the Gold Cup. Pochettino responded that while he understood Pulisic's line of thinking, he selected the same roster for those friendlies as the tournament itself because he considered it 'a really important competition.' Advertisement But Pochettino's full response is where the discourse fully leapt into drama, even as he said his communication with Pulisic is 'good,' though the same as he would have with any other player. 'I don't prioritize,' the former Argentina international said. 'You say (Christian is) the best player. Yes, he's a good player, of course. But he needs to perform. Because I'm going to judge him like Diego (Luna, the attacking midfielder sitting next to him as he spoke to reporters), like another player. If he performs well and he is the best, it's normal he's going to have a place in the national team. It's not because a player (is saying), 'I want to play', 'I want this', 'I want that'. 'When I signed my contract with the federation, it said I am the head coach. I am not a mannequin.' When Hayes did not rotate her lineups during the Olympics, a tournament known for its compressed schedule and increased demands on players (and in that case, happened mostly in the high summer temperatures of southern France), she faced questions about workload. Hayes coached her players through those three weeks by comparing the tournament to a 'pain cave', a concept used by ultramarathoners running hundreds of miles. Advertisement 'The reason I want to play the team together for as long as possible is because I want them to develop that. I want them to suffer. I want them to have that moment, because I do not believe you can win without it,' Hayes said as the USWNT advanced to the gold-medal game — and eventually took the title home. Pochettino made a similar justification when explaining why he wanted the same roster for the Gold Cup and the two friendlies leading up to it. '(Pulisic) contacted us with the concern about how he explained about how he was tired, that (he) was worried about different things,' Pochettino said before the Gold Cup, where his team will play up to six matches. 'It's true that he wanted to come to be involved in the two friendly games — how he said. But it's common sense for us to build a roster to come to these two friendly games (in order) to prepare for the Gold Cup, because, for us, the Gold Cup is an important tournament.' In this clear juxtaposition between the two U.S. national teams, Hayes has actively chosen to give almost all of the team's European-based players a rest for the upcoming camp and three friendlies. Her roster, announced Wednesday, featured only one player who plays in Europe — vice-captain and now Chelsea defender Naomi Girma was included in the majority NWSL player group as she builds back from an injury in March that meant over a month on the sidelines. Advertisement 'This is the first opportunity, and the only one for them, to take a break between now and the World Cup in two years,' Hayes said, 'and player welfare and rest and recovery are also important for these players.' Hayes said Wednesday that while the increased player load across club and country is a conversation she can be a part of, but only influence via communication with U.S. Soccer and NWSL clubs, her specific role is to work with each individual player. 'All I can control is that in 2027, there is a World Cup and this player has this number of games, this is their season window, this is the international call-ups that they might receive, this is their off-season, this is their rest period,' she said. 'Every one of them is different. My job is to educate the player.' While Hayes viewed differences in player load between the European club game and the NWSL right now, the end goal was the same for her. Advertisement 'Our players need to develop resilience to be able to tolerate the load,' she said That said, how she manages a player like Emily Fox, who just won the Champions League with Arsenal, is different from an older player with a history of injuries or a young debutante with the national team who's stayed healthy. While Hayes has the luxury of two years to build to Brazil 2027, Pochettino was brought in to replace Gregg Berhalter last September. There is a difference between the demands of a major tournament and the games one year out from one. Regardless, the discussion hasn't stayed on the actual structural issue at fault because the drama has superseded it. Maybe this was unavoidable, though, thanks to U.S. Soccer's approach to hiring. Advertisement For both the men's and women's national teams, the federation has gone out and hired big-name coaches who create news cycles and have drawn off some of the coverage that might have otherwise gone to the players. Pochettino is already in an uncomfortable spot, due to the state of his team. Defensiveness should not be surprising. There is a break in the clouds, at least. The USMNT got their opening win in the Gold Cup, 5-0 over Trinidad & Tobago, giving the team a chance to cut through the 'noise' of the building negativity over the past few weeks. While a result like that always helps things smooth over, there's still plenty to be resolved (at least publicly) between Pochettino and Pulisic — and it feels like everyone will still be waiting to see how this plays out. This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Advertisement US Men's national team, US Women's national team, Chelsea, MLS, Soccer, International Football, NWSL, Men's World Cup 2025 The Athletic Media Company
