2 years after devastating knee injury, 'Vintage A-Rod' rounding into form for Utah Royals FC

SANDY — The date was April 16, 2017.

Amy Rodriguez remembers the day well. It should’ve been one of the happiest days of her professional soccer career.

The two-time NWSL champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist and 2015 Women’s World Cup champion with the United States had just returned from an extended maternity leave following the birth of her second son.

The mother of two was back on the soccer pitch, opening the season with FC Kansas City against the Boston Breakers at Swope Soccer Village.

The scene couldn’t be better for the return. Rodriguez connected well with her friend from the U.S. women’s national team Sydney Leroux, scored a goal, and Kansas City went up 2-0 in the second half.

Then, about five minutes later, tragedy struck.

Rodriguez collided with a defender and heard that infamous 'pop' in her knee that almost any athlete who has suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament will relay.

"I knew in the moment I had done something bad," Rodriguez recalled, knowing in her mind the extent of the injury even before the team’s medical staff confirmed the diagnosis a day later.

***

It’s been more than two years since that moment. That includes a full year off for surgery and recovery. A year of getting back into form. And now, finally, the old Rodriguez — the “vintage A-Rod” that terrorized NWSL defenses in her heyday, banging in goals at an astonishing clip, an average of nearly 13 goals per season across two seasons in Kansas City — that Rodriguez is back.

The 5-foot-4 striker is back to her old ways. With five goals in eight matches, including a sublime counter-attacking effort from distance in last week’s 1-0 win over New Jersey-based Sky Blue FC, Rodriguez’s resurgence couldn’t come along at a better time for Utah Royals FC.

The club currently sits one point behind Washington for the top spot in the NWSL, and with Portland Thorns FC on deck Friday (9 p.m. MDT, KMYU and KSL.com), Rodriguez could move into a tie with Chicago’s Sam Kerr (the Australian forward currently in France for the FIFA Women’s World Cup) for the lead in the league’s golden boot race.

More importantly, Rodriguez is the key veteran on a Utah roster that is light on forwards, and even more on forwards with experience. Beyond goal-scoring, she’s the shining example in the forward pack, a group that includes Katie Stengel, rookie Raisa Strom-Okimoto, and newly acquired Mallory Weber.

Naturally, the striker known as “A-Rod” stands out.

“She does all the simple things so well,” Weber said. “Her movement tells you exactly where she wants the ball, and her first touch either sets someone else up or plays a ball back in.

“Everything she does is so clean and sharp that it makes the game look easy.”

But getting to that point was anything but easy. Even after being cleared to return to the pitch, Rodriguez spent the entire 2018 season with the nascent Royals. She scored five goals across 1,301 minutes, including 16 starts, ranking among the top goal scorers on the team.

But something still wasn’t right. It wasn’t that she was healthy. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel confident. Maybe it was just rust; taking nine months off anything will do that anyone, regardless of sport or profession.

“I never worried about my knee,” Rodriguez said of last year. “I wasn’t in fear that I would hurt it again.

“I didn’t feel sharp, though. It’s difficult to feel sharp when I’m training every single day, so let alone when you have to take nine months off for an injury. I was always questioning if I would return to be the same player that I am. My knee felt strong enough, and I was able to handle it. But I didn’t know if I was going to be the full package after the injury.”

***

After working her way back from maternity leave, Rodriguez was tragically set to miss the entire 2017 season. Cresting the 30-year-old plateau at the time, she didn’t know how much more time soccer had left for her.

A product of the University of Southern California, she had already been to the highest level of the sport. Olympic Games. World Cups. She had played professionally since 2009, when she debuted with the Boston Breakers in the now-defunct WPS. Amid stops playing Philadelphia and Kansas City, it seemed that Rodriguez’s career was on the rise.

Some wondered, then, why she would take time off to start a family. But her and her husband Adam Shilling, a physical therapist who played water polo at USC, are determined to start a family when the timing felt right.

Rodriguez was determined, as well, to hold down her professional soccer career while being a full-time mom. Pregnancy took its toll — as it does on all women — but there were no major complications as she gave birth, first in 2013 to her oldest son Ryan, then three years later to Luke.

Soon, Rodriguez was back at training. By the season opener of 2017, she was ready to play.

FC Kansas City couldn’t have been more excited. In the 48th minute, Rodriguez celebrated with her teammates as one of her shots breezed past then-Boston goalkeeper Abby Smith (now a teammate with Utah Royals FC) and into the back of the net.

Moments later, shock. Despair. Heartbreak.

But the next day, Rodriguez felt a new emotion: determination. Determined to push herself in her rehab. Determined to get back on the pitch. Determined to show that pregnancy, motherhood, and a serious knee injury couldn’t keep her away from professional soccer.

Rodriguez was going to come back — stronger than ever.

“I didn’t want to give up playing,” she said. “I had just gotten back on the field after having my children, and this was a moment for me to get back on the field again. Never once did I question it.”

Rodriguez had surgery, then hit rehab hard — but also in check with her doctor’s expectations. Her husband’s career as a physical therapist helped in that regard, too; the couple knew that pushing too hard could lead to setbacks and a longer layoff from the sport she loved.

“I was a little bit slow to trust my knee, slow to get strength back, and that was frustrating. But I was patient,” Rodriguez said. “I didn’t have a timeline I was shooting for; I just wanted to feel right. I took all the right steps.”

After missing the 2017 season, Rodriguez watched as her club folded in November. After Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen announced the addition of the Royals, Rodriguez committed to join the expansion club in February 2018.

She opened the season on the 45-day disabled list, but made her Utah debut April 14. Two weeks later, Rodriguez scored her first goal in a Royals uniform during a 1-1 draw with Portland.

A-Rod was back. She began to work back into full fitness, increasing her workload week-by-week, playing 90 minutes in May 2018 while working into a starting lineup that included new addition Christen Press. U.S. coach Jill Ellis even called Rodriguez back into training camp with the national team that summer, her last exposure to the side that is now competing in France.

But her club form has taken a new level of precedence, too. That’s part of the maturity a decade of professionalism will bring. It’s also a mature style of play her teammates notice — namely those like Strom-Okimoto, the rookie in the forward pack.

“She’s been playing for a while, and as a rookie coming in, I see the way she moves,” the former Big West player of the year at Hawaii said. “She’s smart about. It; she doesn’t have the body she had at 21, so she’s really smart and really effective.

“That’s where she scores goals. She gets in position, and get open to help her teammates.”

Rodriguez is back to her old ways, scoring goals like the “vintage A-Rod” that has drawn applause from several around the league. After a nine-month recovery, a year of professional training building speed, and another offseason to keep her healthy, Rodriguez is scoring goals like a younger version of herself — just look at last week’s superb effort from distance in a 1-0 win over Sky Blue FC.

“I feel like the old A-Rod and playing like I didn’t have an injury,” she said. “I’m happy to state that my knee isn’t holding me back at all. I feel like I’m finally getting my footing again.”

***

So what’s the next stop for A-Rod?

It’s probably the same goal that head coach Laura Harvey has. It’s the same one every player in the NWSL has.

It’s also one that fans of Utah Royals FC want to hear.

“I want to be a part of a winning season again,” she said. “Last year was heartbreaking. The last time I was playing as the old me was in 2015 — and that was a good year. I won two championships.

“Let’s do it again.”

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