Frei posted on social media<\/a> that he had returned home from the hospital. <\/p>\n\u201cStill trying to figure out what happened at the end of the game,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I\u2019m incredibly grateful to all the staff that looked after me and happy to be back home resting now. What resonates is all the messages, calls, and love I\u2019ve received from so many of you. Thank you \u2014 truly. It means more than I can put into words. I feel the support, and I\u2019m thankful for every single one of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frei jumped forward to make a play on a free kick, and as he came down, his head collided with the knee of a Crew player. Frei dropped to the turf at Lumen Field and teammates signaled to the sideline for help.<\/p>\n
With the match tied at 1-1 deep in stoppage time, Schmetzer and Crew coach Wilfried Nancy appealed to the referee to end it.<\/p>\n
As Frei was stretchered to the waiting ambulance, Seattle fans chanted his first name.<\/p>\n
Schmetzer became emotional when describing how Nancy agreed to call the game, although the Crew had won a corner kick in the final moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate what he did, because the ref wasn\u2019t going to stop the game, and everybody knew the game should have been stopped,\u201d Schmetzer said. \u201cSo good on him. So thank you, Wilfried.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frei, 39, has played for the Sounders since 2014. He helped Seattle win the MLS Cup in 2016 and 2019, and he was named MLS Cup MVP in 2016. He was an All-Star in 2017.<\/p>\n
The Sounders said Frei made his 1,000th regular-season save with the team in the first half. Only former Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Nick Rimando (1,128) has more with a single team. <\/p>\n
Born in Switzerland, Frei\u2019s family moved to the United States when he was a teenager and he was a standout at the University of California.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 Seattle Sounders goalkeeper Stefan Frei was driven off the field by ambulance and taken to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":46665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2733,34676,36217,36220,36221,2086,36219,221,62,34673,67,132,68,2057,2058,36218],"class_list":{"0":"post-46664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-athlete-injuries","9":"tag-brian-schmetzer","10":"tag-columbus-crew-sc","11":"tag-mls-soccer","12":"tag-nick-rimando","13":"tag-seattle","14":"tag-seattle-sounders-fc","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-stefan-frei","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-wa-state-wire","22":"tag-washington","23":"tag-wilfried-nancy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114813449337506517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}