Toward the back of the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground, past the team locker room and the weight room, past the rehab room and the kit room, is a small space. It’s not the first team’s main locker room, but a smaller one. Sometimes, it’s a changing room for 2s players. Sometimes, it’s storage for equipment. Numerous cubbies line the walls, filled with cleats that are all different colors – pink, yellow, blue, black.
The lights in the room are dimmed and a spotlight gives the space a red glow, creating a serious mood. Two cameras are set up on tripods, both pointed in the direction of a single chair. Players go through the process: sit in the chair, look into the camera, answer questions.
It’s Emerson Hyndman’s turn. He’s clad in all black, which blends in with the shadows of the makeshift studio. The darkness makes it hard not to notice the dressing on his lower body.
On his feet: a pair of stark white Crocs.
They bounce on the floor as Hyndman talks, about what it’s been like getting in the mix at training, what his goals are for this season, how it's been working with head coach Gonzalo Pineda. Hyndman details how he fits into the midfield group and what it’ll be like to step onto the pitch for the first time this season.
“Game day is always the best day of the week,” he says. “That’s what you train for.”
And the darkened room, with his shoes bright like a set of recently whitened teeth, almost takes the attention away from the long, deep scar on his right knee. But for Hyndman, the scar represents so much. It represents his journey, one that goes from scoring a goal at one of the club’s highest points, the Campeones Cup final, to being on the sideline, forced into the role of spectator.
It's a scar that shows all the stages: the twisted fall, the torn tissue, the prescribed surgery, the mental hurdles, the long and difficult climb.
The scar shows the long road Hyndman has taken to get here. But he’s on his way back.
And he’s doing it in style.