Sacramento Republic’s Cameron Iwasa on coronavirus shutdown: “It’s been a bit weird”

Sacramento Republic FC recently launched a new podcast, “The Breakaway,” hosted by Connor Sutton, and the second episode features a deep dive with forward Cameron Iwasa.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Iwasa talks his background, which includes a multisport past — the Sacramento native considered focusing on baseball well into high school — favorite memories, the best player ever, in his opinion, and much more.

Obviously, Iwasa was asked about how he’s dealing with the coronavirus shutdown.

“Number one our concern is for the people who are getting sick, all the people in the hospitals and the health care workers,” he said. “Our inability to play right now is obviously pretty insignificant compared to that. It’s been a bit weird having everything shut down. I think the toughest part is that we had that season opener, then next thing you know, everything is shut down, we just got a little taste of it.”

Iwasa was pitched several possible nicknames for goal calls in the future, with the apparent winner being “Cammy-whammy.”

Iwasa was complimentary of new coach Mark Briggs, and went on to regret the season stopping as the squad under Briggs was building some momentum.

“I think he’s been great,” Iwasa said. “Myself and the rest of the guys have really responded to what he’s bringing to the table, his ability to motivate. I think the biggest factor there is he connects on a personal level first. He’s very easy to talk to, and at the same time he has that fire. If he sees practice or whatever that guys aren’t bringing it quite the way he expects, he can get into you a little bit. But it never seems like he’s yelling for no reason, it’s very calculated of when he’s going to be fiery and get into you.”

And while Iwasa was under contract to Sporting Kansas City in the past, he’s itching to get another shot in MLS, and says nearly everyone else in the USL has the same ambition.

“I think that’s the goal of everybody who plays in USL,” he said. “I think there’s some people that are content with [USL], but I would say the vast majority of guys absolutely want to get to MLS.”

There was a lot of great stuff in this podcast. If you have an hour to kill (who doesn’t these days?) it’s definitely worth a listen.

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