Alex Morgan on Her ‘Surprise’ Pregnancy and Finding 'Peace' in Retirement from Soccer (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Alex Morgan.Photo:Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty

Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty

Not everything has gone to plan forAlex Morgan, but it’s all exactly where she wanted to end up.

The longtime U.S. Women’s National Team star, 35,simultaneously announcedher retirement from soccer while also telling the world she’s pregnant with her second child in a bombshell video last month, days before playing the final competitive game of her career with the NWSL’s San Diego Wave FC.

Morgan’s pregnancy was a “surprise” for her and husband Servando Carrasco, she tells PEOPLE a month later, and it forced her to move her plans for retirement a couple months early.

“We’re just really looking forward to expanding our family,” the two-time World Cup champion says. “We’ve wanted to do this for a while, but we obviously wanted to find the right time. It came a few months earlier than anticipated, as the pregnancy was a little unexpected, but looking back I’m really grateful for how everything worked out.”

Alex Morgan.Meg Oliphant/Getty

Meg Oliphant/Getty

Originally, Morgan hoped to retire after one more run with the USWNT at the 2024 Summer Olympics. Butdisappointmenthit when the longtime USWNT star — who helped lead the team to two World Cups, an Olympic gold medal and a bronze throughout the 2010s — wasn’t selected to join Emma Hayes’ squad in Paris.

“I wanted one last major tournament,” Morgan explains. “I just know how much those have meant to me in the past, both the Olympics and World Cup, so it would have been great to end my career on a high at a major tournament. After the World Cup [in 2023], not being able to have gone far enough to be really proud, I wanted to be able to push for one more. I think the team was moving in a different direction, was trending younger, was looking towards the future, was looking to empower the young players, and I fully understood that."

She adds: “As much as I wanted to continue with the team and make the Olympic roster, I understood there was always a possibility of that, given my last year, and my age, and how long I had been with the team. There was a sentiment of passing the torch. As disappointed as I was, I carried on and understood that this is life.”

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.Shortly after receiving the news that she wasn’t on the Olympic squad, Morgan says, “something beautifully unexpected happened and I got pregnant, so my body had other plans.”Morgan, who first began racking up global soccer accolades back in 2008 at the Under-20 Women’s World Cup, is now turning to a new chapter in life — one focused on family, her multiple business ventures and her eponymous Alex Morgan Foundation, which celebrates its first anniversary this month.

Alex Morgan.Alex Morgan/Instagram

Alex Morgan/Instagram

Morgan also recently teamed up withNourish, a telehealth company that connects its users with dietitians, and began appearing inseveral commercialsfor the brand.“I know the impact that having a dietitian has had — not only on my playing career and the longevity of it — but also the different phases of my life in general, going through pregnancy and postpartum, changing my diet from a meat-heavy diet to more of a plant-based diet, and then transitioning to more of a vegetarian diet,” she says. “Understanding all that through someone who is an expert at being able to help me, rather than having me try to figure it out, has been great.”

Morgan says she feels “a little bit more prepared” for her second pregnancy, after giving birth to her and Carrasco’sfirst daughter Charliein 2020.

Alex Morgan holding her daughter Charlie Carrasco.

“I’m at peace,” Morgan says. “I’m just really happy with where I am now.”

source: people.com