Cal Soccer: Alex Morgan Contracts COVID-19, Will Sit Out January U.S. Training Camp
Former Cal star and two-time World Cup champion Alex Morgan revealed this week that she and her family contracted the coronavirus during the holidays.
The situation will keep Morgan, 31, from participating in a U.S. soccer training camp this month, but she said everyone is on the mend.
"Unfortunately, my family and I closed out 2020 learning that we had contracted Covid while in California over the holidays,” she wrote on Twitter. “We are all in good spirits and recovering well.
“After our isolation is completed, I will follow US Soccer’s return to play guidelines to ensure my body is fully recovered and I can join my teammates back on the field soon.”
Morgan and husband Servando Carrasco, also a soccer player, have a 7-month-old daughter, Charlie.
After giving birth in May, Morgan signed a contract in the fall to play for Tottenham in the FA Women’s Super League. She had played five games, scoring two goals before her contract ended, and now will return to the NWSL, where she plays for the Orlando Pride.
Because of her COVID-19 case, Morgan will not be able to participate in the U.S. women’s national team’s January training camp, which is scheduled to begin on Saturday. The U.S. team will play this summer at the Olympics in Tokyo.
Women's national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski said U.S. Soccer will investigate how Morgan and her family contracted the virus, according to the website goal.com.
"I’m sure our chief medical officer George [Chiampas] and the medical staff are looking into this incident with Alex, and we’ll try to correct it if there’s anything that needs to be corrected going forward," Andonovski told reporters on Wednesday.
Andonovski said he’s talked with Morgan and believes she is healthy enough to train, but will be prevented for now due to strict protocol U.S. Soccer follows regarding coronavirus.
"Personally I’ve talked to Alex numerous times now and I’m glad that herself and her family are doing well," Andonovski said. "Slowly but surely they’re putting everything behind them and handling the virus very well.
"We don't just throw the players back in camp right away. There are several steps they have to go through, several screenings, an EKG, and we monitor their progress before they get into normal training or any training to begin with.
"So it will be the same thing for Alex. If it was just COVID I think Alex was going to be good to get back into camp but because of all the protocols, returning to play protocol is what kept Alex out of this camp."
In November, before contracting COVID-19, Morgan told People magazine in an interview that the coronavirus made her nervous during her pregnancy.
"I think when I was in my last month of pregnancy was when the pandemic started to get quite bad. So I think there was some stress involved, just because so much unknown was out there at the time," she said. "I think that was probably the most difficult part for me, wondering how it would affect pregnant women, if I were to get COVID. If my husband would be able to be in the delivery room with me. When I would next be able to see my family and introduce Charlie to my family."
"But, once we had Charlie, I feel like being able to spend so much time as a family was just a really, really positive.”
She also told the magazine in the November interview that the 2020 Tokyo Games being postponed a year left her feeling she could take her time with the onset of motherhood.
"I felt like I was able to just stop feeling that selfishness of wanting to get back on the field right away after having Charlie," Morgan said. "And I was just like, 'Okay, she could come on her own timeline. I get to stay home and just be a mom and I don't need to — after a couple of weeks or whatever — rush off to the gym, rush off to the field.' I really was on her schedule and it was really, really nice.”
"As terrible as the pandemic is for so many businesses, for so many people, for so many families and those who lost loved ones, I feel very fortunate to be able to see the positives in this. And that is to be able to spend way more time with my family than I ever had imagined before.”
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Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo