The Road to Recovery: 5 Amazing Comeback Stories in Women’s Soccer
Every competitive athlete has that deep-down fear of injury. But an injury doesn’t have to mean the end of the game; it could just be another motivation to come back better. Let’s look at some of our favorite comeback stories in women’s soccer, from USWNT to NWSL players who have recovered from injury and never looked better.
Toni Pressley (breast cancer 2019)
It’s not exactly an injury, but Orlando Pride’s Toni Pressley bounced back after receiving treatment for breast cancer in 2019. In fact, Pressley barely took time off, appearing in a game for Pride just two months after undergoing surgery.
Since her initial diagnosis, Pressley continued to be part of the Pride’s roster and recently signed a one-year contract with the Icelandic team, Breiðablik, of the Besta deild kvenna.
Julie Ertz (knee injury)
Back in 2018, Ertz suffered a knee injury during the SheBelieves Cup. This took her out of the first half of the NWSL season for the Chicago Red Stars, but she came back strong. She appeared in 15 games in the back half of the season and helped Red Stars get to yet another semi-final appearance.
That same year she was named to the 2018 NWSL Second XI. Ertz and the Red Stars finally broke their semi-final curse the next year when they made it all the way to the NWSL finals. Plus, USWNT won their fourth FIFA World Cup title that same year.
Now, Ertz is making her way back from giving birth and a previous knee injury.
Sam Mewis (knee 2018)
Similar to Ertz, Sam Mewis was in recovery from a knee injury at the beginning of the 2018 NWSL season. The injury, the result of a collision during a game against Canada, took her out of the SheBelieves Cup as well.
But Mewis returned to the NC Courage later in the season and scored in the 86th minute to help send her team to the finals over Ertz’s Red Stars. She was also able to return to the USWNT roster in a friendly against China.
Just over a year after her knee injury, Mewis was named to the CONCACAF Championship roster and, the next year, to the USWNT.
Michelle Betos (Achilles 2019)
Goalkeeper for OL Reign was put on the injured list in 2019 after rupturing her Achilles tendon. Losing a goalkeeper is a hard hit, and an Achilles rupture is a hard injury to come back from. But Betos did the very next year.
On her return, Betos was also grieving the loss of her father, who had passed away from an undisclosed illness in the interim. Despite the injury and heartache, Betos put it all out on the field just like before. Since the injury, Betos has played for Racing Louisville and, most recently, Gotham FC.
Alex Morgan (ACL 2006, ankle 2014, knee 2015, hamstring 2017, ankle 2019)
You know her, you love her, and you’re always happy to see her–but Alex Morgan is no stranger to coming back from injury.
As early as 2006, Morgan has been staging injury comebacks. In fact, the ACL injury she sustained from a scrimmage against the men’s Junior National Team in 2006 kept her off the UWSNT roster for two years. But she has been a mainstay on the senior US Womens National Team for well over a decade now, yet it hasn’t been a smooth ride.
In 2014 alone, Morgan recovered from an ankle injury and scored five goals in seven matches for USWNT, only to reinjure the same ankle at the CONCACAF Championship tournament.
The next year she sustained and recovered from a knee injury in the time surrounding the 2015 FIFA World Cup. But that didn’t stop her from being instrumental in their winning their third World Cup title, starting and finishing every one of the seven final matches.
After a hamstring injury in the 2017 SheBelieves Cup took her out of the rest of the tournament, Morgan received 2018 US Soccer’s Female Player of the Year honors. And finally, after suffering a season-ending ankle injury during a FIFA Victory Tour friendly, she came back in 2021 to score her sixth international career hat trick!
It takes a lot of strength and courage to come back from an injury, but these women have done it (some multiple times), and you can too!
Featured image via Getty Images
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