Even before he stepped off the plane, his coach had plans for him.

“When I heard there was a German goalkeeper coming to try out for soccer team, I was excited,” said boys varsity soccer head coach Douglas McAulay of Junior Nico Ernst. “ Nico showed us signs of a bright future. He’s got good reactions and I could tell right away that he could definitely do a job for us this year and down the line in the future. With Nico, our goalkeeper situation is a lot better. He is definitely a player for the future.”

Equally excited over Ernst’s arrival was fellow Senior varsity soccer player Zack Fathi. Fathi agreed with his coach that “we were all pretty excited and curious when we heard there was going to be a German goalkeeper trying out,” he said. “There is a pretty high standard of play in Germany and we correctly assumed we would have a good talent coming to our team. A talent that will be good for the team down the line as well.”

As the season has progressed McAulay says that Ernst has settled into the team well.

“He fits right into the team. There are no barriers between him and the rest of the team,” said McAulay. “Doesn’t really matter where you’re from as long as you can play for the school we’re happy to have everyone that’s a good athlete and I’d say he’s definitely going to be a player for the future.”

After being in the States for eight months, and only playing for one season in Germany, Ernest said he was excited to play once again and has already started seeing some differences between the two types of play.

“The style of play here is a little bit different from Germany, we play a little bit faster in Germany. We have more technical practice in Germany but here it is more physical training. Also, the season is much longer over there, it goes for most of the year. But here, we only play for three months, it is not a lot of time.”

Continuing on, Ernest said that even though he has not been happy with how he’s played he said, “I made some mistakes and let in some bad goals. But I am not very worried about this. I have been mostly happy with how the team has played and I think the team and I will improve a lot as as time goes on. I like playing here. I like the kids on the team. They are very good, we are all friends.”

Fathi added saying that “there have been no issues with Nico settling into the team. We all get along fine. We are all here to play soccer and Nico can do that. As long as you’re focused on the sport, there is no reason for a player to not feel settled, it doesn’t matter where they’re from.”