Juggling motherhood and a professional athletic career isn't easy. Leaving home for long stretches at a time, being on the other side of the globe, in another hemisphere and half a day ahead in time, is a challenge.
But moms are superheroes. The U.S. Women's National Team trio of Alex Morgan, Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz are concrete evidence of that as they juggle the job of being a mom with the grueling demands of the World Cup.
When Morgan was gearing up for a recent press conference in New Zealand, her 3-year-old daughter Charlie Carrasco was getting tucked in for bed, having gone through yet another day without mom around. Yahoo Sports said that Morgan's phone lit up with notifications during the whole 15-minute conference, and when she finally came up for a second of privacy, she was left disappointed. She had missed her chance.
Dunn is doing things a little different.
Her 1-year-old son, Marcel Jean Soubrier, is already present in Auckland, New Zealand with the team. However, it doesn't mean she's getting any more time with him than Morgan is with her little one. Dunn told Yahoo Sports that she was "able to be with him a couple hours of a day."
As a mom, the USWNT have to make even greater sacrifices, which often time means putting your baby in the care of someone else.
Charlie, for example, was left with a nanny while her family jet-set to the Gold Coast, because Morgan believed it would disrupt her tiny-person schedule too much to be on the other side of the world for over a month. Marcel, on the other hand, has been equipped with toys and a play set from Nike.
Morgan won't have to be without Charlie for much longer though, as they've already packed her bags and scheduled her flight. Look out New Zealand, Charlie's coming for you!
It's unclear whether Ertz has her 11-month-old son, Madden Matthew Ertz, with her on the Gold Coast — he will be celebrating his first birthday on August 11. Neither Zach nor Julie have posted or talked about it.
USWNT players with kids
| Player | Husband | # of children | Children's age |
| Alex Morgan | Servando Carrasco | 1 | 3 years |
| Crystal Dunn | Pierre Soubrier | 1 | 14 months (1 year) |
| Julie Ertz | Zach Ertz | 1 | 11 months |
Alex Morgan kids
Alex Morgan's daughter, Charlie, was born in May 2020.
Morgan, who was 31 at the time and trained with the USWNT that year until she was seven months pregnant, returned to the team shortly after and represented the U.S. during the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, winning a bronze medal.
#MomGoals, literally. pic.twitter.com/1vzWlyoMr5
— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) February 23, 2023
She later reflected on the challenges she faced returning to soccer at the highest level while balancing motherhood.
"Coming back from giving birth was really hard," Morgan, now 34, said in the lead-up to the 2023 World Cup. "I didn't feel super quick or super fast right away.
"... I had already adapted my game to kind of finding the ball, and finding spaces in different ways without having to use my speed," she added, "so by the time my speed did come back from pregnancy, I was able to mesh the two together a little bit more. I feel like I'm finding myself in good goal-scoring positions more frequently than I ever have before."
Crystal Dunn kids
Crystal Dunn's son, Marcel, was born in May 2022.
Dunn, who was 29 at the time and tried to keep a very active role in the Portland Thorns FC and USWNT organizations, had one of the quickest — truly remarkable — comebacks from pregnancy to full-speed athleticism.
In her third trimester, and up until the month before her due date, she was actually participating in non-contact drills with her NWSL team. A month after bringing a life into this world, she was caught volleying balls against a bounce-back net. Two months after she was feeling good enough that her stamina and strength in workouts began to shock her peers. Three months after, and she was back to full-gear with the team and joining the U.S.'s soccer camp.
Dunn is carefully avoiding comparing her current self to her pre-pregnancy self. Both versions of her body are, and were, very different, and that doesn't make one or the other any less inferior.
“Society kind of places this pressure on you: ‘Oh, you have to get back to where you were before.’ And I think that that's pretty much impossible. Because you've gone through something that has made you a different person, a different player," Dunn, now 31, said to Yahoo Sports upon her initial return.
Julie Ertz kids
Julie Ertz's son, Madden, was born in August 2022.
Ertz, who was 30 at the time and hadn't made an appearance on the pitch since the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo due to a ligament tear, didn't think she'd be on the Gold Coast with the USWNT right now.
As soon as she had been cleared by doctors, she began exercising again, fully unsure of her return timeline. She wanted to gauge her progress before making any promises and returning into the spotlight, so she called up Paul Taylor and Matt Midkiff, two of her guides throughout her early sports career.
They had connected Ertz with Phoenix Rising, a United Soccer League club with a Major League Soccer Academy program, and she began training with the under-19 team six months after giving birth. Her extra work put in did not go unnoticed by the teenage boys on the team, and she was determined to come back better than she had been when she left.
She was called up to her first national training camp in March of 2023 and returned to club play in April with Angel City FC.
“Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be here,” Ertz, now 31, admitted once she'd made it to New Zealand. “You can’t take any World Cup for granted. But for me, with the injury, the pregnancy, giving birth, I really didn’t think it was possible. My body felt different. It takes time to adjust. A couple of months ago I hadn’t played competitive soccer.
"But I’m here and I’m really happy. When you think about all that, it’s special. It was just [down to] grit and determination," she added. Ertz played all 90 minutes against Vietnam in the USWNT's opener as a center-back — a position she hadn't played in five years.
