Each month in the leadup to the World Cup, Just Women’s Sports will make the case for one player as most essential to the success of the U.S. women’s national team in 2023. Next up: Alex Morgan.

A staple for the U.S. women’s national team for more than a decade, Alex Morgan again should prove instrumental as the team sets its sights on a third straight World Cup.

Morgan’s career with the USWNT to this point puts her in the conversation for one of the greatest strikers of all time. But for five training camps, from October 2021 through April 2022, she was left off the roster.

The 33-year-old took her absence not as a slight but as a challenge.

She responded by putting together the best NWSL season of her career, which included winning the Golden Boot. Upon her return to the national team for World Cup qualifiers, Morgan excelled, scoring the title-winning goal in the Concacaf W Championship run.

GOAL NO. 1️⃣1️⃣8️⃣ FOR @ALEXMORGAN13 #USWNT
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— Just Women’s Sports (@justwsports) July 19, 2022

She was named the best player in the tournament following that win. She finished as the USWNT’s leading scorer and tied for the top spot overall in the the July competition.

“She’s a winner,” USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski said of Morgan at the time. “She knows how to win big games. She knows how to perform in big games. She’s done it before. She’s won World Cups, she’s won an Olympics, she’s won big tournaments. That doesn’t come overnight.”

The pressure of the spotlight doesn’t phase Morgan, as she showed from the penalty spot. In 2022, she converted on 100% of the penalties she took for both the San Diego Wave and the USWNT. She went 8-for-8, including six for the Wave and two for the USWNT.

She also was one of just three USWNT players to be nominated for the Ballon d’Or, alongside Catarina Macario and Trinity Rodman.

An injury late in 2022 just hammered home her importance to the USWNT. She missed the squad’s October friendlies against England and Spain with a knee injury, and without her, the team stumbled in back-to-back losses.

Not to mention, Morgan knows how to show up at the World Cup. Look no further than her five-goal performance against Thailand in 2019, which matched Michelle Akers for the most goals scored by an American woman in a World Cup game.

Beyond Morgan’s play, her presence as a veteran and an advocate for her fellow players makes her instrumental not only to their success but to their well-being.

Morgan has been a central figure as the NWSL and U.S. Soccer have dealt with the fallout of coaching abuse and misconduct.

In 2019, she warned U.S. Soccer against hiring Paul Riley as the USWNT head coach, an ESPN documentary revealed in October.

Riley had been dismissed from the Portland Thorns in 2015 following allegations of sexual harassment and sexual coercion. During the 2015 season, Morgan had helped Thorns teammate Mana Shim submit her complaint about Riley to team owner Merritt Paulson.

Morgan did everything she could to keep Riley from the head coaching job for the USWNT, she said in the documentary.

“I did my part in stopping him from becoming head coach,” Morgan said. “And that was sharing as much information as I could with the people who were in charge of selecting the next head coach.

“The response by U.S. Soccer was no, they had never heard of this misconduct or harassment. Not the report that Mana submitted, not the investigation, and that this was a surprise to them.”

Morgan has since joined U.S. Soccer’s participant safety taskforce, which aims to help prevent abuse across all levels of the sport. The taskforce is chaired by Shim.

She also was one of the players that helped bring a lawsuit against U.S. Soccer as part of the USWNT’s fight for equal pay. The team achieved that goal earlier this year, settling the lawsuit and agreeing to a new CBA that guarantees equal pay.

Last Thursday, President Joe Biden signed into law the Equal Pay for Team USA Act, which ensures that all athletes who represent the U.S. on the global stage will receive equal pay. According to legislators, that would not have been accomplished without Morgan.

“I also want to thank heroes like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, who brought that case against U.S. Soccer,” said U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who first introduced the act in 2019 alongside fellow Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV). The bill was introduced shortly after the USWNT sued for equal pay following their World Cup win.

“U.S. women’s soccer led the charge after winning the World Cup and making it clear to everyone that women athletes deserve equal pay,” Cantwell continued. “With President Biden’s signature, we’re ensuring that when you wear the Team USA logo, you will truly be equal.”

Who is the most essential USWNT player?

• The case for… Mallory Swanson
• The case for… Rose Lavelle
• The case for… Sophia Smith
• The case for… Catarina Macario
• The case for… Becky Sauerbrunn
• The case for… Lynn Williams
• The case for… Julie Ertz
• The case for… Naomi Girma
• The case for… Crystal Dunn

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

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Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

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Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

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According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.