At first, David Ousted hated playing goalkeeper. He admitted that as a kid growing up in Denmark, he never envisioned himself facing down shots in front of the net.

“I always played striker or midfielder,” Ousted said. “I never saw myself as a goalkeeper.”

Then, at a youth tournament when he was about 13, the choice was made for him after a stroke of bad luck hit his team and his coach needed to find a quick solution.

“I was at a youth tournament and our goalkeeper got injured,” Ousted recalled. “They were looking around the field and I was the tallest guy, and they just said ‘yeah, you go in there.’”

It was the last place Ousted wanted to be on the pitch at the time, but something strange happened once he put on the goalkeeper gloves and got to work.

It went well. Really well, in fact.

At his next youth tournament Ousted was asked to take the net again, and he eventually transitioned into the position full time. The Dane made his way up through the youth ranks to the top Danish league and then to MLS, where he starred with the Vancouver Whitecaps from 2013 to 2017. With Vancouver, Ousted became a mainstay in the Whitecaps starting XI and was named a 2015 MLS All-Star before finishing the season as the runner-up for the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year award.

Last December, Ousted made his way to the District via an offseason trade and earned the starting spot for the Black-and-Red during preseason camp in Florida.

Needless to say, Ousted learned to love playing ‘keeper since his youth days, but he still has a streak of that striker mentality in him.

“You see it when I come up for corners,” Ousted said. “I still want to score.”

Though he may never light up the league’s scoring charts, Ousted has found his calling in goal. For the Great Dane, the sport’s excitement derives from coming up big in critical moments, something that happens just as often when he’s diving to make a big save as it would had he continued on as a striker.

In his first five matches with the Black-and-Red, Ousted has already come up big for his teammates a number of times, turning away 13 shots and recording back-to-back four-save games in United’s last two matches at Columbus and at Sporting Kansas City.

“I grew into loving being the guy that can make the important save,” Ousted said. “Being that last line of defense means you can change games by the way you play.”

That kind of pressure can weigh on a person, even an experienced professional athlete like Ousted. And though he revels in the pressure, he also noted how important it is to take a step back and find relief in things off the field as well.

For him, that includes being a father to his three children, managing investments and learning the inner workings of finance, and reading constantly.

Ousted can always be found with his nose in a book when traveling with the team, and he loves a wide range of genres—his current focus is Spanish history during the 13th and 14th centuries.

In fact, Ousted admitted to writing his own book when he was younger, but don’t expect to find it anytime soon as it was never something he shared publicly. For him, it was an exercise in expression, and while the Dane may not be publishing a bestselling novel anytime soon, he continues to write his own story through his impressive career and the work he puts in day in and day out on the pitch.

“I love the pressure,” Ousted said. “You have the chance to be the villain or the hero on the same day.”