Football DNA
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Omar Ocampos is the centre-back for the Tigres, the very team that saw his own grandfather to a championship title in Mexico.
Omar Ocampos has a passion for football which is practically engraved in his DNA. “My grandfather was a professional player and became Mexican league champion with Cruz Azul and Tigres. When I was a kid I just fell in love with the sport,” recalls the Tigres centre-back, a big lad with a powerful kick for the Monterrey team where his grandfather once played.
Q.- How did you end up signing for this club? How did they find you?
R.- Back in 2014. They saw me play a few games and invited me to practice. Only thing was that, at the time, they didn’t have a team of my age-group so that meant training with the older kids for the first six months or so.
Q.- How did you find out you were being signed?
R.- My Mum and Dad told me. They said they’d spoken to them for consent given I was underage. They were fine with the whole thing and that’s pretty much how I got started with my favourite club.
“In Barcelona it was practically non-stop, BUT I liked IT so much that leaving didn’t even cross my mind.”
Q.- Before Tigres signed you, you’d been to Marcet a couple of times. How did you find out about us?
R.- It was my mom who proposed I spend a summer in Barcelona for an intensive course. I remember being told that is was going to be hard work and that I had to be one-hundred percent sure I wanted to do it. My first time at the academy was back in 2010. I spent two months in Barcelona and it was practically non-stop.
Q.- Was it as hard as your Mother made it out to be?
R.- They were very intense sessions. I remember that I first arrived at Marcet for half seven and left at six in the evening and it was like that Monday through to Sunday for 20 days straight before I got a day off. The thing is, I liked being a Marcet so much that leaving didn’t even cross my mind. I was just set on making the most of the opportunity of training at the academy.
Q.- I imagine then, that you were there to make progress…
R.- I was six years old my first time there and I wasn’t entirely sold on football quite yet. However, four years later I returned and I knew exactly what I was there for: individual technique and discipline.
“Marcet was the first place I was told that I COULD BE a defender, something that worked well for me”
Q.- And it helped?
R.- It helped me a lot. Marcet was the first place I was told that I had the qualities of a defender. At first, I refused to accept it because I was a lot more interested in playing midfield. In the end, I realised it was something that worked well for me. I was good at, and actually enjoyed. So much so, that now I’m the Tigres centre-back.
Q.- What are your goals now?
R.- A university degree. I want to keep at football and make my way into the First Division league. My dream is to sport my National Team‘s uniform maybe even one day play in Europe professionally.