When Jordan Morris left Stanford in 2016 and joined his hometown Seattle Sounders, he was an unquestioned center forward. He was coming off a 13-goal campaign and a brace in the College Cup Final en route to being named MVP.
That success up front translated into a 12-goal season next year where he would win MLS Rookie of the Year honors and help the Sounders capture their first MLS Cup.
But a few injuries and the signing of Raúl Ruidíaz pushed Morris out to the left wing, where he unlocked an entirely different attacking prowess. In 2020, Morris scored 10 goals and provided eight assists in just over 1,700 minutes while being selected for the MLS Best XI.
Now, though, Head Coach Brian Schmetzer has needed Morris to lead the line yet again, and he’s regained the form that had him called into the United States Men’s National Team in 2015 while still in college. Morris this year recorded a career-high 13 league goals while adding three more in Leagues Cup and one in the U.S. Open Cup. Nearly all of his tallies came after returning to his preferred spot in attack roughly a third of the way through the season.
“I think that’s my best position,” Morris said last year, a campaign in which he scored 11 times. “I started my career as a No. 9, and I feel like I can provide a lot for the team up there in terms of stretching teams and getting in behind.”
The Sounders will need Morris’ home run ability in their massive Western Conference Semifinal clash at LAFC on Saturday (7:30 p.m. PT; Watch on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, 93.3 KJR FM, El Rey 1360AM). It’s been 10 matches since Seattle bested LAFC (0-8-2), and the Sounders will be looking to exact revenge after the Black and Gold knocked them out of last year’s postseason as well as this year’s Leagues Cup and Open Cup competitions.
“Something we need to focus on is coming out strong and starting the game off on the right foot,” Morris said. “What we’ve struggled with against them is giving up early goals. They’re good at playing in a low block and countering from there. They make it tough for us if they get up early.”
Morris was quick to note that the Sounders are good at doing that in their own right, especially with his speed in behind. Seattle went to Columbus earlier this year to take on a vaunted Crew side that loves to dominate the ball, and even before a red card ultimately changed the trajectory of the match, the Sounders found success while being incisive in transition and left 4-0 winners.
“We’re pretty good on the road,” said Morris. “We’re good too as a team that can sit a little bit deeper and counter. We have the ability and weapons to do that, so if that’s what the game plan calls for, that’s something you maybe do more on the road.”
The hardest part of all might just be mental and getting over the hurdle of four consecutive losses to LAFC in 2024.
“What we need to learn is believing that we can play against them,” said Morris. “Sometimes going into these games, when you haven’t beaten a team in a while, the belief might not be there. But we know how good we are, and it starts with that. It’s understanding the team that we have and knowing that we can compete with anyone in this league.”
The Sounders only need to look as far back as 2019 for the blueprint and a match they’ll be eager to replicate this weekend. Seattle fell behind early to a record-setting LAFC team in the Western Conference Final before gutting out a 3-1 win in one of the most impressive results in franchise history. Even five years later, quite a few of the players on the current roster — Morris, Cristian Roldan, Stefan Frei, Nouhou and Ruidíaz — helped solidify the win in 2019 and will lean on that experience come Saturday.
Said Morris: “We should have confidence going into this that we’ve been there before in this setting and came away with a win.”
