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Middlesbrough have received a boost ahead of the start of pre-season - though it’s not good news for Aidan Morris. Despite enjoying a great first season at Boro, Morris has missed out on a
27-man USA training squad for friendly games against Jamaica and Switzerland early next month, before the start of the Gold Cup this summer. Head coach Mauricio Pochettino has said his Gold
Cup squad will be made up of 23-26 players from the current 27, meaning Morris won't take part. It will be a blow for Morris, who has aspirations to make the USA squad for the World Cup
on home soil next summer. The Gold Cup squad is being billed as important Stateside because it is Pochettino’s first and only chance to have an extended period with his squad before the
World Cup. Morris had made all of Pochettino’s USA squads until March. He missed out that month after being forced to withdraw from November’s camp after picking a knee injury that would
rule him out for two months. It remains to be seen why Morris hasn’t been selected this time. He did make the 60-man preliminary Gold Cup squad, with Pochettino admitting omissions were due
to a mixture of football reasons and also, in some cases, personal circumstances/needing a rest. While Morris will no doubt be disappointed to miss out on the squad, it can be good news for
Boro. The Gold Cup takes place between June 14 and July 6, meaning if Morris had been involved he wouldn’t be returning to Boro for the start of the season until late in July. On top of
that, he wouldn’t have got the ideal amount of rest this summer, after a season which lasted 18 months for him last term due to his move to Boro coming in the MLS mid-season. Instead, Morris
will enjoy the same amount as the majority of his Boro team-mates, and then return to enjoy the full pre-season programme on Teesside. He'll hope to use that as a means of setting up
to impress over the course of the campaign to ensure Pochettino can’t ignore him for future USA camps and next summer’s World Cup squad. With Hayden Hackney making the England U21’s
preliminary squad for this summer’s European Championships and being widely expected to make the final cut, he'll miss the majority of Boro’s pre-season. It would have been a blow to
the preparations had they also been without fellow midfield stalwart Morris for most of the summer too. While Morris will be disappointed to miss out this summer, he recently spoke about his
desire to fight for his place in the USA team. Eligible for Canada as well, he detailed how he felt the fight for a place in the USA squad was a bigger challenge, which is why the Fort
Lauderdale native opted to pick USMNT over Canada. He told the Boro website: “I just tried to stay rooted to who I was. That’s nothing against Canada. I used to go to Canada a lot when I was
young to visit family. I still have family there. I just think, by the end of my career I didn’t want to regret anything. “Not saying Canada is easier or anything like that, but at the
time, USA was definitely the more difficult route. I didn’t want to look back at the end of my career and thinking, ‘I took the easy way out’. I thought, let’s do it. USA is a challenge.”
Morris is currently enjoying the close season and return to the USA to visit family while making use of his time off. While back over the Atlantic, he has posted images and clips of himself
using the facilities at former club Columbus Crew as he works on a light summer fitness schedule that is standard among all players in the off-season. While there, he also appeared as a
guest at a recent Columbus game, receiving a hero’s welcome on his return. On his affiliation to Columbus, who he joined aged 15, the Boro star said: “Columbus still holds a special place in
my heart. Of course, I’m very happy and grateful to be here now, but one day for sure I will be back there playing in front of all those fans again. It was an amazing place and I still try
to tune in as much as I can to watch.”