The call came at 3 a.m. Columbus Crew head coach Caleb Porter will never forget it. In a previously tranquil Disney World hotel room, in the wee hours of the second day of July, he picked up his phone. On the other line was Clive Brewer, the team’s director of high performance. Brewer had a message that couldn’t wait for sunrise: A Crew player had tested positive for COVID-19.
The coronavirus had already penetrated Major League Soccer’s bubble. Now it had arisen within a second club. And it was around this time, with FC Dallas already quarantined in hotel rooms, that concern began to simmer.