Photo Courtesy Angel City FC
Angel City FC defender Savy King returned to the field on Sunday at BMO Stadium for the first time since collapsing in the same venue 10 months earlier.
King entered Sunday’s match, Angel City’s first of the offseason, off the bench in the 63rd minute and received a raucous applause from the home crowd. Angel City defeated the Chicago Stars 4-0.
King collapsed on the field during an Angel City game on May 9, 2025, and received roughly 10 minutes of medical attention before being taken away in an ambulance. Doctors soon discovered that King had a heart abnormality and she underwent surgery.
She missed the rest of the 2025 season. On Sunday, King stepped back onto the same field.
Angel City head coach Alex Straus said after the match that King has been building minutes in preseason and could have played longer, but Straus and his staff want to bring her along slowly — especially on the emotional side of her return.
Straus said that King wanted to start the game. “That’s her mentality.”
King made a strong recovery run and slide tackle in the 80th minute to deny Stars forward Jordyn Huitema a potential scoring opportunity.
“She is the best human being you will ever meet,” Kennedy Fuller, who had a goal and an assist in Sunday’s win, said about King after the match.
“When everything happened, she came back and she was like, ‘I’m going to be back on the pitch; I’m going to be a beast.’ And she kicked some butt out there. We were so happy for her. I was about to start crying.”
King’s collapse last year led the NWSL to re-evaluate its procedures around life-threatening events in games. That match continued after King was taken to the hospital, but the league later admitted that was the wrong decision.
