Instead, Morrell went through almost two years of what he called the “snakes and ladders” of trying to get back on the pitch, trying not to take home the setbacks to protect his family from the frustration and nagging doubts over his future that increasingly crept in.
Enough to take a toll on most – and especially for someone who had scrapped so long in his career, surprising people along the way.
There was a point as a teenage midfielder he was staring at release from Bristol City and not even Margate at the bottom of the National League South were interested.
Promotions, 170 league appearances and 37 international caps – including five at Euro 2020 and the 2022 World Cup – are a testament to his determination.
But the acceptance came when, after three trials at League One clubs with failed medicals at all three, he realised he could not keep putting himself and loved ones through it.
“I can remember getting the results of the scan back,” says Morrell after the wheels of his retirement were set in motion.
He recalls feeling a “weird” click in his knee in a game for Portsmouth against Oxford in January 2024, less than two months before the Wales squad he was very much a part of faced play-offs for Euro 2024.
“As an athlete you’re almost pre-conditioned that an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury is the worst of the worst, and [there was] the sense of relief when it wasn’t that. Looking back, I would have snapped your hand off.”
The injury was actually a chrondal defect, a knee cartilage injury, which required surgery and around five months out.
But then a slip off a box doing plyometrics as he entered the final stages of rehab saw the screws from the operation come out of place and become stuck behind the knee. Excruciating pain and a further four months out.
“It was still all very laid back, and you trust people to do their jobs, but there was complication after complication,” he says of the lead-up to a call that in the end felt very straightforward.
“In truth, I haven’t felt like a footballer for a long time now.”
