Winning and losing isn't everything; sometimes, the journey is just as important as the outcome.
Alex Morgan
Around the age of 14, I was very discouraged from a coach. It was my first youth club team while playing soccer. She told me at the time that I wasn't good enough to play on the team, that I would never get into the game.
I feel the most confident when I'm comfortable in workout clothes with my hair up in a ponytail.
When people say, 'You run like a girl; you play like a girl,' it's not what it used to be. That shouldn't be negative. You should be proud to play like a girl.
My goal is to show girls that I'm fighting so they don't have to, so they don't have to fight the same battles, so they don't have to fight for wage equality or whatever it may be.
Sportsmanship is definitely an important thing in all sports. In soccer, we all respect each other on such a high level, between Sweden and Brazil and Japan or whatever team it is.
I love yoga. There's a lot of stretching involved, which helps with my flexibility and injury prevention. Vinyasa is my favorite as a recovery tool and for me to continue having my legs feel good.
When I play on grass, my body doesn't ache. It can get sore, but it doesn't pulse, and my legs don't ache. When I play on turf, my legs can pulse and ache for up to 24 hours, and it could take 3-5 days to recover, whereas grass, after 24 hours, I'm ready to play again.
Ninety percent of the time, when I put on my headphones, I forget to turn on my music. Literally 10 minutes will go by before I realize that there's no music.
I grew up always having dessert after dinner. Always. It's such a hard habit for me to break. It's fine to have dessert every once in a while, but not seven days a week!
Every time you step onto the field, you have to set goals. My goals are to either score a goal, to have an assist, or to play well.
There's really no secret to success. You make your own success.
I was the biggest tomboy growing up. Now I love playing with a full face of makeup.
Scoring a goal in a World Cup was my dream as a little girl. I didn't really dream of being in 'Maxim' when I was 5.
I could be a model for one night. But I'm also a professional soccer player, and I like to be taken seriously on the field.
I always map out how to get a good eight or nine hours of sleep before I even start my day. And my rule is to put my phone on silent when I go to bed; that way, no texts or emails can disturb me.
I am hugely honored to represent my country in the Olympics and in World Cups, and I'm grateful for all the advantages being a professional soccer player brings my way - the opportunities to see the world, the camaraderie and friendships, and more.
I want young girls to dream about being professional soccer players instead of just watching the boys go out and play.
Social media has come a long way. With the good has come some bad, and you always have a lot of people hiding behind their computers and being very critical of what you do on and off the field, of what you tweet, of what you say, of everything you do.
It's so easy to lose your fitness and so hard to gain it back.
I have done 'Sports Illustrated,' but I don't regret it because it portrayed me in a positive way - as an athlete.
I have experienced sexism multiple times, and I'm sure I will a lot more.
I could always score goals. I loved that feeling of having your team look to you, that feeling of leadership.
At home, my mom and my dad shared equally in the responsibilities of the family and our home and always demonstrated the importance of men and women having an equal role.
I really try to take a step back from the soccer world and going a thousand miles an hour every day. I like to do some sort of either meditation or mental visualization or breathing exercises - something to calm my mind down because a lot of times, it's just going faster than it should.
I really like my legs because I've worked hard for them. With soccer, that's the one thing you're working all the time.
I find my motivation from everyone who looks up to me and my teammates. From the little girls that look up to me and tell me they want to be like me when they grow up.
I feel like I'm always looking to continue improving myself. I'm always looking to win. I'm super competitive, so going into the Olympics, I feel like that's nothing different.
There's those young girls that I once was, looking up to Mia Hamm, Christine Lilly, all those players, and I know how much of an effect they had on me. Knowing that, I feel like I'm in a position where I can really help be a positive influence in girls' lives.
I think it's huge, especially in team sports, for players to be able to rely on each other and to really trust in each other.
It wasn't until 1999 when my idols Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly took home the women's World Cup trophy at the Rose Bowl in front of 40 million TV viewers that I remember thinking how rare it was to see women play sports on TV.
After I got my gold medal, I thought, 'This isn't just me. It belongs to my team, my friends, my family, the fans, everybody who's impacted my life - this is our gold medal.' So when someone asks to try it on, I'm like, 'Sure, why not?' I might be a little too relaxed about it, but why would I keep it to myself?
I never look at the goalkeeper's eyes.
I've always wanted to become a professional soccer player.
I want to know I made women's soccer better than it was when I came into it.
My goal against Italy in the World Cup qualifier was probably my most memorable: we had to go to Italy and had to win, or we wouldn't go to the World Cup, and I scored in stoppage time.
When I leave the game, I want to go out on top.
I feel like when there's more on the line and there's more risks, that means there's more reward.
Whenever people say 'women's soccer,' I want to correct them to say 'soccer.' Every girl has had their sport diminished because they're girls.
At the FIFA World Player of the Year event, FIFA executives and FIFA president Sepp Blatter didn't know who I was. And I was being honored as top three in the world. That was pretty shocking.
In the 123rd minute of the semifinal game at the Olympics against Canada, I scored the game-winning goal that brought us to the finals. You can't replicate those do-or-die moments in practice or a friendly game.
Pregame, I eat pancakes for a meal. I always do mental visualization before the game to prepare myself. Postgame, I typically take ice baths.
I rarely felt or noticed any real divide between girls and boys when I was growing up. Maybe it was because I was so involved in sports and competed with the boys. Maybe it was my mom and dad, who constantly instilled confidence in me and never made me feel as though there were boy activities and girl activities.
It's great to see women standing up in their own line of work and fighting for fair value.
I hate being recognized; I hate it, hate it.
I think it's important to keep things positive. Sometimes you don't win, and that sucks, and you work on improving.
As a professional soccer player, I need to get touches on the ball every day, and obviously it's a lot easier to do that with a team than to motivate yourself to do it by yourself.
I wasn't the most technical player. But I was fast, and if I push the ball past a player, I can get there. Everyone always made fun of me in a good way for that.
People know there's more than one side to me. You can have beauty and brains and athletic ability. You can switch up the cleats for heels once in a while. You can do both.
The head-banging music gives me a headache. Katy Perry is fun, Rihanna, old-school '90s hip-hop. Salt-N-Pepa. I like listening to that. Get the nerves out before the games.
