In a tough battle to keep the top spot and add points between themselves and hot contenders St. Louis CITY SC, the Seattle Sounders enjoyed 25 minutes of Jordan Morris' game as he scored before being subbed out with a groin injury in a win over New York Red Bulls.
The Rave Green showed flashes of their former selves after back-to-back losses to Vancouver and Austin but losing their star forward - who leads the team with nine goals this season - could prove disastrous.
Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer updated the status of the US international who got on the scoreboard last night after a dry spell that began in early April in a post-game interview.
"So that stopped some of the naysayers about him not scoring," Schmetzer said. "I thought Jordan was very, very good. [The injury is] nothing significant. It's an adductor strain, groin injury, however you guys want to phrase it. He thinks he'll be back in two weeks."
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Morris will leave a sizeable void in Seattle's attack, but Schmetzer could potentially count on Raúl Ruidíaz's return from a hamstring injury. The Peruvian striker was on the bench for the Rave Green during the match but a late red on midfielder João Paulo forced a defensive alignment on Schmetzer.
"Raúl is not 100% fitness-wise," Schmetzer said. "Health-wise with his hamstring he's very close. He's been working hard with the trainers to get himself physically healthy. Of course you need fitness. There is a time restriction on Raúl's return to play, how many minutes he can play.
"We're going to build his fitness because Raúl is an important player for us and we want to make sure we're careful on how we re-introduce him to games. We would have loved to get him in the game tonight, but unfortunately the red card was a big factor in why we couldn't."
Still, for Schmetzer and co., a win – no matter how ugly – is still a win.
"Nobody's gonna care at the end of the year how we won, why we won," Schmetzer said. "It's three points. And it's three points at home after a couple of duds. And the performance, there's [been] a lot of chatter on social media about the team – the team gutted it out tonight."
This article was originally published on 90min as Jordan Morris suffers groin injury in win over New York Red Bulls.