Héber Preview | It's Héber Time

New York City FC’s striker has been on fire since his arrival and has shown no indication of slowing down. 

Héber has scored nine goals in 13 games and has helped NYCFC back to their winning ways. 

The Brazilian made City history in his short time with the team. 

After bouncing back from injury, Héber scored five goals in five consecutive matches becoming the first NYCFC player to conquer the feat. 

In true Héber form, he’s already anxious to make it six.

“I hope I score the sixth one,” he told NYCFC.com. “It’s a very good feeling because when you’re the striker, the number nine, it’s always nice when you get to score. You get more confidence and are able to play well.”

He’s seen a lot of success in the NYCFC uniform, but he credits his teammates for doing most of the heavy lifting and making his job easier. 

“We have a great team, a team with quality”, he said. “We play with the most number 10s, because Keaton can play number 10, then Mitriță, and Maxi.” 

“They always move forward when they have the ball. I only need to run and make the right movement. I know I have minimum one chance per game because they have a lot of quality.”

NYCFC maintains possession of the ball, playing positional soccer, so Héber has to be ready and focused at all times for his chance to get the ball in the net. 

“It’s like what our coach always says to us, ‘Never relax, always work hard.’ Every transition, when I can, I call to my teammates or ‘keeper and we finish because sometimes in a game we only have one chance,” the striker said. 

“You need to be focused, always, because you don’t know when the chance comes, but when it comes we need to be ready to score.

“This is our game. We train a lot with keeping possession of the ball, the coach always tells us to play positional because it’s easy for me and my teammates. Everyone knows where the teammates are on the field and it makes it easier for us.

“I’m there to play like a number nine to save the ball, to create space for them, and when they have space they can score and create chances for us.”

While staying focused is an important part of Héber’s game, the key to his success, in his opinion, is his happiness. 

“I’m happy not only because I score, but because this is Héber,” he said. 

“It’s natural, I like to be happy because I’m happy here. My teammates are great, great guys so it’s nice when you have this happiness on the pitch.”

“When you work happy, everything comes easily.”