Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa is a player of substance

If you were not familiar with Guillermo Ochoa before his exploits against Brazil last night, perhaps you should blame the drugs. Not because substance abuse can cause memory loss and inattention, but because the Mexico goalkeeper would probably have signed for a major European club three years ago if he had not failed a dope test.

Ochoa was one of five Mexico players who tested positive for clenbuterol after a Gold Cup match in 2011 and even though they were cleared two months later when an investigation concluded that they had unwittingly eaten contaminated meat, damage to Ochoa’s career had already been done. “The initial results were announced in May 2011, just before the official opening of the transfer window,” the goalkeeper said last year when explaining why a planned move to Paris Saint-Germain fell through. “We were facing a possible ban of one or two seasons. It took two months for our names to be cleared . By then, all negotiations had been cancelled and contacts disappeared. I understood the clubs. The only team who stayed in touch with me was Ajaccio.”

So Ochoa signed for the Ligue 1 strugglers. By then Ochoa was a sensation in his homeland, where he is referred to as “Memo”, the nickname he has had since childhood. He first came to national attention when Leo Beenhakker, then the manager of the country’s biggest club, América, surprisingly decided to turn to the 17-year-old when the club’s first-choice goalkeeper, Adolfo Ríos, got injured. “You wouldn’t have expected him to gamble on a 17-year-old like me, particularly at a club like América, where there’s always so much pressure day in, day out, and where you’re always in the spotlight,” Ochoa said. “Before I went out on the pitch he asked me what I’d always wanted to do, and I said to play for América in the First Division. And he said to me: ‘Well, here you are. Now go and enjoy it.’”

Ochoa soon established himself as his club’s No1 but it took a first set of heroics against Brazil for him to earn a place in the nation’s heart. He produced an outstanding display in Mexico’s 2-0 victory over the Seleção at the 2007 Copa América. Mexico finished third in that tournament and Ochoa, then aged 21, returned a superstar. He featured on the cover of the Fifa 08 and 09 video games and the French media suspected he was being used to flog another product when he ended an eight-year stay at Club América to join Ajaccio, who had just been promoted to the French top flight. Reports in France carped that the move was a mere advertising stunt by the Mexican TV company Televisa, which had bought the right to screen Ligue 1 in Mexico. It is true that the company paid part of his salary but the goalkeeper insisted that his move to Europe – a rarity for a Mexican goalkeeper – was motivated by a desire to improve. “I don’t earn as much now as I did in Mexico, but that doesn’t prevent me from being happy,” he said, several months in to his stay at Ajaccio.

Playing in Europe is an ambition he had held since watching his favourite goalkeeper, Peter Schmeichel. “He was amazing,” said Ochoa of the Dane. “He could stop everything that came his way. He was always someone I wanted to emulate. The funny thing is, though, I’ve become a completely different keeper to him.”

It did not take long for Ajaccio fans to realise what a good deal their club had got. Ochoa’s man-of-the-match display in his second game helped the Corsican club draw away at Lyon and set the tone for the rest of the season, during which his excellence was the chief reason why Ajaccio stayed up. He repeated those feats in his second season as the club again avoided relegation by the breadth of a goalie glove.

Still, Ochoa was criticised at home for moving to a relatively small foreign club. He lost his status as Mexico’s No1 when the then-manager Javier Aguirre put his faith in Óscar Pérez for the 2010 World Cup, to which Ochoa travelled but did not play in. That was the second time he had had to sit on the bench in the tournament, having also been an unused reserve four years previously. His star seemed to be fading and Antonio Carbajal, one of Mexico’s greatest goalkeepers, endorsed Aguirre’s decision, arguing that Ochoa “concedes too many goals from long range. And he often struggles to come out and claim crosses. I’m starting to wonder whether he has problems with his sight and concentration.” Before Brazil, there was still uncertainty over whether Ochoa would start, as the manager Miguel Herrera appeared torn between him and José de Jesús Corona. No one now doubts that Herrera made the right choice.

“There’s no goalkeeper in a World Cup that has done what Ochoa did against Brazil,” Herrera said after Tuesday’s match. “Memo makes great saves and gives us a lot of security at the back.” Mexico’s captain, Rafael Márquez, declared: “Memo was our saviour,” and his Brazilian counterpart, Thiago Silva, who has previously been thwarted by Ochoa at PSG, said: “He deserves to be congratulated, he has all of our respect.” The Barcelona defender Dani Alves sensed divine inspiration: “It felt as though the Virgin of Guadalupe [the patron saint of Mexico] was with Ochoa all the way. He saved everything.”

Ochoa has been busy during his time behind the ramshackle defence of Ajaccio – but not only on the pitch; in his spare time he has completed an online degree in sports management. This is a man intent on furthering his career, so there was no surprise when he announced after Ajaccio’s relegation last season that he would not be renewing his contract at the club. “Adiós Amigo!” began a statement on the club’s website before paying tribute to the goalkeeper. “After three years of good and loyal service to Ajaccio, Memo Ochoa is leaving the club for new pastures. He was relatively unknown in Europe when he came to us but he conquered the hearts of all Ajaccio fans with his innate goalkeeping talent and his endearing personality. Respected by his team-mates as well as opponents in all French clubs, he was always helpful, modest and attentive. He made more than 400 saves in three seasons in Ligue 1 and was the most consistent player in the league, playing 112 matches in that time. He is now being courted by many clubs and we do not know where he will go. But wherever it is, he goes with our best wishes for his career and his personal life.”

Marseille were considered favourites to sign Ochoa before the World Cup. After Tuesday night, the 28-year-old may find himself receiving even better offers.