Column: Alex Morgan has found San Diego bliss with Wave

Alex Morgan, a global soccer star who recently adopted San Diego as her home, can’t be accused of short-term thinking going into the San Diego Wave Futbol Club’s regular-season home opener, a 7 p.m. match Saturday at the University of San Diego.

“We want this club to be a team that goes from generation to generation of people in San Diego,” said the U.S. national team striker, who in December engineered a trade from Orlando to the newly formed Wave. “We want this to be the best representation of the greater region of San Diego, and we’re building a foundation to be able to say that we doing that. We’re happy to be representing San Diego.

“It’s a process to start a franchise and grow it from the ground up,” said Morgan. “But this organization is putting all of the pieces into place to be successful to represent San Diego in the best way possible and to bring women’s sports back to San Diego.”

With some 10 million followers on social media, Morgan is the most recognized woman to play for a San Diego sports team and an international ambassador for her sport.

The 12-team National Women’s Soccer League, entering its 10^th season, has seven years on the women’s soccer league whose demise in 2003 ended the San Diego Spirit’s three-year run.

Morgan, who grew up east of Los Angeles, said she’ll live year-round in San Diego. She and her husband, Servando Carrasco, who grew up in Tijuana and Coronado, are big fans of the city and region.

“This was always the place I had my eyes on,” she said, when asked if she considered joining the NWSL’s new team in Los Angeles.

“We didn’t think that I’d ever get the chance to (both) live here and play here,” she said. “I was really happy in Orlando, but it had been six years that I was there, and I was ready to be back to be closer to family. Having a daughter now that’s turning 2 next week, I wanted her to grow up with her cousins and her grandparents. So, it was important for us to eventually make our way back West.”

The NWSL’s original plans for West Coast expansion didn’t include San Diego. When his bid failed to land Major League Soccer and NWSL clubs in Sacramento, L.A. billionaire Ron Burkle got San Diego into the women’s league.

To Morgan, it was a soccer ball bouncing her way near the goal mouth.

“I’m just really happy in all areas of life right now,” said the 5-foot-7 forward, who had four of the Wave’s nine goals in the preseason and played most of Sunday’s regular-season opener, a 1-0 victory at Houston.

Expounding on her San Diego bliss, she responded as she often does in interviews. Her reply was, like soccer itself, long on flow. An endorsement machine by age 23, when her fellow endorsers of a Coke were LeBron James and Jennifer Aniston, she’s deft at slaloming to talking points.

“My soccer play is one big piece of it, but that’s not everything,” she said. “Being a part of this community, knowing that we’re growing something really special with the Wave, knowing that my daughter gets to be around more family every single day, knowing that we just feel so settled in a place that we’re able to call home both in season and out of season, as a representative of the city on behalf of the Wave ... we feel extremely lucky and very happy to be living here.”

She may be new to San Diego, but she’s not unfamiliar with San Diego sports thanks to her husband, a St. Augustine High alum whose grandfather had Padres and Chargers season tickets

Morgan donned a pinstriped Padres jersey last month before she and Wave teammate Abby Dahlkemper threw ceremonial pitches at Petco Park.

Alex Morgan and Abby Dahlkemper of San Diego Wave FC threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Petco Park before game in April.

(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

As for supporting the NFL team that Dean Spanos and siblings moved out of San Diego in 2017?

That’s a non-starter — for both the San Diego newcomer and her husband.

“I had been to a few Chargers games before they turned to the dark side,” Morgan said. “And now, we cannot name that team in our household anymore.”

Fans looking for Morgan on the soccer pitch won’t have much trouble spotting her. Though she has played both wings spots and center, she’s easy to spot because one or two opponents are almost always next to her. It’s her lot for having amassed 115 goals and 45 assists in 190 matches with the U.S. national team.

She shares not only an on-field versatility but a jersey number — 13 — with Padres star Manny Machado. Thirteen is a historic number for many Latino players who play shortstop, which was Machado’s position when he entered professional baseball. Morgan chose 13 when she began playing youth club soccer at 13. “It was always the number available on teams because people think it’s unlucky so I started using it as my lucky number,” she said.

Can she and the Wave turn their first season into one of six playoff berths?

The answer will come between now and late September, when the 22-game season ends.