Sebastian Ochoa is a one of my teammates who plays arguably one of the hardest positions in soccer or in sports in general, He plays goalie at the age of only 15 and has shown promising potential these past seasons and I wanted to ask him what are the Pros and cons of being a goalie and what its like to be one.

“As a goalie do you guys have a different practice routine than the regular Players?” Ochoa responded with ” Well our warm ups are pretty different we have to do a lot of jumping and diving and save easy shots until the shooting warm ups from our regular players start, I have to save shot after shot and while I might not save all of them the ones I save make me that little bit better.”

“As a goalie you have a lot of pressure in games, the team relies on you as their last resort, how do you deal with the pressure and how does it affect the way You Play?” Ochoa replies with “I’m confident in my skills so I don’t get that nervous but if its a really big game I might be a little nervous. Sometimes when I do play nervous I tend to make bad decisions and maybe even concede a goal or two but after those mistakes hit me it makes me realize that I have to do a better job for my team and I go even harder for the time I have remaining in the game.”

” I’ve had my fair share of injuries but you as a goalie with all the jumping and landing hard on your body from making saves does that affect your body in any type of way if so how often do they occur,  how bad can they be, and how do you deal with it.” Sebastian said “You’d be surprised how often we get injured Depending on how fast a ball comes to you and hits your hand when you save it we sprain our wrists a lot when that happens and we fall on our shoulders a lot so sometimes we can dislocate a shoulder if we land awkwardly obviously we can get any injury any other player can get those are just the most common for us goalies and while they may be minor we still got to treat them fast because we got to be ready for the next time we play so simple icing and pain creams like icy hot can go a long way”

” With the whole pandemic situation how badly did it affect you because I know me and a handful of other players were out of shape at the start of the season so how do you differ from the rest?” Sebastian said “Well luckily I don’t have to run so much as a goalie but cardio is still super important however even from all the exercise I’ve done during quarantine it made our comeback to soccer a lot easier for me so it didn’t bother me to much but I did things to prevent it.”

” Alright Sebastian last question before we go to practice. Would you ever decide to play another position if so what position and why?” Ochoa said ” No I wouldn’t change my position at all its my passion and its what I play for I love saving our team during clutch moments, I love shutting down the opposing teams shots, I love the position and I love the game and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”