Goizueta Business School junior forward Moustafa Khattab wears No. 10 for the Emory men’s soccer team.
Alisha Compton, The Emory Wheel: Has soccer always been your favorite sport?
Moustafa Khattab: Yeah, I’ve been playing soccer since I was about four years old.
EW: Do you have a favorite soccer team?
MK: Chelsea, it’s based out of London.
EW: Have you ever gotten a red card?
MK: No, which is pretty good actually.
EW: Who on the team is best at FIFA?
MK: Best at FIFA? I would have to say me.
EW: Do you have a favorite pregame song or any pregame rituals you do?
MK: No, usually we just go to the locker room and we have this big speaker called Fender, and we just blast music.
EW: Do you have any particular moments from being on the team that you’d like to share?
MK: No single moment comes to mind, honestly. A lot of it’s just everyone being there together. A lot of my best memories at school are traveling with the team or just being with the team during preseason.
EW: What is your biggest goal for the team this season?
MK: We’ve had the [same] head coach for a really long time and he just resigned. Now our assistant coach is coaching. Everyone is really excited for the season. I have the same goal as everyone else, honestly. This is my third year. The first two years, we were probably one game away from making the national tournament, so definitely the first goal would be to make the national tournament this year and just to go as far as possible. And then obviously other things like All-American and just other awards would definitely be nice, but the main goal is just to do as best as we can as a team.
This is an edited transcript.
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Goizueta Business School senior midfielder Adam Ferguson wears No. 6 for the Emory men’s soccer team.
Alisha Compton, The Emory Wheel: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had from soccer, and how did it happen?
Adam Ferguson: The worst injury I got was a concussion, and I just got hit in the side of the head with a ball and I was out for a couple months with that.
EW: When was that?
AF: That was November of my sophomore year, so almost two years ago now.
EW: How was it coming back after that?
AF: I was definitely a little timid at first. Just once you have a head injury you’re a little cautious, but it wasn’t too bad. Our trainers did a great job of working with me and getting me ready, so it was not too bad of a transition coming back.
EW: When did you know you wanted to play soccer in college?
AF: Pretty much since middle school. That’s when I really started looking at soccer seriously and when I figured that I wanted to do it in college and, if possible, afterwards. But definitely in middle school was when I started to take soccer more seriously and decided that I wanted to play in college.
EW: Do you have any goals for yourself or for the team this coming year that you’d like to share?
AF: Well, for the team, I think we have a very strong team this year, so I would definitely like to see us win the UAA and hopefully go far in the tournament, possibly win a national championship. Individually, [to] just try to help the team as much as I can — try to be a strong leader as a senior member and see where it goes from there.
EW: Are there any particularly memorable moments from your time on the Emory soccer team that you would like to share?
AF: I don’t really remember any individual moments but just hanging out with all the guys, being around each other. Especially freshman year when you first come in and you don’t really know that many people, it’s nice to immediately meet a group of guys that are all nice and friendly and just have some people to hang out with. So I guess just freshman year, hanging out with people in my class and just other members on the team is probably the best memory I have.
EW: Who’s the best FIFA player on the team?
AF: So I’m not really a big FIFA person, which is kind of embarrassing as a soccer player, but I’m going to have to go with Moustafa [Khattab] because he plays a lot of video games. He’s definitely the most notorious for playing video games.
EW: Do you have a favorite soccer team?
AF: Yeah, Liverpool.
EW: Can you speak a little bit to how the team has changed during your time at Emory?
AF: I strongly believe we’ve gotten a lot closer. When I came in my freshman year it wasn’t that the seniors were really trying to push us away, but it definitely felt like we weren’t as connected as we are now. … I really felt that we became a lot closer as a team, and I think that’s definitely shown on the field too.
This is an edited transcript.
alisha.bhatia.compton@emory.edu | Alisha Compton (19C) is from Chantilly, Va., majoring in neuroscience and behavioral biology and English, with a concentration in creative nonfiction. She previously served as Emory life editor. In addition to the Wheel, she is an undergraduate research assistant at the Grady Trauma Project, a member of the Survivor Anthology and a sister of Gamma Phi Beta sorority.
