Despite all the noise Jordan Morris has had to deal with during the first few years of his professional career, nothing filled him with dread like the pop he heard from his right leg in the 83rd minute of the Sounders’ season opener.



Deep down, Morris knew what that pop meant before his father, the team physician, broke the news to him in the bowels of Estadio Las Delicias in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, and before MRI test results confirmed the worst. Deep down, he knew it the instant a rush of pain accompanied that sickening sound.



Still, there is a difference between knowing something subconsciously and hearing it spoken aloud by your dad and close confidant. I’m 99 percent sure you tore your ACL, Michael told him that February night. Father and son were united in shared misery.



“I had a suspicion, but when he told me, I just broke down,” Jordan told The Athletic this week in his first in-depth interview since. “It was...