Jorge Campos won the affection of his native Mexico and of several countries in the world with his great performances and his peculiar uniforms.
With his designation as the best third goalkeeper in the world in 1993 by the IFFHS (International Federation of Football History and Statistics), in addition to obtaining two Concacaf Gold Cups and a Confederations Cup with the Mexican national team, former goalkeeper Jorge Campos is undoubtedly an icon of Latin American football, for his spectacular performances and his colorful uniforms.
Despite his short stature (1.68 meters), the also known as the brody He revolutionized what it was to be a goalkeeper, making great saves, but also by collaborating with the defenders by leaving his area, by going out playing with the ball under control.
This ability to handle the ball very well with his feet made him versatile on the field, playing several times as a forward, a position in which he was just as effective as in goal. For example, in the 1989-1990 season with the UNAM Pumas, faced with the difficulty of getting the starting goalkeeper out of the starting eleven, he asked the coach to put him to play as an attacker, so he scored 22 goals in 49 games.
Also, during his time at Atlante FC in the 1995-1996 season, Campos would again play in this position and have a memorable performance. In one of the last days of the regular championship they faced Cruz Azul, who was leading the classification table.
Campos started the game as a goalkeeper, however, Javier Aguirre, Atlante coach, decided to replace a player from the field with another goalkeeper so that the brody was in attack, since the forwards could not score a goal.
His decision was a total success, given that minutes later Jorge Campos would score the best goal of his career, sending the ball to the nets with a powerful scissors.
His way of playing on the field made César Luis Menotti, Argentine technical director who was world champion in Argentina 1978, describe him as “the goalkeeper of the 21st century”, referring to the fact that he was ahead of his time.
According to the portal Halftime, He was good at playing from the top despite his height and he had a very practiced play: he pretended to beat himself to make the striker bite the ball overhead. Campos saved by knowing what the forward would do before his movement.
Equipment history
In addition to the Pumas, a team in which he spent most of his career and won the championship in the 1990-1991 season beating América, Campos played for Atlante, Cruz Azul (he also won the league title in Winter 1997), Tigres and Puebla.
In addition, he played in the MLS, taking goal in the LA Galaxy and the Chicago Fire of the MLS. He also played the world championships in the United States 94, France 98 and Korea-Japan 2002, and was in the starting eleven that beat Brazil in the final of the 1999 Confederations Cup.
What did Jorge Campos do after retiring?
After retiring from professional soccer in 2004, he joined the coach of the Mexican national team coach Ricardo La Volpe. Years later, he would also participate in several charity games, such as in 2011 when he was in the Stars of the World team at the Messi and Friends event, where he would save a shot at Lionel Messi himself.
He has also been a FIFA sport ambassador on several occasions, being invited on one occasion by the president of the institution, Gianni Infantino, to speak about the 2018 World Cup in Russia with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
For some years he has been a commentator on Aztec TV. His charisma and outstanding career have also earned him a FIFA 22 honor alongside other world-class footballers such as Mario Gómez, Diego Milito, Fernando Morientes and Clint Dempsey.
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