Drake Callender is flourishing as the last line of defense for Lionel Messi and Inter Miami

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Drake Callender is the answer to a pretty strong trivia question.

Years from now, it’s likely that some folks — when guessing who scored the goal that gave Inter Miami its first-ever trophy in the summer of 2023 — will choose Lionel Messi, for obvious reasons. The greatest player of his generation, probably the greatest player ever, would be the logical pick.

Spoiler alert: It wasn’t Messi.

“I did what had to be done,” Callender said.

Indeed, it was Inter Miami’s goalie — in the 11th round of a penalty-shot shootout — who scored what became the winner of that Leagues Cup final last year against Nashville SC. He scored, then saved Nashville goalie Elliot Panicco's attempt to tie the game and extend the shootout to finish off the win. It’s a moment that forever will live in Inter Miami lore.

It's also a reminder that in big moments, Callender is already proven. Major League Soccer's playoffs start in about a month-and-a-half, and Callender — the go-to goalie for the best team in the league right now — can’t help but think about what it’s going to be like to challenge for the next trophy. The MLS Cup is very much on his mind, and with the way Inter Miami is playing and with Messi now back after a two-month absence because of an ankle injury, everything is looking good in his world.

“I think anytime you have opportunity to win a trophy and you do win that trophy, it makes you believe," Callender said. “Now we know we can. We all believe and know we can win games, but part of playing the game is finding out if you can win trophies. And the group knows we can do this.”

It has been, to this point, the best season of Callender's career. The goalie who turns 27 next month not only is the backstop for the best team in MLS but also has set a career-high for wins (19, against three losses and five ties), has tied a career best with five shutouts in MLS play this year and has the best goals-per-90-minutes average of his career at 1.37.

Put another way, the highest-scoring team in MLS — with Messi and Luis Suarez leading the way there — has one of the best goalies in MLS. It's obviously a winning combination, as proven by how Inter Miami had a 10-point lead over Cincinnati in the Eastern Conference standings entering Sunday and a seven-point lead in the league's overall standings over the LA Galaxy with a match in hand.

Inter Miami defender Julian Gressel had a simple way to describe Callender's secret. “Resiliency,” Gressel said.

And that was on display Saturday.

Inter Miami surrendered a goal to the Philadelphia Union less than two minutes into the contest. Maybe Callender was sleep-deprived; he and his wife became parents for the first time a few days earlier. But with the match on the line, Callender was locked in — with Inter Miami protecting a 2-1 lead in the 85th minute, Sergio Busquets inexplicably lost control of the ball near the goal mouth. Callender made a point-blank stop to preserve the lead and Inter Miami would add a late goal to win 3-1.

“He’s bouncing back and gone through a lot the last few days, obviously,” Gressel said. "It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind for him but awesome to see him kind of step in like that and come up big when we need him. And that’s what he’s done for the whole season. I’m really happy for him.”

It's hard not to be happy for Callender, who always seems to be one of the team's happiest players.

When Messi arrived and joined Inter Miami in the summer of 2023, everything for everyone involved with the club immediately changed — Callender included. It's a huge deal when Inter Miami plays now, which means more fans, more attention and more pressure.

“I’m good at blocking out the world," Callender said. “All the noise and all the haters and the doubters and the media, sometimes it fuels me and sometimes I need a break from it. But it takes time to adjust to all the changes. I mean, I was watching this guy in Champions League a few years ago, and now I’m playing on the same team with him.”

Inter Miami didn't get to the playoffs last year. Injuries took a toll and even Messi's arrival wasn't enough to pull the team from the bottom tier of the MLS standings. This season, not only will Inter Miami make the playoffs, it will be favored to win it all.

And that means another trophy moment may await the team's goalie.

“Getting to the playoffs was one goal of ours,” Callender said. “But it's just one step toward the big goal.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

FILE - Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender (1) makes a save during the second half of an MLS soccer match against Orlando City, May 15, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)

FILE - The ball bounces off the post behind Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender and stays out of the net on a Vancouver Whitecaps shot during the second half of an MLS soccer match May 25, 2024, in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

FILE - Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender, center, lunges to block a shot by Nashville SC midfielder Hany Mukhtar, left, during the first half of a CONCACAF Champions Cup tournament soccer match March 7, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski, File)

Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender gestures during the first half of an MLS soccer match against the Philadelphia Union, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

FILE - Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender, center, deflects a corner kick during the first half of an MLS soccer match against the Philadelphia Union, Sept. 14, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File)

Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender stops a kick on goal during the first half of an MLS soccer match against the Philadelphia Union, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender prepares to work out at the MLS soccer team's training facility, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender (1) is unable to catch a goal by Philadelphia Union forward Mikael Uhre (7) during the first half of an MLS soccer match, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender (1) deflects a corner kick during the first half of an MLS soccer match against the Philadelphia Union, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

The Christmas tradition has become nearly global in scope: Children from around the world track Santa Claus as he sweeps across the earth, delivering presents and defying time.

Each year, at least 100,000 kids call into the North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about Santa’s location. Millions more follow online in nine languages, from English to Japanese.

On any other night, NORAD is scanning the heavens for potential threats, such as last year’s Chinese spy balloon. But on Christmas Eve, volunteers in Colorado Springs are fielding questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and, “Am I on the naughty or nice list?”

“There are screams and giggles and laughter,” said Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and NORAD volunteer.

Sommers often says on the call that everyone must be asleep before Santa arrives, prompting parents to say, “Do you hear what he said? We got to go to bed early.”

NORAD’s annual tracking of Santa has endured since the Cold War, predating ugly sweater parties and Mariah Carey classics. The tradition continues regardless of government shutdowns, such as the one in 2018, and this year.

Here’s how it began and why the phones keep ringing.

It started with a child’s accidental phone call in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears advertisement that encouraged children to call Santa, listing a phone number.

A boy called. But he reached the Continental Air Defense Command, now NORAD, a joint U.S. and Canadian effort to spot potential enemy attacks. Tensions were growing with the Soviet Union, along with anxieties about nuclear war.

Air Force Col. Harry W. Shoup picked up an emergency-only “red phone” and was greeted by a tiny voice that began to recite a Christmas wish list.

“He went on a little bit, and he takes a breath, then says, ‘Hey, you’re not Santa,’” Shoup told The Associated Press in 1999.

Realizing an explanation would be lost on the youngster, Shoup summoned a deep, jolly voice and replied, “Ho, ho, ho! Yes, I am Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy?”

Shoup said he learned from the boy’s mother that Sears mistakenly printed the top-secret number. He hung up, but the phone soon rang again with a young girl reciting her Christmas list. Fifty calls a day followed, he said.

In the pre-digital age, the agency used a 60-by-80 foot (18-by-24 meter) plexiglass map of North America to track unidentified objects. A staff member jokingly drew Santa and his sleigh over the North Pole.

The tradition was born.

“Note to the kiddies,” began an AP story from Colorado Springs on Dec. 23, 1955. “Santa Claus Friday was assured safe passage into the United States by the Continental Air Defense Command.”

In a likely reference to the Soviets, the article noted that Santa was guarded against possible attack from “those who do not believe in Christmas.”

Some grinchy journalists have nitpicked Shoup’s story, questioning whether a misprint or a misdial prompted the boy’s call.

In 2014, tech news site Gizmodo cited an International News Service story from Dec. 1, 1955, about a child’s call to Shoup. Published in the Pasadena Independent, the article said the child reversed two digits in the Sears number.

“When a childish voice asked COC commander Col. Harry Shoup, if there was a Santa Claus at the North Pole, he answered much more roughly than he should — considering the season:

‘There may be a guy called Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I worry about coming from that direction,’” Shoup said in the brief piece.

In 2015, The Atlantic magazine doubted the flood of calls to the secret line, while noting that Shoup had a flair for public relations.

Phone calls aside, Shoup was indeed media savvy. In 1986, he told the Scripps Howard News Service that he recognized an opportunity when a staff member drew Santa on the glass map in 1955.

A lieutenant colonel promised to have it erased. But Shoup said, “You leave it right there,” and summoned public affairs. Shoup wanted to boost morale for the troops and public alike.

“Why, it made the military look good — like we’re not all a bunch of snobs who don’t care about Santa Claus,” he said.

Shoup died in 2009. His children told the StoryCorps podcast in 2014 that it was a misprinted Sears ad that prompted the phone calls.

“And later in life he got letters from all over the world,” said Terri Van Keuren, a daughter. “People saying ‘Thank you, Colonel, for having, you know, this sense of humor.’”

NORAD’s tradition is one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old Santa story that have endured, according to Gerry Bowler, a Canadian historian who spoke to the AP in 2010.

Ad campaigns or movies try to “kidnap” Santa for commercial purposes, said Bowler, who wrote “Santa Claus: A Biography.” NORAD, by contrast, takes an essential element of Santa’s story and views it through a technological lens.

In a recent interview with the AP, Air Force Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham explained that NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada —- known as the northern warning system — are the first to detect Santa.

He leaves the North Pole and typically heads for the international dateline in the Pacific Ocean. From there he moves west, following the night.

“That’s when the satellite systems we use to track and identify targets of interest every single day start to kick in,” Cunningham said. “A probably little-known fact is that Rudolph’s nose that glows red emanates a lot of heat. And so those satellites track (Santa) through that heat source.”

NORAD has an app and website, www.noradsanta.org, that will track Santa on Christmas Eve from 4 a.m. to midnight, mountain standard time. People can call 1-877-HI-NORAD to ask live operators about Santa’s location from 6 a.m. to midnight, mountain time.

FILE - Santa tracker volunteer Meghan Huyck, right, and other volunteers answer phone calls from children all over the world at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., Dec. 24, 2017. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, File)

FILE – Canadian Lt. Maj. Chris Hache takes a call while volunteering at the NORAD Tracks Santa center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., Dec. 24, 2017. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, File)

FILE - This image provided by NORAD — the North American Aerospace Defense Command, responsible for monitoring and defending the skies above North America — shows NORAD's Santa Tracker. (NORAD via AP, File)

FILE - NORAD Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Charles D. Luckey takes a call while volunteering at the NORAD Tracks Santa center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., Dec. 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)