Opens with Sam Mewis: "I feel so at home here and so welcome already. I got to have dinner last night with the staff and players and to just see that everybody came out to kind of celebrate the start of the season, but also to celebrate this moment for me."

cont. "I'm like just so grateful and it was so heartfelt. Being back in the Triangle Area is so amazing, and I have so many favorite spots that I'm excited to visit and see all my friends that I used to play with."

cont. "I'm really just blown away and like so grateful and humbled that the Courage is doing this for me, and I feel like this is the best place I ever played, so I'm just really happy to be back."

cont. "I think that even just seeing how many staff were out of training is so different, so much more support than when I was here. I'm so happy for the girls."

cont. "I think something that really means so much to me is he keeps saying how, you know, The group that was here when I was here that our legacy is what has allowed this to keep growing and continue and that the culture that was created within the team years ago remains."

Mewis on moving into media: "It's so funny. I never thought I would do this. I was an English major in college, and I guess that kind of is making sense now that I think about this as journalism."

cont. "When Lynn Williams and I started our podcast at Just Women's Sports, I was like, sure, we'll try it. We agreed to do six episodes and then it turned into kind of a bigger thing."

cont. "I had kind of a lot of time on my hands. I was rehabbing my knee. Then, I'd kind of get home from rehab at like noon and kind of be like, what am I going to do? So I took a pottery class. I took drum lessons. I was doing all these hobbies."

Mewis on coming to peace with her retirement: "I think in some ways I kind of had to rip the bandaid off. I was lingering around for two years and everyone that I talked to told me I should retire. But I couldn't accept it for a long time."

cont. "I think that announcing it in conjunction with announcing a new role that I was going to be in, and I have a little retirement party."

Mewis cont. "I think it definitely helps turn a page, but I'm out here watching training at the field, and it's sunny, and we're on the grass, and I'm like, I would do anything to play if, if it was physically an option, I would play."

Mewis on other physical activity that's less intense than running: "I've been swimming. I have a couple of friends in Boston that I went to UCLA with, and they're big swimmers. After my knee surgery, they started inviting me to go swimming with them. Now we go all the time."

Mewis cont. "I swim on my own, like two or three times a week. I love it so much. It feels so good on my joints. It doesn't hurt me at all and I've gotten obsessed with it. I'm like, how many yards am I going in what time?"

Mewis cont. "So I've found that kind of competitive and like pushing myself through swimming, which has been amazing, and it's something I can do forever without, like hurting my knee, which is nice."

Mewis on returning to Courage Country after this weekend: "Nothing's booked yet, but it's been made very clear to me that I'm welcome here anytime. So, I plan on taking that literally. I'd love to come back to some games."

Mewis continued: "I love it here in North Carolina. It's so beautiful and green, and I love being around the team. The girls, even though I didn't play with a lot of them, have been so gracious and nice and welcoming to me. I would love to come back. I think that'd be awesome."

Nahas up next on the state of the Courage going into tomorrow's match: "We really haven't had a full team to train with all preseason 'cause of injuries and camps. I think we're in a good spot. We'll see where we're at tomorrow and let that be our foundation and build upon it."

Nahas cont. "We won't really know where we're at, but the one thing I do know is we won't be anywhere near where we want to be. That's always the fun part."

Nahas on changing his approach for 2024: "I think you always want to try and evolve. I'm putting a lot more responsibility on my assistant coaches. Sounds crazy, but having four of us sitting in a small room bothers me. This is not how my mind is, so now I separate myself."

Nahas cont. "You know, just so I have a little bit of decompression time. It's just really recognizing those things that work for me. My mind is always racing. I'm always thinking about something. I'm always thinking about a tweak here or there."

Nahas cont. "My mind is often in the clouds once the season starts. It hasn't turned off for 10 months now, you know, so I'll be honest with you in this offseason. I didn't turn off as much as I wanted to, and if I'm being honest, I probably didn't turn off at all."

Nahas cont. "Myself, it's, it's just like I do with the players. I have to evaluate it week by week and see what did I do right? What did I do wrong? Where can I be better? How can I help the players more? How can I continue to raise the standard of the team and the club?"

Nahas cont. "I think some coaches do things differently. Some build out periodization blocks or tactical blocks or they want to work on these things for three weeks and I'm not one that does that or believes in that. I think it becomes monotonous."

Nahas cont. "I think each week, we have to look at the performance and say, where do we need to be better? What did we do really well and how do we improve that? How do we make our strengths great? How do we make our weaknesses our strengths?"

Nahas cont. "What does the next team pose to us and how to prepare for that still within our principles. It's a week by week thing."

Nahas cont. "I really think we're just scratching the surface with this group. We have so many different players now that are trying to take it in, but I'll say they picked it up pretty quickly."

Nahas on @sammymewy 's return: "Sam's a special, special person. We had a dinner last night, and what I said is all these players that are currently wearing our kit are playing on the foundation that Sam set for our players."

Nahas cont. "The two stars will forever be part of our club. Sam's a massive part of those two stars. I talked more about who she is as a person and character than I did as a footballer because she's just an unbelievable person."

Nahas cont. "We're thrilled to be able to bring her back. You can see it was a pretty cool environment, a pretty cool room last night, and smiles on our player's faces. And, like I said, Sam's Sam. She hasn't changed."

Nahas on expectations after last season: "No expectations. You don't know how seasons are going to go. You don't know what dynamics are going to happen in a long season."