Finding the right team that’ll give you a chance to flourish can be both a difficult and time consuming journey. Just ask FC Tucson goalkeeper Wallis Lapsley.
Lapsley was drafted by MLS club New York Red Bulls in 2020 and played with their affiliate team in the USL Championship, but was released from the club a week after Thanksgiving and suddenly found himself without a home.
It was a discouraging moment for the 24-year-old from Seattle who led New York Red Bulls II in both saves (25) and save percentage (56.8%). An offseason in the middle of the pandemic when teams are conserving financial resources gave Lapsley worry about his future in the league.
“Any time you enter an offseason without a team, there is some doubt about your career,” he said. “Especially this year, the market was slower.”
Luckily, Lapsley said, he and his agent worked hard in the winter to secure him a spot on another team and he eventually found himself as a member of the Men in Black in Tucson. FC Tucson had an imbalanced showcase behind the net in 2020, and decided not to retain two goalkeepers for 2021.
“Teams have three, sometimes four goalies, and only one starts,” Lapsley explained. “Very grateful to the organization for giving me a chance.”
The opening gave Lapsley the opportunity to showcase his budding talent and prove he was worthy of his MLS draftee designation. So far, the 6-foot-4-inch netminder has been a steady force in the Old Pueblo, stopping 33 of 48 shots thus far for a 69% save percentage. His 33 saves through eight matches leads all of USL League One.
Lapsley also earned his first shutout of the season, otherwise known as a clean sheet, in last weekend’s 0-0 draw against North Texas SC.
24-year-old goalkeeper Wallis Lapsley is in his first season with FC Tucson.
“Clean sheets are great because it’s something we can all celebrate as a team,” Lapsley said this week. “But selfishly as a goalkeeper, I like them a lot and it’s a great achievement.”
Lapsley and FC Tucson (2-3-3) will look to continue to set the tone defensively as the team travels to face league-leading Union Omaha (5-1-3) at 5 p.m. Saturday. It’s the last of the team’s two-week road trip before the club hosts three of four games in July.
Lapsley’s length is enough to engulf the net, but it’s his fast twitch and agility that make it tough to get the ball by him.
“I try to bring a lot of emotional intensity but also someone who doesn’t get too high or too low,” he said.
Mental steadiness is needed behind the net, Lapsley illustrated, because the successes and failures of a goalkeeper are defined more clearly than any other position on the field.
“The ball either goes in the net, or you do your job and keep it out,” Lapsley said.
The black and white nature of that role can often deter young soccer players from wanting to play the position. Lapsley isn’t one of those, though he became a goalie by accident growing up.
At the age of 10, he and his family moved from Seattle to Chiapas, Mexico, for just over a year. One day, he went out to practice with one of the youth teams and the only athletic soccer wear he had was the jersey of Mexico goalkeeping legend Oswaldo Sanchez.
“They saw me, a big tall gringo with a goalie shirt on, and the coaches pointed at me and said ‘Portero‘ (meaning goalkeeper in Spanish),” Lapsley laughed.
The random luck soon turned out to be the start of Lapsley’s playing career. His childhood ventures of having played basketball and football in addition to soccer meant his hand-eye-coordination was leaps and bounds better than others his age. As a result Lapsley found instant success in the net.
Years later after returning to the US and winning the Gatorade Washington Boys Soccer Player of the Year as a high school senior, Lapsley still struggled to gain attention from college programs.
“My development was very much peaks and valleys,” he said. “Some weekends I was like ‘wow’ this is feeling really good. Others, you’d drop a cross and they’d score or you miss a bad pass and the other team gets it and scores.”
He never received a scholarship offer, though the UC Davis coaching staff helmed by Dwayne Shaffer believed in Lapsley enough to encourage him to join as a walk-on.
The goalkeeper did just that and rewarded the coaching staff’s faith in him by winning 2019 Big West Conference Goalkeeper of the Year and becoming the fourth Aggie in program history drafted by an MLS team.
Now in Tucson, Lapsley is reminded more so than ever about the fragility of a playing career in soccer. He hopes FC Tucson can be his home for the future.
“I love the game, so any opportunity to keep playing and earn money professionally at the same time is something that I’m always going to go after,” Lapsley said.
