When it comes to women’s soccer (sorry, *cough* football) at the 2020 Toyko Olympics, all eyes are on the U.S. Women’s National Team and its captain, Alex Morgan. This is the forward’s third Olympics, so you might remember her from two years ago when she led the USWNT to their fourth Women’s World Cup Championship title.
With a name that’s basically synonymous with “soccer” in the U.S., it should be no surprise that when it comes to her life off the field, Alex’s #1 teammate is also a professional soccer player, husband Servando Carrasco.
After meeting at the University of California, Berkeley where they both played soccer, Alex and Servando’s relationship crisscrossed the United States as they both chased their careers as professional athletes, making them also pros at maintaining a long-distance relationship.
While both admit it’s not always the easiest arrangement, the couple has remained strong. The two tied the knot on New Year’s Eve 2014 and welcomed their first child (and potential future soccer superstar?) Charlie Elena on May 7, 2020.
“It’s far from ideal to be that far from your wife,” Servando told Pro Soccer USA in 2018. “We know that this is temporary. We’re only going to be able to play professional soccer for five to six more years. We’ve got to take advantage of this, and know that when we’re done playing, we’re going to be together.”
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With foreign spectators banned from this year’s Olympics, it’s unlikely that Servando and Charlie will be there in person to watch Alex score goal after goal (*fingers crossed*), but you can count on them cheering her on as loudly as they can from home. Before the USWNT’s next match, read on to learn everything you need to know about Alex Morgan’s husband, Servando Carrasco.
He is also a decorated soccer player and was a midfielder in the MLS for nine years.
Servando grew up playing soccer and attended soccer powerhouse high school St. Augustine in San Diego, where he was named the Western League Player of the Year, according to his Major League Soccer bio. After playing all four years at UC Berkeley and serving as a senior co-captain of the team, Servando made his MLS debut on the Seattle Sounders in 2011. He also played for the Houston Dynamos, Sporting KC, and the LA Galaxy before leaving the league at the end of the 2019 season.
But Servando and Alex don’t talk shop at home.
Even though they have decades of soccer experience between the two of them, E! reports that the couple doesn’t make it a point to dissect each other’s games.
“I’m not going to go out of my way to tell her that she played poorly,” he said. “And if she did the same thing for me, well, that stuff wouldn’t be good for our relationship. She has a lot of people that do that for her, and I have a lot of people who do that for me. Last thing I want is to hear it from the person I love. If she wants to talk about it, we’ll talk about it. If I want to talk about it, we’ll talk about it. But soccer’s such a huge part of our life, and when we’re off the field, we’re normal people. We have hobbies. We do stuff.”
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He has dual USA-Mexican citizenship.
San Diego-born, Servando grew up in Tijuana, according to his MLS bio. He spent the fall of 2006 training in Argentina with the country’s own slew of soccer champs (see: Lionel Messi). It’s not a bad place to go when you want to perfect your game.
As a nod to Servando’s heritage, the couple’s NYE wedding included a family-style Mexican-American dinner that featured a quesadilla bar and homemade churros, People reports.
While Alex and Servando were long-distance for years, they made sure to be there for the times that mattered.
After college, while Servando played in Seattle, Alex landed in New York. The two bounced around the country for nearly 10 years before they both ended up in Florida. But with Alex’s USWNT schedule, it still means that she still can spend weeks at a time away from her family, she told the Orlando Sentinel. “I don’t want to sugarcoat it, it’s not easy,” Alex said.
But one thing that does bring the couple back together is the shot at becoming a world champion. In 2019, while Alex was in France for the Women’s World Cup, Servando was playing his own games back in the U.S. However, he was determined to be there for the championship, he told MLSSoccer.com, and rushed to Lyon for the final match.
“She worked incredibly hard to be where she is, so clearly I’m going to celebrate her,” he told the outlet. “Yeah, she’s a badass woman.”
He may be used to playing defense, but Servando knows how to score those #CoupleGoals points, too.
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