Oswaldo Sanchez debuted with F.C. Atlas at the age of 20 on October 30, 1993 against Chelsea F.C. where the teams tied the game at 1–1. He debuted by entering as a sub when the goalkeeper injured himself in a strong accidental play. Two years after his debut, he was a starter on the team and led Atlas to the Quarterfinals where they were eliminated by CD Veracruz. In the summer of 1996, Sánchez was transferred to Club América. Sánchez first season with América was a failure, as the club did not make it to playoffs and lost the Mexican "El Clásico" against Guadalajara with an score of 5-0. The following season, Sánchez was benched for the older and more experienced goalkeeper Hugo Pineda. Sánchez only played three out of 19 games, including the quarterfinals where América was eliminated by Monarcas Morelia. The following season, Sánchez went back into the starting line-up and led América to a disappointing elimination in the semifinals against Club Leon. His last three seasons with the club were stable, though the team managed to reach the semifinals once again, only to get eliminated. In the summer of 1999, Sánchez left América for Chivas de Guadalajara.
Chivas de Guadalajara
At Chivas de Guadalajara, Sánchez established himself as a mainstay in the team, and eventually as the team's captain. Since 1999, he helped the team to the playoffs seven times, including one wild card, and the team was only eliminated three times out of eleven seasons. Throughout his career at Guadalajara, he has stayed the preferred goalkeeper in the team under 10 different coaches. Despite the team's relative success during Sánchez's time at Guadalajara, the club didn't win a title until December 10, 2006 when they defeated Toluca 3-2 in the aggregate. Oswaldo hoisted the championship trophy for the first time in his entire career.
In 2007 he signed a contract onto Santos Laguna and he has played against his ex-team and ex-team members Chivas de Guadalajara in a 3-2 loss. With Sánchez, Santos managed to stay in Primera Division and were not relegated to Primera A. Also, in Oswaldo's first season with Santos, he led them to the Quarterfinals of the Clausura 2007 tournament. However, this was accompanied by many injuries. In the Apertura 2007 he led Santos Laguna to win 5 games in a row until he was injured again and would missed the rest of the season.
In Clausura 2008, he started a bit rusty still recovering from his injury but has recovered, and has led Santos again to become one of the best teams in all of Mexico, being second after Chivas in the Clausura 2008 tournament. In his return to Estadio Jalisco during the Clausura 2008 season to face Chivas de Guadalajara, he was strongly booed by the Guadalajara (Chivas) fans, whom they only reproached to have left the team by money. They threw false money to him (with his printed face), took placards with the writing of which he was no longer "San Oswaldo." Throughout the match, fans sang that he was a traitor. He won his 2nd Championship with Santos Laguna beating Cruz Azul 3-2 on aggregate.
International career
Sánchez played for the Mexican Youth National team in 1993's international FIFA World Youth Championship in Australia Coached by Juan de Dios Castillo.
Sánchez has also constantly been called up to play for the Mexican national team since his debut in 1996, against Bolivia. He has been part of three FIFA World Cups, in France 1998, Argentine Coach Ricardo la Volpe called up Sánchez once again on April 2, 2006, to be the starting goalkeeper for the Mexican National Team in the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. While Oswaldo was preparing for the 2006 World Cup, his father died of a heart attack on June 7, aged 56. Oswaldo flew home to Guadalajara, but he returned to Germany in time for the team's first game against Iran, which they won by a score of 3-1.[2].
In 2007, he was called up once again by new coach Hugo Sanchez to play for Mexico in the Gold Cup and Copa América 2007. Oswaldo was selected to represent Mexico in recent friendlies against Ghana and China, his 1st callups since the Copa América 2007. The veteran goalkeeper was not named in Coach Javier Aguirre's final squad of 23 for the Mexican squad in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup.
On June 8, 2008, the Mexico national football team defeated Peru at Chicago's Soldier Field with a score of 4–0 favoring Mexico. But on the early morning of June 9, Sánchez was arrested at a hotel room due to complaints of other hotel guests that there was loud partying, talking and profanity. At that time he was accompanied by other teammates but none were taken. Sánchez was taken into custody for questioning for about two hours but was then released with a $1,000 fine. Upon his arrival back to Mexico he told the media that the incident was not that much of a deal.
