STANFORD, Calif. – On week after headlining the U.S. senior national team’s 2-0 victory over Mexico with his first start and score, Stanford sophomore Jordan Morris will get another chance to help his country take down El Tri, this time against Mexico’s U-23s.
On Monday, Morris was the only active collegian among 20 players called to Carson, California for the U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team’s first domestic training camp as it continues qualifying preparations for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The team will train from April 19-21 and then face Mexico’s U-23 National Team on Wed., April 22 at StubHub Center in Carson. The match will be broadcast live at 8 p.m. PT on UniMás and Univision Deportes Network.
Morris, who earned his third cap in his fourth call-up to the senior team, stepped onto the national stage last Wednesday when he made his first USMNT start and scored his first international goal in the 49th minute against Mexico in San Antonio.
The Mercer Island, Wash. native and 2014 NSCAA First Team All-American is thought to be the first collegian to score for the U.S. since Mike Sorber in September 1992. He’s the third player with Stanford ties to start for the USMNT and first since Chad Marshall did so on Jan. 23, 2010 against Honduras in Carson, California. Marshall started 11 times for his country in three different years (2005, 2009 and 2010). Todd Dunivant started twice in 2006.
Marshall scored one goal in his 11 starts, on March 9, 2005 in a 3-0 USA victory over Colombia in Fullerton, California.
He is also the sixth U.S. national team player to score his first career goal against Mexico, joining Josh Wolff, Jimmy Conrad, Jozy Altidore, Michael Orozco and Landon Donovan.
On March 31, Morris made his second appearance with the Senior Team when he came on in the 89th minute against 12th-ranked Switzerland at Stadion Letzigrund in Zurich. Last November, he became the first active collegian since 1995 to receive a cap for the USMNT when he came on in the 76th minute in a friendly against Ireland in Dublin. An earlier call up to the national team camp for its Sept. 3 friendly against the Czech Republic in Prague made him the first current collegian to join the USMNT in 15 years.
Late last month, Morris was among 18 players called to Tuzla, Bosnia & Herzegovina by for the U-23s first training camp of 2015. He scored the opening goal in the U-23 MNT’s 5-2 win against Bosnia-Herzegovina on March 27 before he was elevated to the USMNT for the aforementioned match with Switzerland.
He also made two other appearances with the U.S. U-23 Men’s National Team at camps in Nassau, Bahamas (Aug. 3-7) and Brasilia, Brazil (Oct. 10-13). The trip to Nassau featured a match against the Bahamas Senior National Team, a 5-1 U.S. win in which Morris’ header in the 58th minute broke a 1-1 deadlock.