Morris Earns USMNT Cap
STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford forward Jordan Morris earned his first cap for the U.S. Men’s National Team in Tuesday’s friendly against Ireland in Dublin, a 4-1 win for the hosts.
When Morris came on in the 76th minute, he became the first current collegian to receive a cap for the U.S. since Ante Razov in 1995 against Uruguay before his senior season at UCLA. He is the third Stanford men’s soccer player to appear for the U.S. National Team, joining Chad Marshall and Todd Dunivant. Marshall capped 11 times and scored one goal from 2005-10 and Dunivant appeared twice in 2006.
The Mercer Island, Wash. product had received an earlier call up to the national team for its early-September friendly against the Czech Republic in Prague, but didn’t see the field. When he was called into that camp, Morris not only became the first active college player to be included on a roster under head coach Jurgen Klinsmann, but the first to join the USMNT in 15 years. Bruce Arena called Chris Albright, then a sophomore at the University of Virginia, for a camp preceding a friendly with Argentina in 1999, but Albright didn’t play in that game.
Morris was with the U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team at its five-day camp from Aug. 3-7 in Nassau, Bahamas. That trip featured a match against the Bahamas Senior National Team on Aug. 6, a 5-1 U.S. win in which Morris’ header in the 58th minute broke a 1-1 deadlock and propelled his country to victory. The Mercer Island, Wash. native, who was named the 2012-13 Development Academy Player of the Year for the U-17/18 age group while playing for the Seattle Sounders FC Academy, also earned three caps with the U-20 side at the Toulon Tournament in France in early June 2013 that summer.
In October, Morris missed Stanford’s matches against San Diego State (Oct. 9) and UCLA (Oct. 12), as he was part of the 21-player roster for the U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team’s October camp in Brasilia. The group, which began its early preparations for qualification toward the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, trained from Oct. 10-12 and then lost to Brazil’s U-23 national team, 3-0, on Monday, Oct. 13, at Estádio Nacional in Brasilia.
Morris has started all 14 games in which he’s played this season for Stanford tallying four goals, 14 points and a team-high six assists.
He will return to The Farm as No. 6 seed Stanford begins its NCAA Tournament at home on Sunday, Nov. 23 at 5 p.m. against the winner of UC Irvine and UNLV.
Stanford finished its regular season 13-2-3 overall and 6-1-3 in league action. The Cardinal, which began its Pac-12 schedule with two wins, a loss and three draws finished 4-0 down the stretch to seal the league title. Redshirt senior Austin Meyer’s winner in the 103rd minute at Cal Sunday afternoon pulled Stanford to the top of the conference table with 21 points, one point clear of UCLA. It was just the program’s second Pac-12 championship and first since 2001.