She declined an invitation to visit the White House even before she played the first match of the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
Now the soccer star can’t score a goal when it matters.
The Trump Curse strikes again.
Alex Morgan scored five times against Thailand in the Women’s World Cup opener for the United States.
She hasn’t scored since.
She sat and rested in a victory over Chile. Against Sweden, she missed the second half after a heavy on-field collision. Morgan said she recovered to full health, but in Monday’s round of 16 victory over Spain, she found herself a target as the Spanish defense seemed to make a point of playing her physically.
She was repeatedly knocked to the ground, and by game’s end, a spent Morgan was subbed out for Carli Lloyd. Officially, she suffered five fouls against her, although she later estimated it would have been more than 10 if the referee had whistled them all.
“Reckless,” Morgan described it.
While the U.S. won 2-1, it neither scored nor got an official shot on net outside of two penalty kicks.
It was not the performance it wanted collectively, or Morgan wanted individually. “As a forward, you always want to score in run-of-play,” she said.
And it’s probably not the performance that can get the team past fellow powerhouse France on Friday (3 p.m. ET) in a game pitting the world’s two highest-ranked teams.
Is Morgan hurt? And even if she is, does it matter?
Via TruePundit
