New York Red Bulls attacker Lewis Morgan has been named one of 10 nominees for the 2024 MLS Comeback Player of the Year Award, the league announced on Monday.
The 28-year-old Scottish star recovered from a rare hip injury that limited him to just five games last year to become one of Major League Soccer’s top scorers in 2024.
Morgan ranks in the league’s top 20 with 13 goals, fueled by a torrid start to the season in which he recorded six goals in his first six games. It was made all the more impressive, considering what he had to overcome just to get back to playing shape.
He suffered a torn psoas muscle, which is located on either side of the vertebral column and is one of the most significant muscles within that location, during the opening match of the 2023 campaign and continuously reaggravated the injury before undergoing surgery in August of that year.
“They ended up being really, really severe,” Morgan told amNewYork back in February. “Psoas tears, which is unheard of, and there were some of our doctors that have never even seen a psoas tear, never mind the severity of the grade tears I was having… One of the hardest things was almost being looked at as someone who always gets injured. I’ve never been injured, never missed a training session. Never. I was as clean as it comes. I almost didn’t believe that these injuries were happening. The last thing you want to be labeled as is someone who isn’t available to play because it’s something I always prided myself on.”
Morgan has put any notion of that reputation behind him during a busy 2024 season. Not only has he accounted for nearly 25% of his team’s goals this season, but his play has been sterling enough to warrant the attention of Scotland’s national team, which called him in for Euro 2024 and UEFA Nations League matches.
After failing to stick with Scottish giants Celtic and English side, Sunderland, Morgan had not been called up to his national team since 2019.
The finalists for each of Major League Soccer’s end-of-season awards will be announced on Oct. 24.
