'Miracle' - USWNT star Catarina Macario says she can 'never repay' Chelsea after making return from ACL injury nightmare

United States women's national team star Macario suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury while playing for Lyon on the final day of the 2021/22 season. The former Stanford Cardinal joined Chelsea while injured last summer and after 641 days on the sidelines, she made her Blues debut in early March and scored a goal in a 4-0 win over Leicester City. Ahead of Sunday's Conti Cup final with Arsenal, the 24-year-old has spoken of her amazement that she is even playing at all.

She told the Guardian: “I honestly couldn’t even tell you how many hours they’ve [Chelsea] spent trying to get it right for me. Our head of performance one day told me: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time focused on one player, but we’re doing this just to try to get it right for you so that you can be healthy in the long term, and be able to contribute for us.’ That’s something that I really appreciate, and I honestly could never repay them. I did at times think: ‘Will I be able to play at that level again?’ There were definitely a lot of doubts. They just reassured me a lot. A lot of times I didn’t believe them. That’s why now everything just feels like a dream, like a miracle.”

The 24-year-old was in the form of her life in the 2021/22 season after scoring 22 goals for Lyon and helping them to Champions League glory; plus, she scored five goals in five games for her country in 2022. After being struck down by an injury that threatened to derail her career, she is back and eager to make up for lost time. A trophy this weekend would be the perfect way to bookmark the start of a new chapter in her career.

Macario, who has featured twice for Chelsea since her return from injury, will hope to play some part when Emma Hayes' side take on the Gunners at Molineux in the Conti Cup final this afternoon.

She added: "It is a big derby, I guess it would be even more special if we were able to win it against Arsenal, but no matter who it's against, no matter what game, we want to win. I don't think my teammates need to really tell me how much it means, we're all competitors and what we want to do every single day is win, compete, dominate and set the Chelsea standard."