According to the game clock on display, there barely was any soccer left to play when Jordan Morris replaced Tim Weah in the opening game for the United States men’s national team at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
The 90 minutes of regulation were close to expiring, with only two minutes plus any added time remaining. Weah had earned some rest with a full evening of hustle, a few promising crosses, and his first World Cup goal.
Jordan Morris, though? Like, really?
The USMNT ended its World Cup opener with a 1-1 draw against Wales, a disappointing result given the Americans led with 10 minutes remaining. They also ended with Morris on the field rather than gifted young winger Gio Reyna, considered by many, including former U.S. forward Jovan Kirovski, to be the most talented U.S. player.
Morris, a guy many believed was selected to the roster merely to be a positive presence in the locker room and in training — or maybe, just maybe (probably not, but maybe) someone to put in the game if the U.S. were ahead multiple goals and just finishing off the game — got on when the USMNT still was chasing a better result.
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It was a baffling decision. Head coach Gregg Berhalter initially explained it by saying “In the phase of the game we were at, we went with Jordan, who we felt could give us speed and power.”
Berhalter says about Gio: “In the phase of the game we were at, we went with Jordan who we felt could give us speed and power.”
— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) November 21, 2022
He expanded to say that when the U.S played an exhibition against Qatar club Al-Gharafa, Reyna felt some tightness, and the staff chose to be cautious.
Berhalter more on Gio: “It was trying to get him up to speed. There was some tightness we were guarding against” in the scrimmage against Al-Gharafa. #usmnt
— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) November 21, 2022
Sorry, obviously this is in regards to Gio Reyna. https://t.co/ZmN3lfFFjA
— Paul Tenorio (@PaulTenorio) November 21, 2022
Reyna subsequently told reporters he was “100 percent and good to go.”
So that doesn’t exactly clear it up.
“I mean, you never know, you can’t say if you’re going to or not,” Reyna said when asked if he expected to play, according to Henry Bushnell of Yahoo! Sports. “But I was definitely excited to play.
“It’s not my decision.”
Gio Reyna told me in mixed zone that he “definitely felt 100% going into today.”
“A little bit of tightness over the last few days,” he acknowledged, but was ready to go.
— Henry Bushnell (@HenryBushnell) November 21, 2022
As it was, the match continued about 13 more minutes after Morris entered, although some of that was chewed up by more injuries. There might have been time for Reyna to accomplish something.
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Reyna has played 10 league games for Borussia Dortmund this season and has scored twice. He also played five Champions League games and earned two assists.
Morris played 12 games for the Seattle Sounders after Aug. 1 and scored a single goal as the Sounders collapsed to 1W-7L-2D in that stretch. With the USMNT, he has earned 43 caps but has not scored since 2019.
Reyna has had an injury-riddled past two seasons, missing all but 13 games for Dortmund and nearly all of World Cup qualifying for the U.S. So perhaps it is justified that Berhalter valued safety, with at least two more games to play and one coming in four days against world No. 5 England, when the USMNT figures to need its most gifted and accomplished players available.
For now, that figures not to quiet Berhalter’s most ardent critics.
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