Bill Simmons Torches Alex Morgan, Gives Spot-On Comparison For Megan Rapinoe After USWNT's World Cup Exit
Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe helped lead the USWNT to back-to-back Women's World Cups, but the past is the past, and today's American squad suffered its earliest World Cup exit in team history after its Round of 16 loss to Sweden.
Bill Simmons believes that living in the past may have ultimately cost the team this time around, which is a tough point to argue against when even looking at the most simple of numbers.
Rapinoe is 38 years old and was past her prime at the last World Cup, let alone this one. Morgan has shown signs of having some left in the tank leading up to the tournament, but at 34 it's now very clear she's on the tail-end of her career being a threatening goal scorer.
Morgan did not score a goal in the four USWNT World Cup matches averaging just one shot on target per match. You don't have to be the biggest soccer guru to know that those numbers won't cut it from the player you're very much relying on to score goals.
"If you take away that Thailand game she has scored two goals in the last 17 World Cup games,” Simmons said about Morgan on his podcast. “This is the striker. This is the one who's supposed to be the most dangerous player on the field. Who is supposed to produce goals and she hasn’t produced goals since the mid-2010s on the national level. And yet it’s Alex Morgan. She was supposed to be the next one."
"We gotta keep propping her up, pretending she’s a superstar. She’s not a superstar."
Morgan scored six goals during the 2019 World Cup, but as Simmons noted, five came in one game against a very bad Thailand team the U.S. beat 13-0.
Morgan has very much built her brand up away from the field moreso than on the field over the last handful of years.
Bill Simmons took a direct shot at Alex Morgan, who is not a superstar in his opinion. (Photo by Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
As for Rapinoe, she may have entered the tournament as the most polarizing figure on the USWNT squad still, but was very much a role player there for comradery and a farewell tour. She was subbed on late against Sweden, did nothing, and then missed her penalty kick chance before laughing about it seconds later.
Simmons compared her to NBA veteran Udonis Haslam, which isn't a bad take at all.
"You have Rapinoe who is 37 years old who's just, unfortunately, great career, legendary, true legend, huge bigtime player, and when you hit your late-30's in soccer, it's a wrap. She looked like Udonis Rapinoe, not Megan Rapinoe, and comes out for the last 25 minutes of this game and can't do anything then misses the penalty kick," Simmons explained.
The USWNT will now have to wait four years before getting a shot to rid the terrible taste out of its mouth. It'll be a totally different squad without Rapinoe, and very likely without Morgan as well, which Bill Simmons, like most Americans, won't lose any sleep over.