USMNT star Jordan Morris suffers ACL injury on loan at Swansea
Seattle Sounders homegrown star Jordan Morris has suffered an ACL injury while on loan with Swansea in the Championship and is set for a long road to recovery.
The injury is already the second ACL issue of his career after previously missing the whole of the 2018 MLS season.
Morris had joined Swansea on loan until the end of the 2020/21 EFL Championship season. It meant he would have missed the start of the 2021 MLS season with Sounders anyway, but it was hoped he would help Swansea achieve promotion back to the Premier League.
Instead, less than a month into his loan that began on 22 January, Morris will miss the rest of the English league season and perhaps most of the MLS campaign while he recovers.
Swansea coach Steve Cooper has said that it is yet to be decided if Morris will stay in south Wales to begin his rehabilitation or head back home to Seattle.
Morris landed awkwardly trying to control a pass during Saturday’s defeat to Huddersfield. He was stretchered off, leaving with Swansea with only 10 players after using all of their allotted substitutions, and scans have since revealed ‘significant’ ACL damage.
The 26-year-old was yet to start a league game for Swansea as he was still building up his fitness following the end of the last MLS season in December when he played for Sounders in the MLS Cup.
“It’s the end of his season with us and a long road back to recovery for him. It’s a cruel injury anyway, but in terms of him fulfilling his ambition to play in Europe, and embracing what we are trying to do here, it is a really tough one for him and us to take,” Cooper said, via SwanseaCity.com.
“Jordan has our support, we don’t know if his recovery will be here or back in America – those conversations are ongoing - but, first and foremost, we are gutted for him. He was pushing to get into the team after a spell of getting fit, so it is really unfortunate in many ways.
Born and raised in Seattle, Morris briefly joined the Sounders’ youth academy before playing college soccer at Stanford University. He opted to skip his senior year at Stanford in 2016 to turn pro and was invited to train with Bundesliga club Werder Bremen at their winter camp.
But Morris signed with Seattle and was handed the biggest contract for a home-grown player in a deal worth $250,000 per season. He scored 12 goals in his debut year as a professional, winning the MLS Cup and being named 2016 Rookie of the Year.
Morris played in another MLS Cup final in 2017, this time losing against Toronto, but won a second title in 2019, after recovering from his first ACL injury, and won the MLS Comeback Player of the Year award while on a new long-term contract worth over $3m in total. Sounders then reached a fourth final in five years in 2020, with Morris also selected for that season's MLS Best XI.
Morris has been a USMNT player since 2014, two years before he actually turned pro at club level, and has 10 goals in 39 appearances to date, winning the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2017.
For more from Jamie Spencer, follow him on Twitter and Facebook!