SEATTLE — It’s the goal all Seattle had been waiting for.
Favorite son Jordan Morris scored his first goal for his hometown team, and it stood up as the winner as the Seattle Sounders defeated the Philadelphia Union 2-1 Saturday night at CenturyLink Field.
Morris, the native of Mercer Island and the Sounders’ marquee addition during the offseason, found the net in the 71st minute to give Seattle a 2-0 lead against a Philadelphia team that was reduced to 10 men after Roland Alberg was sent off in the 53rd minute.
And it was the goal the Sounders had been desperately waiting for ever since Morris signed with the team in January.
“It’s good to get it off my shoulders,” Morris said.
“I’m feeling good,” Morris added. “It was a great ball by Andreas (Ivanschitz) and I was happy to put the ball away. But obviously what matters is the three points, and it’s good to keep that streak going.”
Chad Marshall also scored for Seattle (2-3-1), which took seven of a possible nine points from its past three games after taking none from its first three.
Former Sounder Sebastien Le Toux scored for Philadelphia (3-3-0) two minutes after Morris found the net to make things interesting at the end. But Seattle was able to hold on for the victory.
Big things were expected from Morris when he turned down the chance to play professionally in Germany and instead signed with the Sounders. Morris was coming off leading Stanford to the NCAA title in December and winning the Hermann Trophy as the nation’s top collegiate player, and he’s already an established U.S. international at the age of 21.
But Morris’s adjustment to the pro game came with growing pains as he went scoreless in his first seven outings with Seattle — five in MLS and two in the CONCACAF Champions League.
So it was a cathartic moment for both Morris and Sounders fans in the 71st minute. Ivanschitz sent an inch-perfect long ball into the path of Morris, whose speed gave him a step on the defense. Morris controlled the ball on the run with his first touch, then made a deftly-controlled poke with his second to slot the ball past Union goalkeeper Andre Blake and give the Sounders a 2-0 lead.
Morris was given a standing ovation by the crowd of 39,620 when he was substituted in the 80th minute. The crowd then serenaded him with chants of his name as he was greeted by his dad at the end of the bench.
“I’m sure he feels more relieved than I do,” Seattle coach Sigi Schmid said. “I’m sure he’s very happy to have gotten the goal. … It’s great for him, it’s great for the city, it’s great for our team.
“He’s going to be a lot more confident, there’s a big weight off his shoulders,” Schmid added. “Each week there was probably another five pounds that got added to that. So by now there’s about 50-60 pounds, so you eliminate those 50-60 pounds you can run a lot lighter next week.”
Saturday’s game was Seattle’s best offensive performance of the season. The Sounders shifted into a 4-4-2 formation instead of the 4-3-3 that’s been used so far this season, with Clint Dempsey moving up front alongside Morris. The result was a game where Seattle outshot its opponent 19-13 and scored more than one goal for the first time this MLS season.
“We talked about trying to get behind the defense more,” Schmid said. “We talked about trying to use the speed Jordan and Oalex (Anderson) provide for us. To exploit that we felt they played a high line and we could use our pace to get behind them. We wanted Clint to stay higher up, so at times it even looked like a 4-4-2. … It was mainly to take advantage of our quality versus the quality we thought they had.”
After a slow start the Sounders took control and took the lead in the 41st minute. Marshall, who rescued a point a week earlier when he scored the last-gasp tying goal in Seattle’s 1-1 draw at Houston, was left unmarked at the far post on a corner kick, and he headed the ball in to give the Sounders a well-deserved 1-0 lead.
Seattle’s task was then made easier early in the second half when Alberg was shown his second yellow card following a lunging tackle on Cristian Roldan, forcing the Union to play the remainder of the game with just 10 men.
After Morris padded Seattle’s lead, Philadelphia had an immediate response as Le Toux had a nice one-time finish from C.J. Sapong’s knockdown to make it a one-goal game again just two minutes later. But that’s all the Union could muster.
Spot kicks
Sounders defender Brad Evans and midfielder Osvaldo Alonso were honored before the game for appearing in their 200th career games with the team. … Prior to the game the Sounders announced they will hold five full-capacity matches at CenturyLink Field this season, in which the upper deck will be made fully available to fans. Those dates: June 25 vs. New Your City FC, July 31 vs. L.A. Galaxy, Aug. 31 vs. Portland Timbers, Sept. 17 vs. Vancouver Whitecaps, Oct. 23 vs. Real Salt Lake. The lifting of the tarps increases CenturyLink’s capacity from 39,419 to 67,000. … Sounders forward Nelson Valdez, who missed last week’s 1-1 draw at Houston because of a hamstring injury, recovered enough to be named to the bench. He came on as a substitute in the 62nd minute. … The Sounders sported black armbands to honor teammate Darwin Jones, whose father passed away earlier in the week.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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