Ex football player Ricardo Faty has retired and moved on to coaching. The ex Senegalese international had a solid playing career as is now transitioning to a coaching career in the place where he started his rise as a player, the world famous French training center, Clairefontaine. His career was recently explored in an article by Zach Lowy in an article for RG. In his playing career he had a spell in Ajaccio, where he played alongside Mexico’s premier goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa. The impact Ochoa had,
has marked his style as a coach as we will see.
Ricardo Faty started his career in Clairefontaine, part of the large quantity of stars the came from the Paris Metropolitan area that has been key not only to the France National team but also to a number of African National teams that have diaspora in France. Faty would move to Strasbourg before making the big move to Roma. The defensive midfielder would have loans to Bayer Leverkusen and Nantes before moving to Greece to play in Aris. He would return to French football to play in Ajaccio, where he would play alongside Ochoa. Faty would then move to Standard Liege (which coincidentally Ochoa would later play on) before going to Turkey to play in spells for Bursaspor and Ankaragucu. His final club would be Reggina in Italy.
Faty sat down with Zach Lowy to look back on his career as he takes the new challenge as a coach. There he recapped his career and what he learned as he takes on the new step in his career. The article is available here
On Guillermo Ochoa :
Faty had some key words on his time with Ochoa and he singled out him in terms of the goalkeepers he had played with.
During my career, I played with a lot of very good goalkeepers, mostly in Türkiye. I played with 4-5 goalkeepers during my 5 years in Türkiye, including Manchester United goalkeeper Altay Bayındır. But Ochoa is definitely one of the best – I saw him improve a lot during my two years at Ajaccio. He learned a lot with the goalkeeper coach, who was an ex-professional, he worked a lot. Despite not being the tallest, he was very good on the line, he changed certain aspects of his game, and improved a lot. He’s a top guy who I consider a friend to this day, and definitely one of the best goalkeepers that I’ve played with.
Faty’s words about Ochoa show how much improvement the goalkeeper had in Ajaccio, his first experience in European football. As been mentioned before by most critics, European football has been key in the improvement of players in other confederations. The fact of the matter is that all the major candidates for the World Cup title are Euro based teams. While Mexico had improved in sending players to Europe in the 2000’s until the 2020’s, they have decreased in doing so and the Mexican National team has suffered because of this. Ochoa is the only Mexican goalkeeper with a notable European club career. While Raul Gudiño had some spells in Portugal and Cyprus and Alex Padilla is currently playing in Athletic Bilbao, neither of them have close to the career Ochoa had. In praising Ochoa, Faty indirectly points out how key Euro football was to the improvement with Ochoa and we can point it to being a serious matter of attention as we go back to a probable World Cup with Liga MX based goalkeepers.
Guillermo Ochoa is still based in European football, now being the goalkeeper at AEL Limassol in Cyprus. It’s the newest league in his European adventure. After playing in Ajaccio, he would move to Spain to play in Malaga and Granada. He would then move to Standard Liege, where he would have the most success after Ajaccio. He would make his return to Mexico to play in America but after the 2022 World Cup, he would return to Europe to play in Italy for Salernitana. He would move to Portugal to play with AVS Futebol before moving to Cyprus as he looks for a spot in the 2024 World Cup, which would be his 6th, although he failed to see the field in 2006 and 2010. Ochoa currently sits as one of the best goalkeepers in Mexican football history, if not the best. And as Faty has described, Ajaccio was key in the making of his legend. Hopefully more Mexican players follow his example.
