Union’s Kacper Przybylko ready to play again after overcoming coronavirus, but he doesn’t like MLS’s Orlando plan

Kacper Przybylko knows how lucky he was.

When the Union’s leading scorer contracted COVID-19 in March, he had only mild symptoms. He joked that he gets the flu pretty much every year, and this didn’t feel all that different.

But the rest of his circumstances were plenty different. So when he started feeling sick, he got tested, and when he was found positive, he immediately quarantined himself.

"I was just thinking, ‘Hey, OK, I have it right now — just make the best of it, just sit at home and do the self-quarantine,’ " he said Thursday. “It was just four days I was really sick, and after that I wasn’t really thinking about it.”

He admitted it wasn’t easy to stay home all day for two weeks. But he knew he had to, not just for himself but also for his fiancée, who has asthma. Fortunately, she never got the virus.

“I’m so happy that everything went well,” he said. “For four days, I was just sitting in bed and sleeping a lot.”

Like the rest of his colleagues, Przybylko has been able to do only individual workouts over the last few weeks. On Thursday, Major League Soccer gave its teams permission to move forward to small-group training, after they submit safety plans to the league office.

The Union are also getting ready to move practices back to Chester from their temporary home, the 76ers’ Fieldhouse complex in Wilmington. Gov. Tom Wolf signed an order Wednesday allowing the state’s professional teams to practice in counties that have reached at least the yellow phase, which the Philadelphia area is expected to do by June 5.

If that happens, the Union would likely be the first of the area’s pro teams that practice in the commonwealth to resume doing so. The Eagles seemingly won’t be able to work out at the NovaCare Complex until late June, and the Phillies — like all of baseball — aren’t close to resuming yet. (The Sixers and Flyers practice in New Jersey.)

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MLS hopes to have all of its teams travel to Orlando later in June for training, then a July tournament that would likely bring the league back before its men’s counterparts. But the MLS Players Association hasn’t signed on yet, chiefly because players would be separated from their families for up to two months.

Przybylko, like many others, is especially concerned about players with young children. Jamiro Monteiro and Jakob Glesnes recently welcomed new arrivals, while team captain Alejandro Bedoya and his wife have a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old at their home in Fishtown.

“We should think about families, and recent parents like my teammates,” Przybylko said. “They should be allowed to come with us, because it’s a huge burden [on players] leaving their families at home.”

But don’t confuse that for not wanting to play, both on his part and across the league. They want to, but they want it done right.

“We all want to finish the season — I’m just looking forward to something that can work for everybody,” Przybylko said. “We should think about everybody, not about just us players or something like that, because we all have family, kids. I think we will find a solution.”

Staff writers Les Bowen and Scott Lauber contributed to this report.