United States coach Jurgen Klinsmann said Jordan Morris is going through a learning curve as he adjusts to playing at the professional level, but that the Seattle Sounders forward is definitely in the plans for the senior national team in the future.
Morris, 21, is just four games into his professional career with the Sounders, after having left Stanford following his college team's successful march to the 2015 national championship.
In his first four games with Seattle, Morris has started three times and been used as a substitute once by coach Sigi Schmid. And Klinsmann said that it's all part of the process for a young player like Morris, who the coach calls a quick study.
"Jordan is going through a huge learning curve right now which is really cool," Klinsmann said in a Facebook Q and A he conducted on Tuesday. "He started the first three games for the Sounders and then he was coming off the bench in the last game.
"Now for Jordan it's a game-by-game learning curve to really understand what the professional game demands. It's a lot more physical, it's a lot faster compared to what he was used to coming from the college system.
"Jordan is a personality that learns very quickly, so obviously will watch him now and see how he gets his feet wet in MLS and how he's coming through and we are very confident his learning curve will [progress] really fast and we definitely see him continuing to be a part of the senior national team."
Morris was not in the U.S. squad for its latest pair of CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers vs. Guatemala. Klinsmann's team got back on track last Tuesday with against Los Chicanes. However, that game was preceded by a disappointing loss to the same team just five days earlier in Guatemala City.
Now the U.S. team will focus on a busy summer as it gears up to participate in the Copa America Centenario, which will be held at venues across the United States.
The German-born manager is excited for the upcoming tournament and told fans to expect some nice surprises from the team, despite being drawn in a tough group that includes Colombia, Costa Rica and Paraguay.
"It's a little bit like the World Cup in 2014," Klinsmann said. "We know that it's a very difficult group we were drawn into, but you can beat any given team at any given moment. It will be very difficult but it is doable, so we'll definitely give it a go.
"I think this is a tournament where we can show a lot of people that we can do special things like we did in Brazil two years ago."
Watch the full Facebook interview here:
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Posted by Jürgen Klinsmann on Tuesday, April 5, 2016