Sacramento goalkeeper opens up about being Lionel Messi’s teammate and Inter Miami career
Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender’s rising career has taken him from the youth soccer fields of Sacramento to the top-tier MLS in South Florida, where he is now a teammate of the world’s greatest player.
Callender, 25, in a wide-ranging interview with The Sacramento Bee talked about the hoopla surrounding the arrival in July of top Argentinian midfielder Lionel Messi to Inter Miami.
In December, Messi won the World Cup for his country. He holds the record for most goals in Spain’s La Liga (474) and has won the Ballon d’Or for being the world’s best player seven times.
Callender played youth soccer with Cap FC United and Placer United in the Sacramento area, where he still has friends and family, before joining the San Jose Earthquakes academy. He went on to a stellar college soccer career at Cal. In 2019, Inter Miami acquired Callender’s homegrown player rights from the Earthquakes. He also was recently called up to the U.S. Men’s National Team.
Just two games into his MLS career, Messi scored twice, within 22 minutes, in a win over Atlanta United in the Leagues Cup. That performance was a follow-up act to his first match when he scored a free kick in the 94th minute to snatch a victory. In both games, meanwhile, Callender allowed only one goal and fended off a penalty kick.
Here are some highlights from the interview (see video above for the full interview):
Q: Tell me about the hype around Messi’s signing and what his arrival, with the media circus, the general bedlam, was like?
A: Well, you could imagine with him being the greatest of all time, joining a team here in the United States, where soccer is still a growing sport, it’s huge to have him join our team and just be a part of the MLS as a league. You can see the impact he’s already having in just two games. With his quality and his level of play, he could make the MLS look easy, but I believe it’s a pretty difficult league and he’s just that good to where I think wherever he goes, he’s going to put his stamp on the game every time he steps on the field.
Bits and parts were a bit overwhelming, but I think the main thing for me, personally, was just to focus on each day and each training session, and not make it too complicated, keep it simple. I feel like I have a pretty good routine in place for balancing both soccer and life. And so I just made sure to maintain that, and whatever happens out in the world, whether it happens around you, there’s only so much you can control. So I was focusing on what I could control.
Q: Have you guys talked? Does he have any advice for you, or in general for the team?
His native language is Spanish, so there’s a bit of a language barrier, but I feel like he’s able to get his message across, and I’m able to get my message across whenever we bump into each other. But aside from greetings in the morning and team meals, breakfast and lunch, he seems like a pretty humble guy. He’s supportive. He’s a leader in pregame talks and in the locker room. He has a really good presence. It’s still only been two or three weeks, so there’s a lot more time for him to get integrated into the group. It’s pretty surreal to be able to even meet this guy or even to play with him.
I’m sure there’s thousands of players who go their entire careers dreaming of an opportunity like this so I’m always grateful to be in his presence, but I also want to be myself. He’s also human. I want to make him feel like he’s at home. I’m sure he deals with a lot of fans, fanatics, paparazzi, all that stuff, wherever he goes, so anyway that I can just make him feel comfortable within our team is, I think, part of my role.
Q: His dramatic game-winning, curling free kick in the waning seconds against Cruz Azul (in a knockout round). Can you describe that goal, what you saw and the reaction inside the stadium?
You think about his debut, you think about these high-pressure moments, you think about these big moments that games present to you, and so for a team to fight the whole game, the whole 90 minutes and get down to 1 -1 towards the end of the game and the final minutes, and for him to be in a position to steal it for us was massive. I had a pretty good view from my vantage point, and it’s just something that’s within his abilities that he’s done time and time again, executing under pressure.
It was almost as if, all right, this is too good of an ending to be true. And for him to step up there with that kind of confidence and hit that free kick, perfect free kick over the wall, in the dying minutes of the game, was surreal. I mean, how loud it was in there — I think we added fireworks to our celebration, everything — it was a pretty surreal moment. It’s something as a kid you dream about, being a pro and playing these games and winning games, so it was definitely up there with one of my most enjoyable moments as a pro so far, and something that I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.
Q: Your own career: You signed a long-term deal with Miami. Beyond that, can you see yourself in Europe, perhaps the EPL or La Liga. Is that a goal and aspiration?
Right now, I’m focused on this team. This is my first professional team. I feel like I’ve made some good relationships here, and been a part of the team in every capacity, whether that’s being rostered or not being rostered, being on the second team, being a substitute, being the backup, being the starter. I’ve seen every level of what it means to be a part of this team. I’m fortunate and grateful to be in the starting position and to be a role model for those to come.
I try and stay as present as possible throughout the process because if you aren’t doing your best each day, then you can forget about what’s going to happen in the future. For me, if I can just improve each day and get better and perform and win games, do the best I can possibly do for the club, bring home trophies, it could be in the conversation to play somewhere else. But right now I’m really happy where I’m at.
I feel a really strong connection to this club as well as my teammates. I’m content, but there’s still this balance of not getting too comfortable. I just don’t want to get complacent. I don’t want to be lackadaisical. I always want to be sharp. I always want to be challenging myself. I always want to be growing. I feel like if I’m in an environment that’s challenging me, I feel like I’m getting better. There’s never an easy day of training with this team. I feel like that’s demanded the most out of me on all levels of physicality and mentality.
Q: What made you gravitate to the beautiful game?
Growing up, I played soccer, played baseball, ultimate frisbee, swimming, track and field, a little bit of everything. And I always enjoyed soccer, being outside, being on grass. You got to play with different elements. It wasn’t until my sophomore (or) junior year (that) I was fully committed to this sport, as well as this position, because growing up, you play goalkeeper, you play on the field. You’re young. .You’re kind of exploring. I found it, as crazy as goalkeeper (can be) at times, I kind of found peace there and it’s something that I adapted to and I learned to enjoy. To some it may seem boring, or it may seem there’s a lot of pressure or you don’t want to make an error, but to me I find it’s very interesting, this position, and what makes a goalkeeper great is their ability to influence the game in different ways.
I think from high school to college, I could feel that I was growing in the position. It was becoming more of a reality that I could make this a profession, and I could make a career out of this. I had plenty of friends, family, teammates, mentors, coaches that believed in me and that supported me throughout the way.
Q: A lot of youth are coming up through the ranks where you played (in Sacramento), do you have any advice for them on reaching this level where you are now? I’m sure a lot of them aspire to (the college and pro level).
I think it is a hard feat to make it to this level. I think the most important piece to this is that nobody’s path is the same. I made my first team debut when I was 24, and some guys are making their debut when they’re 16, 17, 18 years old. Along the way, it’s not necessarily going to be perfect. There’s going to be ups and downs. There’s going to be adversity. And understanding that there’s lessons to be learned through playing sports is the most important thing, because I’ve learned more about life through playing sports than about the actual sport. So using those life lessons to your advantage and then applying them to be able to grow is something that has allowed me to have a good perspective around what I do, why I do it, and how I do it. And if you aspire to be a pro, there’s a level of commitment that’s involved. You’re going to have to make sacrifices in some areas of your life, whether that’s socially, whether that’s physically. It can be a long, arduous road to get to the place as an individual to compete, whether that’s in soccer, really in any sport.
So my advice to you would just to be, again, believe in yourself, always be looking to learn and grow in different ways, and to always be passionate about it. I feel like if I wasn’t passionate about this I wouldn’t be able to perform at my best. So, yeah, there’s my two cents on some advice for the aspiring youth.
