Two Years After Injury, Christen Press Returns to Training

Today, 730 days, two years to the day, after she last appeared in a soccer game, Angel City forward Christen Press stepped back onto the training field with her teammates.

She’s careful to emphasize that it’s just one milestone of many—some behind her and some still to come—but regardless, she says, there’s nothing quite like being back with the team she loves, in the city she grew up in. “One of the things I've just missed so much is the energy of being around people,” she said after training. “Just exchanging that energy with your team and knowing that you're all on a journey together, it's almost like coming out of an isolation period. Just having bodies on the field and having them care was very warm and it was very meaningful.”

“It feels like a full circle moment,” she said. “It feels a little poetic to hit it on the day precisely.”

Press’s recovery has been a journey that lasted far longer than she had hoped, with setbacks along the way necessitating additional surgeries and pushing the finish line further away, a Sisyphean cycle that repeated itself until she’d had four total procedures.

“I think every single time that I was told I’d have to have surgery, from the first ACL reconstruction and the three scopes that I had, I always thought I would be on the quickest timeline possible,” said Press. “I think that's part of who I am. I'm just relentlessly optimistic. I'm naively positive, and just thinking that everything's going to work out for me—and I never want that to change, you know? And I got off course of all of those timelines so many times that I finally had to actually relinquish that expectation of myself.”

As difficult as her physical recovery has been, Press says she’s spent the last two years healing in other ways, too. “The last few months of my life have actually been, in a lot of ways, the most enjoyable,” she said. “I think that that often happens when you lose something that you love so much… It actually allows you to live in a way that's more in balance with your truth or your inner wisdom. I think that in trying to heal my knee and in struggling to do so and searching for ways to heal my knee, I've been able to heal a lot of myself.”

That healing has been multifaceted, including “energy work and breathwork and different ways to support my system,” she said. But just as crucial has been tuning into those aspects of everyday life that can end up neglected when work takes precedence. “Playing for this team has also meant the first time in my life where I felt settled,” she explained. “I bought a house. I have a home here, and it feels permanent… I've been able to build a community that I feel very cared for in, and I think that's helped me heal.”

“I think the things that I enjoy in life always are being outside,” she continued. “Being in the ocean, being grounded. I think part of football is actually being in the sun, in the air, in the wind, on the grass‚ that's really important to me. So since I wasn't doing that in this environment, I was really seeking that out in my personal life.”

In her 15-year professional career, Press’s relationship to soccer has shifted, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. “I've had a very rocky and up-and-down relationship with soccer, where I resented it, and then I loved it, and then the expectations [came up],” she said. “And I think if any athlete [is] honest with you, that's what it really feels like.”

This time away and everything that’s come with it, she hopes, will set the stage for a new approach to the sport she loves. “I think being away from the game has given me space… I hope that I can bring that kind of breath of fresh air back into my game and be able to play with gratitude and delight.”