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Was it good for you? Did you feel the Earth shake? You undoubtedly saw fireworks but don’t let anyone convince you that the show in the sky had anything to do with a certain Guido Fawkes. The brouhaha was, of course, in honour of Alex Morgan making her Spurs and WSL debut.
Morgan’s signing has been firmly touted as the biggest in the history of the Women’s Super League. And for over 50 days, most everyone has hovered just behind the 31-year-old with bated breath, like Lenny and cohorts behind Homer nervously whispering, “Get ready everybody, she’s about to do something…”
To be completely fair to the American international, she is a very good footballer. Unfortunately for Morgan, a good amount of her fame and unofficial tag of, “The face of WoSo” has come from her aesthetics, making her the poster girl for the sport, her ability too often playing second string to her looks. As such, Morgan’s metrics usually go far beyond her goals and land on her social media reach and endorsements.
As a player, Morgan didn’t quite come into the league like a wrecking ball but as an idea, the attacker walloped out a narrative that has been lapped up by the media. In her early thirties, still on the way back from giving birth to her first child and not having produced the goods at a domestic level since 2018, it’s confounding that just so much attention has been given to the player.
“Alex Morgan getting her water bottle and making her way out of the stadium…” Gabby Logan begins to narrate as the cameraman follows Morgan around.
Look, I get it but c’mon man— Sophie Lawson (@lawson_sv) September 26, 2020
Not to sell Morgan short, she is – when fit and in a functioning team – a very talented player, who not only finds the back of the net but willingly does an all too easily forgotten amount of grunt work. Clearly far more than a one trick pony, the iconic number 13 can’t get away from her own brand. Teams who’ve signed her in recent times are more than happy to cash in on her market value as a face, and hey, if they get some goals out of her too, all the better.
When she signed for Olympique Lyonnais on a short-term deal back in 2017, the club went as far as to track her flight on the club’s Twitter account and make a mini-series about her time in France.
Morgan can never just be a footballer, can never just be one of 11 on a pitch, her fame comes with different pressures and while most of those who report on WSL for the bigger outlets would rather not devote more time to MorganWatch there is always the pressure from higher ups. Morgan’s fame will always drive clicks and so we had found ourselves locked in Ramis and Rubin’s initial draft for Groundhog Day about a football writer forced to live out the same day in Barnet over and over again. Alas, it looked as if Morgan would never site her own tail.
Predictably, when our protagonist finally did get to feel the pitch under her boots once again, her outing was an unspectacular one. And with 442 full days between her debut and her last competitive match, it was far from a surprise. Yes, she managed to avoid any major incidents and did try to affect play in a positive way but was too isolated to do much. But the narrative refuses to fit; it was the moment we had waited so long for so why did it feel so pedestrian?
#BarclaysFAWSL debut. ✅
See @alexmorgan13 pitchside! ?? pic.twitter.com/Y6SJpfq3gW
— Barclays FA Women’s Super League (@BarclaysFAWSL) November 7, 2020
Morgan is but one woman, just as Sam Kerr (the previous BIGGEST SIGNING IN WSL HISTORY) is. There will always be excitement around certain players and moves, just as many will excitedly jump up and down, breathlessly telling you that the league is growing and is now the biggest in the world (an article for another day). But the way some players are built up and fawned over is a nonsensical natural detractor and makes way for glamourising the unremarkable and watering down the entire sport.
Alex Morgan’s league debut was, for any other player, a non-event and yet the official WSL Twitter account felt the need to make a highlight reel for the attacker. Just as each touch of the ball by Tobin Heath and/or Christen Press in a United shirt gets the star treatment from the same account.
It’s fine to be excited, for fans to get behind their new signings but the sycophantism got old fast – in this case, about two months before Morgan made her debut.
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