Editor’s note: This is part of a series of stories looking at the individual performances of Defiance players who are under contract in 2025. You can find all the stories here.
Sebastian Gomez is another crafty midfielder, a smart and combative player who has been deployed throughout the midfield during his time with Defiance but most often played on the left wing.
Born: May 21, 2006 (18)
2024 stats: 5 goals, 2 assists, 1,031 minutes
Total professional minutes: 1,302 minutes
Year in review: Gomez, like Chris Aquino, graduated from high school partway through the season and saw a serious increase in his minutes and contributions after that. Gomez played 342 minutes in 8 appearances with 1 assist before graduating in early July. He scored against Vancouver Whitecaps 2 in his first game post-graduation and he went on to tally 5 goals and 1 assist in 688 minutes across 12 appearances including the playoffs. He’s still got a lot of growing to do, and needs to be more consistent, but the flashes of quality he shows are absolutely tantalizing.
If it all works out: If he can find better consistency and impact games with the ball at his feet, a player who wins their duels, gets into tackles and is hard to dispossess is an asset wherever they line up. Out on the wing, if he can combine that with the vision and touch that saw him provide 0.78 goal contributions per 90 in the last half of the season, he could certainly follow in the footsteps of Paul Rothrock and give first-team coaches a good kind of problem. Internationally, he’s eligible for the United States, Canada and Nicaragua, and he’s already started receiving some interest for youth national teams.
