SALT LAKE CITY — Until it was mentioned to her, Utah Royals FC outside back Katie Bowen had forgotten her team was supposed to kick off its 2020 season Saturday night on the road against Portland Thorns FC.
In essence, like many around the world, the era of quarantine and social distancing because of the coronavirus pandemic has become an increasingly normal way of life for URFC players with each passing day.
“That’s kind of crazy to think about,” she said regarding the would-have-been opener. “I think like most people, our days are sort of rolling into one at the moment.”
Unlike many, however, players are trying to cope with this new normal while being in a place they only live in part-time, and they’re also attempting to stay in as good of physical condition as possible for whenever the National Women’s Soccer League can start.
“We definitely have our ups and downs,” said Bowen, who is the furthest away from home of anyone on the roster, more than 7,000 away from New Zealand. “There’s some good days and there’s some pretty bad days where people are missing home, they’re missing their families. During a scary time like this, ideally people would prefer to be with their families, but obviously we’ve still got a job to do here.”
Added second-year center back Gaby Vincent: “It’s definitely tough. During these times, people would probably love to be around their families, but at the same time, we all respect the rules that the club and the NWSL have placed for us, and they think it’s best for us to stay here, and we’re working, so that’s what we’re going to do and we’re going to try to make the most of that.”
About the work, Bowen said being able to go run and use weights that the club recently put in players’ apartments makes it somewhat akin to a regular offseason (the team began training camp just two days before Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus and things started shutting down), although work with a ball has “proven to be quite difficult” with players living in pairs.
“I think we go through those waves of homesickness, but we’ve got our roommates to lean on,” she said. “We manage to keep each other sane, and training together, that’s always a good way to get some frustration or anger out or get your mind off things. Just trying to tick away the days and hopefully season or preseason will come back soon.”
On that front, the NWSL has said teams are not allowed to train until May 5, although that date has been pushed back a few times since mid-March and league commissioner Lisa Baird told The Equalizer’s Jeff Kassouf this week she expects the moratorium to be significantly longer than that.
Vincent said rather than dwell on what was supposed to be this weekend, players are trying to focus on what they can control, even though they wish circumstances were different.
“I think we’re all pretty positive people, so it’d be kind of sad to think about, ‘Oh, we would have been playing today. This is what we could have been doing,’” she said. “We’re trying to just be present ... taking it one day at a time, but of course, yeah, we’d love to be having our first matches already.”