Sam Mewis has played just 90 minutes since the Olympics in 2021. The next time she’ll be on the field is a question nobody seems able to answer.

Mewis underwent arthroscopic surgery on her right knee in August 2021, following the Olympics. At the time she was only expected to miss a couple months.

That timeline, sadly, was way off the mark.

After a trade to the Kansas City Current, the midfielder was able to eventually make a couple of appearances at the Challenge Cup in March 2022 — six months after her surgery.

But that was the extent of her minutes last year and in August, Mewis was shut down with what the Current called “a long-standing progressive injury.”

If the alarm bells weren’t already ringing, the team’s use of the word “progressive” was all observers needed to know this thing wasn’t going away.

The Current haven’t said much about whether they expect Mewis back in 2023, but they haven’t really needed to — their offseason moves say enough on their own.

The NWSL runners-up have added three standout central midfielders in the offseason, with Morgan Gautrat and Vanessa DiBernardo joining from Chicago and the crown jewel, Debinha, signing on as a free agent earlier this month.

Like the Current, the USWNT has plenty of central midfield depth to cope without Mewis. But that doesn’t mean Vlatko Andonovski’s team wouldn’t still have a place for a fully-fit World Cup winner in her prime at age 30.

Mewis started five of the team’s seven matches in its run to the 2019 World Cup, relegating Lindsey Horan to a bench option for all but one knockout game. But as the team eyes an unprecedented three-peat in Australia and New Zealand this summer, it’s looking like a foregone conclusion that Mewis won’t be there.

Andonovski delivered perhaps the most worrying update yet on Mewis when he spoke to reporters in New Zealand on Monday.

“Sam will take a bit longer and at this point I don’t want to guess what the time is or if she is going to be back at all.

“With Sam it’s a long-term injury and at this point, we would probably not go into details for that.”

The words are painful to even read: “If she is going to be back at all.”

If Mewis retires tomorrow, she will have accomplished more than most players could dream: a NCAA title, three NWSL Shields, three NWSL titles, a World Cup win and an Olympic bronze medal.

But it would be a sad conclusion for a player who really came into her own in the back half of her 20s, and looked poised to be a star for years to come.