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Like many young players in those days, Aidan Morris left the house at the best school to pursue his football dreams.
Morris moved from Florida to Columbus to enroll in Crew Academy in 2017 only to be informed soon that MLS owner Anthony Precourt was making plans to move the team to Austin.
Despite the club’s uncertainty, Morris stayed with the team long enough for him to have new owners and signed a homegrown contract in January after a school season at Indiana University.
The 19-year-old midfielder only started two games in his freshman year and did not play a minute in the team’s first 3 playoff games, yet he has become the youngest player to have started in the MLS Cup and perhaps the greater influence on a newbie. has been at the top of MLS since Eddie Pope scored the golden purpose for DC United in the first MLS Cup in 1996. Morris cared about either purpose in the first half and helped the team dominate the Seattle Sounders heading to a 3- 0 win, the largest margin of victory in 25 years of MLS Cup. The Floridian only entered the field because team star Darlington Nagbe was excluded from the MLS Cup after testing positive for COVID-19. Pedro Santos, the team leader, lent a hand, also unable to play due to a positive COVID-19 test, leaving Columbus without two of its top influential players and causing the loser to oppose protecting the champion Sounders. Much of the team’s good fortune is due to Morris’ play in midfield alongside Brazilian Artur. They never allowed Seattle star Nicolás Lodeiro, affected by a calf injury, to accelerate and helped the team build up tension early on. It paid off in the 27th minute when Argentine star Lucas Zelarayan scored the first of his two goals, snapping a cross from right-back Harrison Afful into the air and sliding his shot past Seattle goalkeeper Stefan Frei. The player who fed Afful the ball for the time being passes to Morris. The play that led to the purpose of the Derrick Etienne, Jr. moment 4 minutes later began when Morris fumbled the ball to Lodeiro, picked it up and found Afful was open again.
“I’m just a kid who kicks a ball for the maximum part,” Morris said later. “It’s just another game, just laugh. I’m with the guys I love to play with, amazing partners. It all depends on my staff and my teammates. They make him laugh every day, so come practice, especially in tough times like this year. It is nice. I never go a day without loving him. “Morris is originally from Fort Lauderdale where he played for Weston FC before settling with a host circle of relatives in Ohio and enrolling in the Crew Academy. He was voted Best XI of the 2019 Development Academy Convention, but was enrolled in Indiana, where he was named the 2019 Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Team coach Caleb Porter has said he knew without delay after learning that Nagbe would be absent that Morris was the player who should be replaced in his place. “Morris is a winner,” he said. “He’s a fighter. I’ve noticed it in the games I’ve played him. I’ve noticed it in education and for me, when I learned that Darlington was out, he was the one passing through. ” there was Morris’s connection to Indiana. Porter played at IU, alongside Morris’s coach Todd Yeagley and under Yeagley’s father the wonderful Jerry Yeagley. “He’s an IU kid,” Porter said. “UI career champions. ” The team had played without an injured Nagbe for 8 games in the fall. Morris was fortunate to start two games in midfield in October, so he was familiar with his responsibilities. On Thursday, Crew players learned that Nagbe did not have COVID. “Nobody needs that, especially a key role on our team like Darlington,” Morris said. “But I was prepared from the beginning to start the season through the staff and the player. It was a key message that came to mind, it was to be in a position and it is a kind of motto that I lived this year. two days, I prepared myself mentally and physically. “
Photo via Jason Mowry / Icon Sportswire
Precourt and Garber can sing! Congratulations to everyone in Columbus Crew for giving them the eldest!
The crew’s game plan is well executed. Well deserved MLS Cup.
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