It was May 2021 and what would become an 11-day conflict had just broken out between Israel and Palestine.
Kori Butterfield was playing for Israeli side Bnot Netanya and they were going out to train.
“We’re in the safest part of Israel,” the coach told the team. “Missiles never get to us.”
“Thirty minutes later, the sirens are going off and there's hundreds of missiles in the air as we're running off the field,” Butterfield tells GOAL.
“And our bomb shelter was locked. We had to just hide against the buildings.
“It's probably the craziest thing to happen in my life, to run off the field with missiles in the air.”
Some players would leave the next day. Training wouldn’t take place again for a while either, until the missiles moved away from the area.
“So many of the girls were like, 'Oh, this happens. This isn't anything new'. But they didn't realise it was going to be that long,” Butterfield remembers, having had no warning about this kind of scenario before the move.
“One day, two months after we moved there, we heard these loud booms and the whole foundation kind of shook.
"I messaged one of the girls that lived there and was like, 'Hey, what was that?' She replied with: 'We're at war, baby!'
“It's something in my career that I don't think a lot of other people are going to experience!”
That’s a snippet of the crazy journey Butterfield has had to date.
She's in Greece now, where she's played Women's Champions League football and is surrounded by a “hauntingly beautiful” fan culture. Playing for PAOK, one of the country’s biggest clubs, she feels the passion even more.
Her route to this point has been far from straightforward. Ranked among the top five goalkeepers in the United States when at the University of Tampa, despite playing in the second tier of college competition, she was “excited to see where that could take [her]”.
However, she didn't get the chance. In her senior year, she tore three ligaments in her knee and had to have a double knee reconstruction.
“It was the roughest year pretty much of my life,” Butterfield says. “Two months before my knee injury, I lost my best friend in a car accident.
"Then two months later, I tore three ligaments in my knee and my career was over for quite a while.
"Two months after that, my parents got a divorce.
“It was a really lonely time throughout that period, and I really didn't know if I was ever going to get back into soccer, especially because so many people were telling me it was going to take too long for me to get back, that it just wasn't going to happen.
"But I finally found a goalkeeper coach to help me.”
Butterfield has since seen that she can reach the elite level. She earned opportunities with both the Washington Spirit and OL Reign in NWSL, the latter of which “really showed me what it's like to be professional”.
GOAL“To be able to say that I played with some of the top women in the world - Megan Rapinoe, Jodie Taylor, Casey Murphy – I cannot believe that I was with them. I really hope I get a chance to do it again,” she says.
“Some of them are just so inspirational. They not only inspire me and people they play with, they inspire the world. I think that's something truly amazing.
"Especially when I wasn't at the level yet of Reign and to have Jodie Taylor coming to me after training and saying, 'Hey, if you need me to help you do extra work, I'm here for you', I think that's amazing.
“I definitely got a little starstruck, especially with Megan Rapinoe. She's been an idol for so many people.
“After each training with Reign, we had a five-minute 'do whatever you want’ type of thing and Megan was like, 'Kori, come get in goal for me.' I was like, 'Oh my god, she knows my name!'
“There was another training session where I did a beautiful diving parry out to the side from Allie Long’s shot. Those things, you just remember for the rest of your life.
“At the same time, you have to know you're a professional and you can't be [starstruck]. You can admire, but you can't lose your focus and you have to understand you're at the same level as them. You have to present yourself like that as well.
“I've played with these women that are at such a top level and maybe they don't know my name, and that's okay, but I was still able to learn from them.
Getty/Goal“That keeps me going as well, because if I played with them and I played underneath them, then I can do that job and I can be at that same level, when it's my time.”
Since being at Reign, Butterfield’s eyes have really opened. She’s taken on that mentor role that she benefited from having around her in the NWSL too, even if it can be “a little bit of a struggle” in Greece.
“I think every single player is a little bit selfish in that they obviously want to help themselves get better and if the level is not high enough, it is a little bit hard,” she explains.
“But you just have to take a step back and be like, 'Okay, this is a stepping stone. This may not be where you're going to end, but this is where you are now, and you have to make the best of it.'
“I always told myself, I have to go to Europe to make a name for myself since I couldn't do it straight out of college.
"I figured that's the only way that I'm going to be able to make a name for myself, to be able to get back to the States.
“I've always had that mindset to just keep climbing up the ladder, no matter what opportunity I get, it's going to be a step forward. It really has been quite the journey.
“At this stage of my career, I want the highest level I can get to and I'm going to keep working towards that.”