2016 Player Profiles: Lalo Fernandez

Eduardo “Lalo” Fernandez has been with RSL since 2012 when he was signed has the club’s third-ever Homegrown player. Not much has changed for the young Mexican net-minder in a year. He still has the designation of third-choice goalkeeper for the Claret-and-Cobalt, and he still finds himself in between the posts for the Real Monarchs.

Once again, Fernandez made no first-team appearances, however, this does not mean that he did not contribute to the organization. In fact, his development continued as the young 23 year-old goalkeeper played every minute for Real’s USL affiliate posting a 10-14-6 record.

His development even manifested in his season stats where he doubled his shutout record from 2015 with eight and improved his goals against average only allowing 1.37 goals per match. Slowly but surely Fernandez is developing into a strong goalkeeper, something RSL could really use if the rumors of Nick Rimando joining Atlanta become true.

Overall, 2016 was a solid year for Fernandez. As mentioned before, he gained some meaningful match minutes and improved from the year prior.

Continued improvement and consistency from this player in 2017 will be more vital than ever as Rimando continues to age. If plans to move to a younger team in 2017 manifest, RSL can rely on Lalo to be a strong second-tier player and push the club’s already stacked goalkeeping situation behind Jeff Attinella to new heights.

With an aging core, could 2017 be the year of Fernandez much like 2016 has been for the likes of Brian Rowe?