Jordan Morris and Cristian Roldan share the joy and relief of the USMNT qualifying for the World Cup

ST. PAUL, Minn. — There are a lot of ways to measure how long it’s been since the U.S. men’s soccer team last played in a World Cup, and here’s another one.

Jordan Morris earned the first of his 45 caps four months after that tournament ended.

That can’t have been long ago, right?

Brace yourself for the answer.

When the U.S. plays its next World Cup game, it will have been eight years and three days since Morris’ national team debut, and only five months fewer since his first national team goal — back when he was still a sophomore at Stanford.

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The Seattle-area native has endured much more than just the pressure of getting the U.S. back to soccer’s biggest stage. He has suffered two major ACL injuries in the last four years.

The first came in early 2018, not long after a hamstring injury denied him the ability to play in the Americans’ fateful loss at Trinidad & Tobago in October 2017. He returned just in time to help the Sounders reach that year’s MLS Cup final, then injured the ACL in his first game of the new season.

The second ACL tear came in early 2020, when was on loan at Swansea City of England’s second division. It was his long-awaited chance to play in Europe after controversially spending his entire pro career to date in MLS, and he had to come home after just five games.

Now, at last, Morris is back to full health. He played in the U.S. team’s last six World Cup qualifiers, and has played in all nine of the Seattle Sounders’ games this year across MLS and the Concacaf Champions League. In Saturday’s 2-1 win at Minnesota United, he helped orchestrate both of his team’s goals.

“During my rehab last year, obviously, you know, I wanted to get back with the Sounders, but the big goal was to get back and try to be part of the national team and to try to make the World Cup,” Morris said. “So to be a part of the qualifying group, and to be there when we qualified, kind of makes all that hard work that I put in last year completely worth it.”

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Morris’ teammate for club and country, Cristian Roldan, praised the work that U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter did in building a positive culture within the team as it tried to heal its scars.

“Especially on this roster and during these qualifiers, the culture, the messaging all went along the path that we wanted,” Roldan said. “Gregg, he’s extremely organized, so he really set forth the culture that we wanted, and had the leaders to step up and bring that each and every game.”

One of those culture-building moments was a big-time party that the U.S. team threw in its locker room in Costa Rica after the qualifying finale, a 2-0 defeat. Because the Americans’ huge goal difference margin meant only a 6-0 loss would matter, the fact that they lost didn’t matter on paper.

Many outside observers didn’t like watching the team celebrate after a loss. But the qualifying campaign was scarred by history and upended by the pandemic. So it surely helped free the players of their psychological burdens to let some beer and Champagne fly.

“Yeah, there was some extra pressure, and maybe a burden on some people’s shoulders,” Morris said. “But we were really confident as a team, and I think there were some great performances in this window. … It had been a long road for a lot of those guys that started with the team when qualifying started, so to know that we’re going, and that we’re qualified, is a great feeling and it just made the celebrations even better.”

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Roldan also noted what the moment meant for a team that will be one of the youngest in Qatar this fall. Most of the American squad will be in their early 20s, with star midfielder Yunus Musah set to turn 20 on the day of the group stage finale vs. Iran. If Roldan and Morris make the squad, the former will be 27 and the latter 28.

“We understood that we were setting forth a really young squad, and we understood that there were going to be some lows and highs — and we’re better off because of it,” Roldan said. “The U.S. men’s national team is going to be a better national team going forward because of the chances we gave to these young, talented players.”

Sounders manager Brian Schmetzer sees the same progress. But the often-stoic veteran allowed himself a smile as he mused over whether to call two of Seattle’s most popular players old just yet.

“I’m proud of both of those kids — and maybe they’re not kids anymore, they’re grown men,” he said of his players. “As a U.S. fan, [I’m] happy that we qualified and we’re progressing. I think our country’s progressing in a positive way. And when you get young Americans that can play at that level, I think that’s great. We’re lucky to have both of them.”