He said Ochoa’s presence added “a sense of security” that Mexico could keep a clean sheet against any team.
“I really think he’ll be remembered alongside Jorge Campos, when people ask who the best Mexican keeper of all times has been,” Martínez said.
Eva Santana, 40, of Chicago, has been supporting “El Tri” as a family tradition since she was a child.
“It doesn’t just feel like the end of a career, it feels like the end of a piece of our childhood,” she said about watching Ochoa’s return to the pitch.
“For others it’s Ronaldo or Messi, but for Mexicans it’s Memo,” Santana said. “He has given fans hope, especially when Mexico was up against the world’s best teams. For many of us, he’ll always be remembered as the goalkeeper who stood tall when Mexico needed him most.”
Posts on Mexico’s national team page of Ochoa are flooded with comments like “Leyenda” (legend), “Capitán por siempre” (forever captain) and “No Memo no party.”
On a post for a raffle to win his jersey, one fan wrote: “Memo, I’ve followed your career since I was just 10 years old … looking back now, I realize I’ve spent more than half my life admiring you.”
His own teammates are among his fans.
Gilberto Mora, Mexico’s 17-year-old starlet attacker, told FIFA earlier this month: “Memo Ochoa is my idol.”
“When I was growing up, I used to watch the national team’s matches, and Memo was always in goal, making saves to keep us in the game. Now being able to play alongside him on the pitch and call him a team-mate is a dream come true.”
At the end of Wednesday’s game, Ochoa walked to his right and planted a kiss on the goalpost. He turned, walked to his left and kissed that one, too, a farewell to the structures he stood between over the course of his more than 20 years as a professional.
Ochoa took a knee in front of the goal and crossed himself again. His teammates made their way over and surrounded him, jumping in celebration. Then, they tossed him into the air as the ranchera classic “El Rey” — the king — played around them.
Ochoa will remain with the squad as it proceeds into the knockout stage, though it’s unclear but unlikely that he’ll play again. But if Wednesday night was his last stand, it was more than a triumph — it was a memory to last a lifetime.
“Having the opportunity to close out today with this, in the stadium that saw me be born, that saw me grow, I think it was the perfect ending, the finishing touch, and with the love that the people showed me,” he told Telemundo Deportes. “I’m going to carry this with me as the best moment I’ve ever had with the national team.”
