Jay Fortune’s Comeback Is Finally Reaching the Next Step
- Jason Longshore
- 3 minutes ago
- 7 min read
The midfielder’s recovery has been built on persistence, support, and a love for the game that only grew stronger while he was away.
For Jay Fortune, the first real signs that he was coming back did not arrive with a selection decision or a line on an availability report. They showed up earlier than that, in smaller moments that felt much bigger because of how long he had gone without them.
“The first day jogging was kinda like the first day of feeling like an athlete again,” Fortune said. “It was a long ways down the line, and it felt great.”
That feeling stayed with him. He said that over the next two days, he found himself smiling randomly and even rewatching video of himself jogging because it had been so long since he had been able to do something that simple. Then came another milestone.
“I think the first day touching the ball and putting boots on and getting some touches was probably the first day of saying, you know, this is the feeling that I missed,” he said. “It wasn’t anything too quick. It wasn’t anything too crazy. It was very simple light touches. But at the end of the day, it was really fun doing that again.”
Those moments help explain why Fortune’s return carries weight beyond the usual injury update language. This is not only a story about availability. It is a story about rediscovering the game itself after more than nine months away, about enduring the long and repetitive work of recovery, about leaning on the people who helped him through it, and about coming back into an Atlanta United team whose ideas under Tata Martino feel like a fit.
Now, heading into this weekend, that progress has its clearest public sign yet: Fortune is off the injury report for the first time in over nine months.
The Feeling He Missed
The simplest line from Fortune might be the one that says the most.
“I missed it,” he said. “The good, the bad, the ugly.”
That is the core of the story. Not just that he missed playing games, but that he missed all of it. The routine. The work. The rhythm. The daily life of being a player.
Recovery often gets framed from the outside around the major checkpoints: return to training, return to match fitness, return to selection. But for the player, the first signs of getting something back can come much earlier and feel just as significant.
For Fortune, those moments were enough to remind him what had been waiting for him on the other side of the process.
What Recovery Really Took
Fortune is also very clear that the process itself was not graceful.
“Doing two surgeries and stuff like that isn’t easy,” he said. “I think I’m somebody who mentally is always going to give my best effort in everything. Showing up every day wasn’t easy doing this. The work that was being done, didn’t always wanna do it. Didn’t wanna do the same exercises or some days couldn’t do what was asked of me, but still showed up every day and gave it my best effort no matter what it was.”
That is the version of recovery that matters here. Not the polished version. The lived one.
It was repetitive. It was frustrating. It tested his patience. It asked for effort on days when the process probably felt stagnant. But that honesty also reveals something else. Fortune said the time away sharpened his understanding of how much the game means to him.
“One thing I’ll say is I missed it,” he said at the start of the interview, and that line keeps echoing through the rest of his answers.
The recovery was hard, but it also clarified the attachment.
The People Who Carried Him Through
No player gets through a stretch like that alone, and Fortune did not talk about his support system in generic terms. He described people who understood the rhythm of what he was going through.
“It was huge,” he said. “I think they were really influential in the standpoint of understanding what words to say at the right times. It was very easy for anybody to just say, oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do, show up again. They picked their words really, really wisely.”
That support mattered because it was specific. His family understood the process. His brother had gone through injuries himself. They knew some days would not feel great. They knew honesty with the trainers mattered. And they knew not every day needed to be dominated by recovery talk.
“When I leave here and I go home, trying to not talk about it too much on those days that aren’t too great was key,” Fortune said. “Just try and get my mind away from it.”
He said the people around him were good at reading where he was mentally throughout the week. On good days, the energy was high and the conversations were easy. On bad days, the best thing was often to let him say what was on his mind and move on.
“If it was a good day, the energy was always good, the vibes were high, we talk about it,” he said. “If it feels not so great, it was a simple conversation of just letting me speak what was on my mind and move on to the next day.”
He also found smaller ways to manage the mental side of the layoff. Some of that was ordinary and relatable. Video games helped, especially because they let him spend time with friends even when getting out was not always easy.
“It’s kinda like chilling with friends,” he said. “You might not even be focused on the video game itself. It’s just the ability to talk with them and have laughs and have good times.”
He tried to work on his Spanish too, another way to stay engaged and productive while the usual routine was gone.
Staying Connected to the Game
Even while he was sidelined, Fortune did not detach from the team or from the sport.
“I watched a lot of games during that time,” he said. “I was at all the home games that we had. I watched all the away games.”
He admitted there were times when he zoned out, which is human enough, but the larger point was that he stayed connected. He watched Atlanta United. He watched away matches. He even went back and watched his own games from before the injury over and over.
“I think I could tell you the build up to that Cincinnati goal that I scored off the top of my head,” he said, “with how many times I’ve seen it.”
That line says a lot. He was not just waiting to be healthy. He was holding onto the memory of the player he had been and the player he was trying to become again.
“These are my guys too,” he said. “When you’re here, it’s not just about me. It’s about them as well and being able to support them.”
A Style That Fits
Now the story shifts from what Fortune has been through to what he may be coming back into.
There has been a lot of change around Atlanta United, and Fortune acknowledged that too. New coaches mean new relationships, new expectations, and a new process of showing people who you are as a player. That becomes even more complicated when much of preseason passed while he was still unavailable.
“When we have a new set of coaches now and wasn’t able to really be there during the preseason process, which is tough, and you come back from an injury where you’re not the same level as you were before the injury, so you gotta try and catch up and get back to that level and show to the coaches who you are as a player,” he said. “Which isn’t the easiest thing to do.”
But this is where the present moment starts to matter.
Asked about Martino’s style, Fortune lit up.
“I’m a player who loves a team that keeps the ball,” he said. “That’s what he wants for us, to keep the ball. And when it’s time to go forward, we go. And when it’s time to keep it, we keep it and press to go get it back quickly. And all those things are things that I enjoy doing.”
That is not accidental language. It sounds like a player who can see himself in the idea.
Fortune also said he has already seen evidence of the right concepts in Atlanta’s performances, even if the end product is still catching up.
“I’ve watched the first three or four games, and there’s plenty of moments in the games where you can see the correct ideas, wanting to do the right things,” he said. “It’s just about finalizing actions offensively and defensively.”
And he is optimistic about where that could go.
“I believe that with the players that we have and the way that he wants to play, once we understand what’s going on and get the rhythm going properly, it can be a good year for us.”
The Next Step
For now, the instruction from Martino and the staff has been straightforward.
“Just get back to myself,” Fortune said. “Try and be myself as quickly as possible.”
He said that means getting his fitness back, getting on the ball as much as possible, and feeling comfortable again doing the things he was doing before the injury.
The timing of the recent break helped. Fortune said the extra week and a half without a game was valuable both physically and tactically.
“It allows for me to, one, help get my fitness levels up and, at the same time, better understand the system that he is asking for,” he said. “Because it’s one thing to see it and hear it in film, but to be on the field and doing it is another thing.”
He believes he can do it. He believes the extra work helped. And he believes the team can turn that work into something meaningful.
That is why this weekend matters.
Not because it completes the comeback, but because it gives the comeback a visible marker. For months, the progress lived in quieter places: rehab sessions, fitness work, first runs, first touches, better days mixed in with difficult ones, minutes with Atlanta United 2. Now there is something public to point to as well.
For the first time in over nine months, Jay Fortune is off the injury report heading into the weekend.
“The good, the bad, the ugly,” he said. He missed all of it.
Now he is finally getting the chance to move closer to it again.