Last weekend’s start for Eric Alexander versus New York City FC was his 80th consecutive appearance in Major League Soccer, spanning four seasons and three different teams.
In total, he’s played for FC Dallas, the Portland Timbers, the New York Red Bulls and now IMFC, making it to an MLS Open Cup final with Dallas in his rookie season and winning the Supporters Shield with the Red Bulls in 2013.
After being acquired by the Impact on January 27th in a trade with the Red Bulls, the 27-year-old has seen action in every single one of the bleu-blanc-noir’s 11 MLS regular season games, including six starts.
Impact Media sat down with the Portage, Michigan native to learn a little more about him.
Q: Did you know about the 80-game ironman streak?
A: Honestly, I had no idea.
Q: What do you think has been a key for your longevity?
A: I don’t think I do anything special. It’s just a lot of hard work and some luck involved. I’ve been very fortunate, and I think that’s the biggest part.
Q: You’ve moved around a little over your career, how’s that been like?
A: Sometimes it’s been tough, but it’s also had some positives. You get to see new cities, meet new people, things like that. It’s tough, but cool at the same time. Coming to Montreal, it’s my fourth team in six years, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to me anymore. I looked at it as a new beginning, a new chapter.
Q: Do you ever set any personal goals at the start of a season?
A: It’s just to work hard. I want to play as much as I can. Being a good teammate is most important. Even though this is a job and personal stats come into play as far as contracts and whatnot, I think the better you do as a team, the personal success comes with it as well.
Q: How’s Montreal treating you so far?
A: I live downtown, so the area is nice, but I haven’t really had the chance to explore or do touristy-type things.
Q: What do you do in your spare time for fun?
A: I like to play video games. I play a lot of Destiny. A couple of my buddies play and there’s a lot of stuff to do in the game, so it’s fun.
Q: Which of the guys form the team do you hang out with the most?
A: Probably Nigel [Reo-Coker] and Dom [Oduro]. We were all in the hotel for a while together [at the beginning of the year] and we live a couple of blocks from each other, so it’s easy to get together and make plans.
Q: Who was the best player you ever played with? Against?
A: The best player I probably played with was Thierry [Henry] in New York, and (laughing) he’s probably the best player I played against too! He’s one of the best players of all-time; it’s pretty hard to ignore that!
