Another Saturday monsoon at Red Bull Arena brought a smile to Lewis Morgan’s face.
“I love it,” the star Scottish midfielder of the New York Red Bulls said. “It was just like Scotland so when I woke up and saw the weather, I was happy for myself and sorry for the fans.”
Perhaps there should also be some pity for Inter Miami, who were without Lionel Messi and had to face Morgan that night — though there will be no Red Bulls with such feelings.
New York rebounded from a 3-0 loss last week at the hands of the defending MLS Cup champions, the Columbus Crew, by hammering Messi-less Miami 4-0 on Saturday night thanks to Morgan, who recorded a hat trick against his former team.
“It’s a little bittersweet for me,” he admitted. “I’ve played and represented that club and have a lot of love for them. Every single goal, for me, is as sweet as the next one.”
Goals have been coming quickly for Morgan, who was shifted up to a striker role next to Dante Vanzeir on Saturday because of a thigh injury picked up by Elias Manoel and numerous absences created by players being called to their respective national sides — most notably star midfielder Emil Forsberg playing for Sweden.
He put New York on the board in the third minute when he was given a perfect back-heel pass on by Dante Vanzeir and rolled a right-footed shot from the edge of the box perfectly inside the left post.
Five minutes into the second half, he slotted home another pass from Vanzeir, curling a right-footed shot from the edge of the box inside the right post.
Following a brilliant individual effort in which he kept a long ball down the left sideline in-bounds with a sliding flick before beating two Miami defenders into the box to find Vanzeir, who set up New York’s third through Wiki Carmona in the 66th minute, Morgan got his hat trick three minutes later.
It was Vanzeir again, shrugging off a defender as he entered the right of the Miami box before coolly centering a pass for Morgan to finish into the open net.
Five goals in five games for Morgan and for Vanzeir, a franchise record four assists in one match.
“Dante was amazing. Congrats to him for being the first player in club history to have four assists in a game,” Morgan said. “Like myself, he’s had a couple of injury issues and to have him back out there — and really this was the first time he and I properly played together as a partnership — he was amazing. I have to thank him for the assists.”
Throughout all of this, Morgan is still not at 100%. After suffering a hip injury that limited him to just five games last season and required offseason surgery, he is continuing to ramp up toward playing a full 90 minutes, which he has yet to do.
“My performance levels are getting there,” he said. “Physically I have a little bit to go. I wouldn’t say I feel exactly how I did before the injury, but I think every single week, I’m starting to get better… I’ve got really high expectations of myself, but I probably didn’t expect to start off this well in terms of the numbers.”
Those numbers have been vital for one of the best Red Bulls starts in franchise history. Out of a possible 15 points to start the season, New York has 10 points, which has them in the top four of the Eastern Conference.
“We knew that [after the loss to Columbus] we didn’t become a bad team overnight,” Morgan said. “We’ve done so many things so well in the first three games of the year and the manager was good at making sure we were reminded of those things. So, this week we focused on all the stuff we’d done well rather than dwell too much on the Columbus game. I think today we went out there and every single player stood up.”
