After 11 long months of rehab, Simone Charley was ready to be back out on the field for the 2024 NWSL season. She had ruptured her Achilles tendon nearly a year prior as a member of Angel City and was entering the final phase of her recovery, finishing her program with her new club: the Orlando Pride.

The recovery for an Achilles injury is long and grueling. It’s the type of injury that silences basketball arenas. You know it when you see it; their season’s done. To get back to walking and running is milestone enough, nevermind getting back to form as a professional soccer player.

But Charley had done it. She’d made it back onto the field.

Three training sessions in, something so statistically rare happened. It happened again on her other foot.

“I took a step back and felt it,” Charley said. “I remember turning around and not seeing anyone there. Once I didn't see anyone, I literally just crumpled to the ground.”

That phantom kick is the telltale sign of an Achilles injury.

“The person looks back to see who kicked me. That's when you know,” said Dr. Cory Price, the Pride’s director of medical and performance. “Everyone was holding their breath and just praying. There's no way. There's no way that anyone deserves for this to happen once, let alone twice back-to-back.”

The first time Charley ruptured an Achilles, she did her best to stay positive, but to rupture the other Achilles while almost done rehabbing the first, that’s enough to break someone.

“I was just in complete disbelief,” Charley said.

There was anger and grief, and Charley did not shy away from feeling every emotion. Crediting her faith in helping her along the way, Charley said she “learned to wrestle with God.” He could handle her storm.

She handled her storm, too. More than a year after that second injury, she’s now back on the pitch.

“It's one of the most courageous things I've seen. To do it once, once is awful. To do it twice,” Price said. “If she decided that this was it. If she decided, you know what, this ain't worth it? No one could have blamed her. But I never really got the feeling that that was an option for her.”

If her back-to-back Achilles ruptures are something like a Greek tragedy, Charley’s comeback is nothing short of a Hero’s Journey.

In those epics, the protagonist overcomes insurmountable odds to achieve victory before returning home, changed forever by the experience. Our protagonist here is no different, but what Charley started to see as the finish line – playing soccer again – wasn’t where her triumph ended.

Against the Houston Dash in Week 23, Charley scored her first goal in three years – an equalizer to give the Pride a much needed point in the midst of a heated playoff race.

Her diving header hit the back of the net and Charley laid sprawled out on the pitch, arms above her head in disbelief – this time, the good kind.

“This is vintage Simone,” Charley said. “I feel like being able to do that, I'm back. It feels like I'm back.”

Simone Charley’s start in the NWSL laid the groundwork for the resiliency she would come to lean on in the last three years. An undrafted, non-roster invitee for the Portland Thorns in 2018, Charley spent her first year in the league working tirelessly – on the field to get noticed and off the field to support herself.

“When you're that close to your dream of being a professional soccer player, something I dreamed about since I was a kid and to be told no in that moment … It was a really hard time,” Charley said. “But I'm so much better for it.”

As a member of the practice squad, Charley watched the Thorns compete from a suite on game days. One particular day, her cousin sent her a text that stuck with her.

“‘This time next year, when you're on the field, I want you to look up at that suite and remember how far God has taken you,’” Charley remembered. “Literally a year to the day of that text message, I made my home debut at Providence Park.”

Charley not only played in that match, she earned two assists.

“I remember taking a moment and looking up to where I used to sit and watch every game,” she said. “I was like, ‘It's here. It's happening.’”

It sure did happen – from the Thorns to loan in Australia’s W-League to Angel City FC, Charley brought her on-field prowess and natural leadership day in and day out. All the while, never forgetting those days watching from the stands.

While playing for Angel City in April of 2023, Charley ruptured an Achilles tendon in her left foot during a routine tackle. It was the first season-ending injury of her career.

“Building up that resilience [in Portland] and just the faith to keep going when things are hard was something I had to rely on,” Charley said. “It’s an everyday grind … slowly chipping away at trying to play again.”

It would take nearly a year of rehabilitation across two clubs to get her back to form. Price and his team in Orlando worked closely with the Angel City medical team to ensure her recovery stayed the course, but the first order of business for Price is to understand who the players he works with are as people so he can treat them holistically.

“From the moment that you meet Simone, you understand how special of an individual she is,” Price said. “It's very clear as soon as you meet her, this is a good person.”

Charley is what Price called an “active participant” in recovery. She asks questions, she wants to learn. As the 2024 preseason rolled around, everyone felt Charley progressed to the point of being able to return to team activities.

“She had given us the two thumbs up,” Price said. “‘I feel great. I feel like myself.’”

It was a moment of triumph so quickly ripped away. At the tail end of rehab on her left Achilles, her right Achilles tendon ruptured.

“I felt completely just blindsided. Now I have to react to both,” Charley said. “This is crazy. I was like, ‘God, what is going on? Can I catch a break?’”

It wasn’t just Charley who was devastated. Price is still haunted by the injury and what could have been done to prevent it, but the truth is that sometimes you can’t predict or prevent something like this.

“If you look in the research, [rupturing one Achilles after another] doesn't happen very often. You do everything in your power to try to avoid it. You set all the safeguards to try to make sure that it doesn't happen,” Price said. “It's never fair, but it just felt really unfair.”

Charley is a woman of faith. She’s relied on her relationship with God to get through every other trial before, and this second injury challenged that relationship – not in terms of belief, but in how she grappled with her anger.

“I’ve learned that He can handle your hard questions. He can handle your disappointment and your frustration and anger and all the big emotions that come with setbacks,” Charley said. “I thought I needed answers for comfort when really all I needed was just more of God's presence and [to learn] you can still have peace even without all the answers.”

She might not need all of the answers, but that didn’t stop Charley from asking questions in her recovery.

“I enjoy all my athletes, but she made me better. She made everyone who worked with her better because she had so many good questions and was always wanting to know what was next,” Price said. “Catastrophic injuries are awful. She just went back-to-back, and she was already like, ‘Okay, what are we gonna do?”

Charley is quick to pass that credit off to the people in her life as she worked through her recovery and her emotions. She was on a new team, but those teammates rushed in to ensure she wasn’t alone. A weekly Bible study became a salvation, a place where she could bond with teammates while processing the anger and hurt she held onto.

Now, on the other side of the second season-ending injury in as many years, Charley sees how she was supported.

“It wasn't me. I feel like there are so many people who carried me when I wasn't strong enough to carry myself,” Charley said. “Those moments of people celebrating every milestone, I felt like that breath of fresh air like, ‘Okay, maybe I can do this.’”

It was a special year for the Orlando Pride. The squad won the 2024 NWSL Championship after a dominant run, and Charley, though on the sidelines, was part of the team’s heartbeat even still.

“Leaders don't do very well hiding,” Price said of Charley.

There’s no hiding Charley now, anyway. Two months after making her triumphant return to the field and her Pride debut against the Utah Royals, Charley played hero for her club. The equalizing goal against the Dash, her first in three years, couldn’t have come at a better time for Orlando, who desperately needed to leave Houston with a point.

More than playoff implications, the goal marks an end and a beginning.

“There have been a lot of moments that I wanted to quit. There are a lot of moments where I didn't think I would play again if I'm honest,” Charley said, getting visibly emotional.

It’s been seven years since Charley’s cousin sent that text reminder for her to remember the low moments when she makes her way back – when, not if.

“There are bullet points in your mind, like ‘When I play again, I'm going to remember this moment when I'm on the bike because I'm not allowed to run. I'm gonna remember that,’” Charley said.

Now, on the other side of not one, but two, devastating injuries, Charley can see how every second was a necessary part of her journey.

“Sometimes people try to rush to the end and rush to like the happy parts, when in actuality, your growth is in the hard and the ugly and the unanswered and the questions,” Charley said. “It's okay to be disappointed and upset, and it's okay to feel that way for a long time … There's healing in that valley.”

Charley never let herself skip past the hard parts. The longing to return to the field, watching from the sidelines, the frustration of starting over – all of it became her foundation. Each rehab session, each reminder of what she was working towards, that was her Hero’s Journey.

“I would close my eyes and just think about what it's going to feel like to play again. That was the milestone in my head. When I'm on the field, the rest is going to take care of itself,” Charley said. “Being myself, I know that the rest will take care of itself. I just got to get back on that field.”

Simone Charley’s story is one of resilience, faith, and the strength to keep believing in what’s next. That next chapter for Charley and the Pride begins tonight. Tune in at 8PM ET on Prime Video.