Jessica Alcheh-USA TODAY Sports
Alex Morgan has been here before. The existential questions about the future of the United States women’s national team, the panic about its eroding place near (certainly no longer at) the top of the world’s pecking order, the insinuation that there was doubt not only about, but perhaps within the team.
Morgan has been a forward and a focal point of this U.S. team for 14 years, guiding it to great successes: two World Cup titles and an Olympic gold medal. She’s been there for the highs, but she has seen some lows.
Fourteen years ago, in her first full year with the team, the U.S. lost an even higher-stakes game to Mexico, a Concacaf World Cup qualifying semifinal that sent the No. 1 team in the world into a two-leg playoff with Italy for the 16th and final spot in the 2011 World Cup. A 21-year-old Morgan scored a crucial, late goal in the first leg in Italy to help the U.S. advance to the World Cup, where the Americans lost to Japan in the final.
So, Monday’s loss to Mexico in the…
