Alex Morgan interview: “We have the confidence that we need to go into a World Cup and prove why we deserve to win”

The Women’s World Cup is just over two months away and the USWNT are well aware that they are the favourites ahead of the tournament. The current World Champions from 2019 - as well as the 2015 winners - go into the World Cup straight after a long season in North America but that has not stopped them from being at the top of the betting odds. Morgan has said that the 2023 tournament is set to be “the best ever”, and now that the clock is ticking down, it is almost time for her and her teammates to focus fully on winning a third consecutive world title.

Alex Morgan, captain and leader of team, spoke to The Guardian in which she said that the USWNT can go again and win another title. She also mentioned England, the current European champions, as well as the confidence needed to succeed.

“We have the talent, we have the quality”, says Morgan

“We have the confidence that we need to go into a World Cup and prove why we deserve to win. I feel like we have the talent, we have the quality, we have the right coach, the right players, the right camaraderie, the right mentality” Alex Morgan explained. “I don’t think that’s different from previous World Cup teams, but I think there’s a lot of different small details in place to get us to the same place that we’ve been able to go in 2015 and 2019 [and USA’s other World Cup titles in] 1999, 1991.”

Failure has helped the USWNT succeed

Morgan acknowledged that the road for the USWNT has not been a straight one, and that failure was needed in order to be mentally prepared for success. She stressed the importance of losing and how it had a positive effect on the team in terms of their longer-term winning ways. Germany, Spain and England have all beaten the US this year, and Morgan’s elite mentality has definitely been able to use the losses in order to grow.

“I think that [losing] has really helped us in our success previously, and it’s going to help us in the World Cup. Because I think that you always learn so much more from losing than winning,” she says.

“We’re not going to let 2011 happen to us again”

“2011 is one of the biggest heartbreaks, I feel like, in program history and in my career history, losing to penalties to Japan in that World Cup [final]. And I feel like we took 2015 and 2019 as: ‘We’re not going to let 2011 happen to us again.’ We felt like we were deserving and kind of let it go out of our hands. And so I feel like you learn so much more from the games where you don’t find yourself on top.”

The USWNT will have to try and win the tournament without Mallory Swanson, who tore her ACL in April against the Republic of Ireland.