Morris on the Move
On Friday, beloved Seattle Sounders homegrown player Jordan Morris officially agreed to join EFL Championship side Swansea City on a six-month loan with the option to buy at the end.
Morris, who has been an American soccer star since his days at Stanford University and then signing for his hometown Sounders in 2016, is taking the next big step in his career.
In five MLS seasons, Morris has racked up several individual awards, including the 2016 Rookie of the Year, 2019 Comeback Player of the Year, 2020 MLS Best XI as well as being a finalist for the 2020 Landon Donovan MVP Award. The Sounders also appeared in the MLS Cup in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020, winning in 2016 and 2019.
Sounder at Heart reported that Swansea’s buy-in option for Morris is $7 million, which is a fee that “would eclipse the combined total of transfer fees the Sounders have ever collected and be more than they’ve ever spent on an incoming transfer.”
Morris could still return to Seattle at the end of the loan, but if he performs at any level that isn’t deemed as wildly disappointing, there’s a high chance that Swansea will attempt to sign him permanently.
In prior years Morris has turned down several different options to join top-division European teams on a permanent transfer in the offseason, but none of them were nearly as lucrative as the Swansea deal if they buy.
Playing in the Championship could help Morris more easily transition to a European style of soccer, as he won’t be fighting for playing time right away in the Premier League. Although he might not be starting right away, Morris will still see significant playing time and plays up to expectations, he’ll find himself in Wales for the foreseeable future.
“This is something Jordan wanted, his dream,” Sounders general manager and president of soccer Garth Lagerwey said. “This goes back to part of the reason he came to us instead of Werder Bremen. … the promise that this would be a relationship and this would be something where he would work for our best interest and we would work for his. There really wasn’t any hesitation on our part.”
