ORLANDO – Fitter. Stronger. Better. Those are the three concepts Tally Hall has had in mind in the past few months as he geared up for his long-awaited Orlando City SC debut.
The former Houston goalkeeper finally returned to action on Sunday, starting in net for the Lions in their dominant 4-0 win against the LA Galaxy. The appearance was a long time coming for Hall, who had a nine-month battle to recover from an ACL injury that served as an unfitting end to his six years with the Dynamo.
He was originally seen as the backbone of City’s expansion campaign, but the knee injury put to rest any thoughts of him starting the season, and the Lions brought in veteran Donovan Ricketts from Portland as their first-choice 'keeper while Hall worked on his comeback.
Now that his arduous journey back to the playing field is complete, the 29-year-old is more focused than ever on advancing his career.
“When you take something away from eight or nine months, you either don’t want to come back or you want to come back and be way more committed,” Hall said after Sunday’s victory. “For me, that’s been the cool thing is I’ve gotten to refocus. I’ve gotten to re-concentrate on how I approach the game and that’s been really, really good for me.”
The 6-foot-4 stopper was fully integrated into regular training last week, but also did extra work at the end of each session with goalkeeping coach Marcos Machado, underlining his commitment to his fitter-stronger-better mindset.
Though he didn’t have much to do on Sunday – the Galaxy put only one shot on target, with that effort not coming until the 88th minute – just being back on the field was big for Hall. The fact that his debut coincided with Orlando’s best MLS performance made things even sweeter.
“It’s phenomenal man,” he said. “I’ve been watching this team. I’ve been seeing the fans. And I’ve been dying to get back in it. And it is something truly special to be on the field. Obviously to get a win in the fashion that we did, the way we played, it just felt great to be a part of that. It’s been cool.
“It’s fun you know – it’s good to be nervous again. Those butterflies come and go, you’re preparing yourself and you’re thinking, ‘alright this could be it.’ It’s fun to feel that. It’s been a long time.”
Hall insists his right knee is no longer a mental concern now that he is fully back in the swing of things, and the long, arduous rehabilitation process is firmly behind him.
“I am definitely not thinking about it as much,” he said after a training session last week. “I still feel like there are things I can improve, but it is not a matter of feeling hesitant. It is just a matter of getting everything back in game shape again.
“I still want to be better at certain things, but I look back at a week ago and I notice a big difference now, and I want that trend to continue.”
The recovery process was both physically and mentally tough for a player who had no previous experience dealing with major injuries. Hall admitted the initial rehab was immensely painful – he demonstrated an especially agonizing stretching exercise by lying flat on the ground and extending his right leg as far as possible – but not as daunting as the inevitable setbacks.
“The worst part was just when I thought I was getting pretty close,” he said. “I had to slow down and take a couple of steps back. That was hard to take. But my mindset was always to keep working at it and not get negative.”
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Having watched close-up from the sidelines in the past few weeks and played in Orlando’s first-ever MLS home win on Sunday, Hall is also convinced that the fifth-place Lions can become a major force in the league in their debut season.
“I am excited for us this year for the way we have played,” he said. “We are clearly going to be one of the best passing teams in the league and, while our record is not where we want it, we know that what we have done against good teams so far is still very positive.
“We have showed an ability to think intelligently, and we have been able to dominate other teams for long chunks of time. We still need to clean some things up, but, overall, we are a smart team that can be very dangerous.”
