ALEXANDRIA , Va. - Terrence Boyd called his return to playing soccer after a devastating injury and subsequent recall to the national team a "miracle."

The U.S. striker was nearly beaming as he fielded reporters' questions -- a sentence you don't read every day -- before the national team trained here on Sunday.

And it wasn't just because he's finally back with the squad after more than two injury-plagued years away.

"We were actually talking about retiring," Boyd, still just 25, said of the conversations he had with his bosses at Bundesliga side RB Leipzig last May, when there appeared to be no end in sight to the knee issues that had derailed his once-promising career.

"My family -- my girlfriend and I have a baby daughter now -- didn't know what was going to happen. If I stop playing soccer, what are we going to do? It was crazy, because there was so many terrible thoughts in your head."