{"id":9338,"date":"2026-04-15T12:07:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/alexander-poitan-angel-ramirez-a-dynamic-duo-in-goal-for-valley-boys-soccer-the-des-moines-register\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T12:07:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:07:45","slug":"alexander-poitan-angel-ramirez-a-dynamic-duo-in-goal-for-valley-boys-soccer-the-des-moines-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/alexander-poitan-angel-ramirez-a-dynamic-duo-in-goal-for-valley-boys-soccer-the-des-moines-register\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Poitan, Angel Ramirez a dynamic duo in goal for Valley boys soccer – The Des Moines Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Alexander Poitan and Angel Ramirez were playing soccer in elementary school, they had a simple formula to score goals.
Ramirez was the goalkeeper and Poitan was a forward. All it took for them to score was a long ball down the pitch from Ramirez to allow Poitan to head the ball into the back of the net.
“That was the move back then,” Ramirez said.
Now, as seniors at Valley High School, it looks a bit different. Both are now goalkeepers, splitting time in net for the Tigers.
Poitan is a four-year starter, coming off of first team All-State honors from Iowa coaches<\/a> while also earning the Gatorade Iowa Boys Soccer Player of the Year Award<\/a> in 2025. Even with those accolades, Poitan is still leaning on Ramirez to learn how to kick those trademarked long balls that were so successful for the duo years ago.
Coming off a state title in 2025, the Tigers are a young squad seeking to replicate last season’s success. With two senior veterans Valley can rely on in goal,, both Poitan and Ramirez are leading the charge to secure more hardware this spring.
“I trust both of them,” said Valley coach Aziz Haffar<\/a>. “I think both have different qualities. You’re not going to go wrong starting Alex, starting Angel and vice versa.”
Poitan has been a stalwart in the net for the Tigers since he was a freshman. Behind him, Valley has reached the state tournament the last three seasons and locked up a championship in 2025. After winning the title, Poitan racked up plenty of accolades to solidify him as one of the best goalkeepers in Iowa.
However, Poitan does not want to pursue athletics in college. His dad owns a construction business, so he wants to go to college and focus on academics so he can help contribute to the business in the future. Ramirez, however, does have ambitions to play soccer in college, but hasn’t had extensive playing time in high school due to Poitan’s success in net.
One day this offseason, Poitan approached his head coach with a proposal. What if they split time in net? Ramirez would get time to showcase his talents to college scouts and Poitan believed Ramirez could contribute and help drive the team to success in 2026.
“I believe Angel’s a really good goalkeeper,” Poitan said. “I believe that he deserves these minutes. I’m really happy we’re splitting halves this year.”
In 35 years leading the Valley program, Haffar has seen a lot of things. Even so, that type of unselfishness from Poitan is a rarity, he said.
Ramirez is grateful for this opportunity, even if it has been unexpected. Ramirez said he was unaware this was in the works until he was told it was happening. Beyond that, he’s thankful that he’s been able to grow his skills alongside one of his childhood friends.
“I love seeing this guy work hard,” Ramirez said. “It’s a pleasure. It’s good to learn from this guy and it’s amazing to train with him.”
Poitan and Ramirez each bring different talents to the table. Poitan brings the experience as a four-year starter in net. When moments get tense during a game, there’s nothing that he hasn’t seen before.
While Ramirez doesn’t have as many starts as Poitan, he’s still seen his fair share of high-pressure moments as a senior. Combine that with a dangerous long ball that can break open a defense at a moment’s notice, and teams have to be on their toes when Ramirez is in goal. Now that Ramirez is finally getting an opportunity to showcase that regularly for Valley, he hopes college coaches will begin to take notice.
Above all, Poitan and Ramirez have state championship ambitions once again. After getting a taste once, they’re hungry for another. The Tigers are coming off a season in which they were 21-1 on their way to a state title, stringing together 21-consecutive wins to cap off the campaign after losing the season opener.
Valley lost a lot of production from its championship team, including seven of its top eight goal scorers from a year ago. As a result, the remaining players on the field are much younger and less experienced than they were a year ago. As of April 14, Valley holds a 2-1-1 record.
Still, Poitan and Ramirez’s experience in goal is the perfect safety net for Valley as it progresses through the season. The sacrifice and shared goal between the two also showcases the perfect team-first ideology that can spark something special for the Tigers in 2026.
If this Valley team can find its groove and gain confidence, Poitan and Ramirez said the sky is the limit.
“I got full confidence in this team,” Ramirez said. “We have a bunch of good players, they just need their confidence and we’ll be good. I guarantee we’ll make a good run.”
Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at <\/em>Emckown@gannett.com<\/em><\/a>. Follow him on Twitter at<\/em>\u00a0@EMcKown23.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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When Alexander Poitan and Angel Ramirez were playing soccer in elementary school, they had a simple formula to score goals.Ramirez was the goalkeeper and Poitan was a forward. All it took for them to score was a long ball down the pitch from Ramirez to allow Poitan to head the ball into the back of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}