Alex Morgan Says Goodbye, USMNT Loses to Canada | Weekend Roundup

what is up everybody welcome to another edition of the weekend Roundup here on touchline talk thank you so much for tuning in as always be sure to hit that subscribe button you don't miss any of the content going up on the channel the big story of this weekend with an international break on the men's side is Alex Morgan saying goodbye bringing her professional soccer career her incredible career to an end and getting one more appearance for the San Diego wave against North Carolina courage before she retires obviously the stats the trophies all of that speaks for itself I don't want to spend time on that because there's something more important and more interesting to talk about that to me is the foundation of Al Morgan's remarkable Legacy and it is simply this I would argue there has not been a women's professional soccer player who has needed to be an advocate less than Alex Morgan Alex Morgan was not part of the 99ers trying to make women's professional soccer a thing and trying kind of bring the sport into popular culture in this country Alex Morgan was never somebody who needed to be specifically concerned about salaries in the nwsl OR players being traded because Alex Morgan made all kinds of money off of endorsement deals off of the supplemental US Women's National team salary she was as financially well set up as any pretty much as any women's soccer player in this country as any member of the US Women's National Team not saying she didn't deserve to make more that's not the conversation right now just making the point that relative to everybody else financially she was in a great spot she has this incredibly powerful brand she is an attractive straight woman she has no need to be an advocate for the lgbtq plus Community because that doesn't pertain to her the list goes on and that but you get my point everything that Alex Morgan did was not really for her yes she benefited from some of it of course when you get higher salaries her salary goes up too you get more intention on the nwsl that helps her equal pay helps her child care benefits help her because she has a daughter not saying she didn't benefit from any of it but I go back to what I said at the beginning nobody needed to do an ad needed to be an advocate less and very few were a more powerful Advocate than Alex Morgan you can think about and go down the list of the different ways because everybody's going to talk about the leg she she leaves and the impact she had off the field and how that's more important than what she had on the field and that's all true but it's more than just look at what she did to help grow this sport CBA negotiations equal pay all kinds of AG advocacy work in terms of equality and rights and all the things that the US Women's National Team have come to stand for again that's not for her that's supporting her teammates and her friends when the allegations came against Jill Ellis a few months ago her Club basically did everything they could to dismiss and discredit them Alex Morgan said I am concerned about this this cannot happen we need to figure out what's going on and most important maybe not most importantly but the most significant example of this and I talked about this when it happened I still to this stage do not understand why more attention wasn't given to this why it wasn't a bigger deal when that athletic article broke detailing all the allegations against Paul Riley that turned the nwsl upside down that led to this investigation that then led to other coaches being dismissed and ultimately led to significant improvements and I would argue in many at least in some ways to this incredible CBA that just got signed and announced who was it that put their name in that article that went on the record and and said yes I was there I was teammates with Sade farelli and mosim they are telling the truth I am willing to go on the record and say I've got their back that was Alex Morgan because to me from a larger Sports perspective I understand soccer is not the most important spot most popular sport out there I'm not naive to me the gravity of course the most important thing in that story is what actually happened and the way that monim and S Fairley and so many other players have been mistreated but the part of it to me that made it more than an nwsl story that should have made it one of the biggest stories in sports was that Alex Morgan was the one invol advoc a for this willing to to put her name on this to stake her reputation on this because again all of this stuff and of course she's not everybody's favorite person don't need to get into politics here but she has more to lose than just about everybody else because of all the endorsement deals because of the the power and the brain that she has and that never stopped her from trying to use all of the leverage she possibly could to do what she thought was right and to try and make things better for the players alongside her and the players coming after her and she did it right up until the very end that CBA that was just signed she was involved in that she retires abruptly in the middle of a season and announces the birth of her second the her second pregnancy the impending birth of her second child think about that message you can be at the top of the sport you can be one of the best in the world you can also be a mom you don't have to play this game on anybody else's timeline she didn't wait for the end of the season she didn't worry about anything else she said family comes first everything else comes after that that's a powerful example she had a luxury few women soccer players have ever had few female athletes have ever had she was the face of one of the most popular teams in this country full stop period and she used it and yes she helped herself in the process but if you really go look at the people who benefited from this titless work that Alex Morgan has done and the way that she kept pushing and she kept putting all of her social capital her business power her financial power her brand behind it it wasn't for her and she knows that and you saw it in the video where she got emotional talking about how Charlie wants to be a told her she wanted to be a women's soccer player professional soccer player and that there's a pathway that that's what what Alex morg said got her so so so emotional about it was that that is now a realistic thing where you can see how this happens because it's happening for players that is her Legacy her Legacy is that she had so many things through her hard work her success on the field her ability to grow a band a brand her business prowess the the popularity of the team that she was on all of it of course some of it kind of provided to her absolutely some of it earned not to just say that this was all handed to her that's definitely not the case I'm not trying to suggest that at all but all of the the influence she ended up having she gave it back in every way she possibly could and I would argue there are very few if any professional athletes who have made a bigger impact on their sport than Alex Morgan has and like I said at the beginning there are very few people in her position as a professional female soccer player who needed or who would have benefited from the advocacy work she did less than her and she did it anyway because it was never about Alex Morgan it was about leaving this game leaving women's sports in the best position possible so thank you Alex Morgan for all that you did and the selfless way that you carried you and your brand throughout your career to help make things like this new CBA and the nwsl we see today possible real quickly before I get out of here didn't want to ignore the US Men's National Team losing at home to Canada obviously a very uninspiring performance not going to get into the details it was a weird collection of players not an a squad by any means yes you had some First Choice players out there you had a lot of them missing too what I want to say is this coming out of cope America I said part of this is those players went to bat for Greg berhalter and said we want Greg berhalter to be our coach and then they laid an egg and did not show up in cop America they didn't show up before cop America either in terms of the that first preparation game they didn't learn their lesson there they went into they played well against Brazil one game went into cop America timoo loses his head they don't beat Uruguay they don't aren't particularly good in that first game so they lose in the group stage and this is their next game and what do they do they get out efforted outplayed out hustled whatever words you wanted to use there for years this team made its living on being Scrappy and working harder than its opponent because those players knew they could not win with Talent alone it wasn't a lack of confidence it was just an understanding of the formula that they needed to have in order to have success they needed the work effort the the work rate the effort part of it as well they had to want it more this is the most talented group of players we've ever seen they have not exceeded less talented teams before them by any metric you're looking at except for the way that they're dominating conaf kind of in terms of winning major conaf trophies yes they're dominating that is the only thing you can point to that's another conversation for another day but that's about all you've got it's not good enough which suggest that something is missing because you have this much talent with the the US MNT DNA the fighting Spirit whatever you want to call it it should be better and now you have Jesse Mars sitting up there in Toronto saying I would rather coach my team and his explanation basically boiled down to they want it more and you have the interim coach of the US Men's National Team coming out of this can of the game agreeing with Jesse mors saying didn't have right mentality I have more Mauricio pettino thoughts I'm saving them until this is official just to make sure it gets AC cross the line but the one thing I will say here is I don't really care what coach gets hired I am very skeptical this team is going to get to where people including myself think it can if this doesn't stop and this doesn't get fixed this team has to lose its sense of entitlement because these players are not good enough to show up in these games and win just on their talent they're not that can be games in a world cup that can be games against Canada they need to play every game the way they do when they go up against a Brazil when they go up against an England where you see all of the the hustle plays the chip on the shoulder the grit the determination combined with the skill that is the only way this team is going to get to the next level we've seen too much of this now it's been what five years basically not for all of these players but you get my point we are at a stage where it's hard to believe something is going to change until something actually changes and these players clearly have not learned this lesson yet that you can't just show up and take things for granted against good opponents I don't believe it really matters what Mauricio pettino does until this changes and until this gets fixed now can he be the person to fix it maybe because I believe Jesse Marsh can fix this in a team outside of maybe leig his teams play for him and they do all of this stuff that the US Men's National Team is not doing right now now there are managers who and you know Marcel BSA is another example probably of that Jurgen Klo there are players there are managers who can get this out of their players so maybe the manager does have manager just have some influence here but this is a player problem there's got to be accountability I mean that's the other part of it too is if a manager can instill accountability and make players uncomfortable where they know if they don't do all of these things they don't show up ready to go they don't put the effort in they're not going to play you can take away some of that comfortability and I think that's part of what needs to happen but the players have to own this as well accept responsibility for it and fix it usually I don't care too much about friendlies and especially a friendly like this with a kind of odd collection of players nothing close to the first team probably nothing really close to what you're going to see at the 26 World Cup I mean certainly some of these guys are going to be there but it's not like this was some test run for something it was just a friendly but the more you see this happen and it's the same story lines over and over again and it's a immaturity and an inability to understand what it takes to be successful at the international level the more concerns you get and the more you start wondering if this team is ever going to figure it out because I don't think any manager can figure it out for them a manager can certainly help a manager can certainly push them but the players need to step up here and make this happen that is all for this edition of the weekend Roundup here on touchline talk thank you so much for tuning in as always be sure to hit that subscribe button I'll see you next time