Carlos Ochoa

Carlos Augusto Ochoa Mendoza is a professional footballer from Mexico who plays as a striker. A typical nomadic footballer, in just around 11 years of football at the top level, Ochoa has played for 10 teams, barely spending more than a season at most of those teams. Ochoa made his professional debut for Necaxa in 1999-2000. At the end of 2000, just 4 appearances old, Ochoa was transferred out to UANL Tigres where he had some of the best years of his football career.

In 48 games as a regular starter for Tigres, Ochoa made a strong impact with his performances although he did just score 10 goals in that time. However, Ochoa gained enough prominence to have caught the eye of European teams such as CA Osasuna. The Spanish La Liga side picked him up in 2002 but a year and just 3 substitute appearances later, Ochoa was back in Tigres for another season. Playing 17 games for Tigres, Ochoa was unable to reproduce the form before his move to Spain and at the end of the season, was sold to Queretaro FC.

In 30 games for his new team, Ochoa scored 10 goals and showed strong hints of a return to form. At the end of the season, Ochoa moved to Jaguares de Chiapas where he became the part of an unbeatable strike partnership with Salvador Cabanas. In 2 seasons, Ochoa scored 21 goals in just over 60 appearances, creating many more for Cabanas along the way.

At the end of 2006, Ochoa was sold to CF Monterrey despite having wanted to play for Chivas. Chivas never came forth with an offer and Ochoa had to settle for Monterrey where he scored 16 goals in over 75 games. After two seasons at CF Monterrey, Ochoa decided to move to Club Deportivo Guadalajara, a club where he had expressed his desire to end his playing days. Beginning the 2009 season with Guadalajara, Ochoa played 9 games, scoring twice, before moving to CD Tapatio, the second-division affiliate for Chivas, for 3 games.

Ochoa moved up to the Chivas senior team after just 3 games and a goal for CD Tapatio. With Chivas, Ochoa was part of the Interliga squad at the 2009 edition of the tournament and ended up scoring 4 goals in just 3 games before scoring an own-goal in the finals. Although Chivas did win the tournament, Ochoa was considered surplus to requirements and sent back to Guadalajara.

Ochoa’s move to Guadalajara didn’t work out well and he ended up getting sold to Santos Laguna for the 2009 Apertura tournament. In just his first 7 games for Santos, Ochoa scored 2 goals and has since, been part of the first team on a regular basis.

At the international level, Ochoa was called to the Mexican national team during the qualification rounds of the 2002 World Cup in Japan/Korea. Despite having been a part of the team on a regular basis, Ochoa was not named to the squad that went to Japan/Korea for the world cup. His only goal for his country came in the 2002 edition of the Gold Cup, against Guatemala.