The She Kicks Locker Room: Safe Hands With Pamela Tajonar

Mexico’s Pamela Tajonar joined Celtic last summer and has been immense between the sticks, her sharp reflexes in the Scottish Cup semi-final against Glasgow City taking the Hoops to an Old Firm final with Rangers at Hampden while they also chased a league title to the wire. Now 38, and an Olympian at Athens in 2004, she says she knew she would be a goalkeeper at seventeen, when she was picked for the Under-19 World Cup squad, and names reflexes and calmness as her best attributes. Her favourites span Buffon, Kahn, Sandra Panos, Oblak, Christiane Endler and Courtois. The best thing about the position, she says, is that a goalkeeper’s career can last longer; the worst is diving on hard surfaces.