Christen Press hadn’t gone a year without playing soccer since she could walk, but when a torn anterior cruciate ligament left her bedridden and requiring four surgeries and repairs for about 25 months, she decided to take advantage of the free time she never thought she’d have.
As a result, the player who returned to Angel City training this month was a different man to the one who was carried off the field in the eighth game of the team’s inaugural season.
“I definitely feel like this is the best version of myself I’ve ever been, and I hope I continue to improve,” Press said Saturday in an interview filled with smiles and optimism.
“I don’t know if I’d say I’m a better person. I’m more grounded. I’m more calm. I’m more at ease with myself. I’m more self-aware. I’m definitely enjoying life more.”
It will be hard for Press to be a better player than she was two years ago. She’s a two-time World Cup winner, a Hermann Trophy winner and her 64 international goals are ninth-most in U.S. women’s national team history, but she was arguably in the best shape of her life when she suffered the first major injury of her career.
She initially hoped she’d be back in time for last summer’s World Cup, then thought she might even be able to compete in this summer’s Olympics, but the injury persisted and doctors required three more visits for additional repairs.
She’s 35 now, and it’s unclear how her reconstructed knee, and the rest of her body, will hold up when she returns to the field. That question will likely be answered during one of Angel City’s three Summer Cup matches during the NWSL’s seven-week Olympic break.
Press is confident that what she’s been through so far means she can handle whatever comes next.
“Every day I go onto the field I’m asking my knee, ‘Am I ready?’ It’s out of my control in a lot of ways,” she said. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m back and everything’s easy.’ My career will never go back to what it was before.”
“I want to come back. I want to see if I can be good.”
Angel City certainly needs help. The team had won just one of its last nine games going into the Olympic break and had fallen to 11th place in the 14-team NWSL with 10 games remaining.
Press is likely to see significant playing time when the season resumes in late August, but she may not be the only player in the squad. With the transfer window about to open, Angel City is in the process of finalizing two key summer signings, according to a team source who was not authorized to speak publicly about personnel matters.
Christen Press controls the ball during a U.S. women’s soccer match at the Tokyo Olympic Games in July 2021.
(Ricardo Mazarin/Associated Press)
Despite her injury, Press hasn’t been slowed down by physical activity, spending a lot of time in physical therapy after her surgery and working out four to six hours a day just to keep the swelling down.
“It’s a full-time job for her, honestly,” said Sarah Smith, Angel City’s medical and performance director.
Still, she used the opportunity to work on other things, too: Press said she began therapy last September, not physical, but mental.
“I thought: ‘What can I do with all this time I can’t pitch?’” she says. “I had a lot to overcome, my childhood, my ever-changing life.
“My whole career had been about being healthy and strong, but going up and down stairs was painful. It was a big change in my identity.”
She also spends a lot of time running the diversified business empire she runs with partner and former teammate Tobin Heath, which includes gender-neutral, community-led fashion brand RE-INC and the entertaining, award-winning podcast about women’s football, the RE-CAP Show.
For the bright Stanford graduate, this performance marks the first step in the next phase of her life, though she’s not sure when that phase will really kick in. Her contract with Angel City ends at the end of this season, but Press said there’s no limit to how long she can continue playing if her knee holds up.
“There are parts of soccer that are really hard and I don’t miss it, and at the same time there’s a deep longing and sadness about not being able to play,” she said. “My body craves competition. It’s like a dichotomy.”
The past two years have been fruitless on the soccer field and mostly painful, both mentally and physically, off it, but they’ve been invaluable experiences in so many other ways. She’s grown. Stronger, smarter, healthier and wiser. And, she promises, that’s good for everyone, but especially for her.
“There’s pain, but there’s also opportunity,” Press said. “I have this mindset that things don’t happen to me, they happen for me, so I always ask myself, ‘What is the gift of this?'”
“It’s a happy story. It’s life. There are happy moments and sad moments.” [Am I] “Am I a better person? No, I’m not.”
⚽ You’ve just read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter, our weekly column that shines the spotlight on behind the scenes insights and unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the Corner of the Galaxy podcast.
