Well, I mean, that wasn't the question, was it? Of course we need a top GK by then. We're not going to be outscoring opponents, and certainly we won't be able to match the scoring abilities of France, Germany, Brazil, etc. Tim Howard standing on his head, or something close, will be needed in the knockout rounds of the WC.
Horvath has undergone a season-end resurgence at Brugge: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/ethan-horvath-at-club-brugge.1989378/page-49
That;s next summer right? I honestly haven't a guess. Could be any of Horvath or Hamid or Steffen or Guzan.
Next summer is The Gold Cup. (If we win, we automatically qualify for the Confederations Cup in 2021.) I don't believe that our first WC Qualifier is until after the Gold Cup, but I'm not positive. Either way, Bill Hamid will be in any discussion and Brad Guzan will (hopefully) be done.
I watched most of Bono's CL games with Toronto and came away impressed. I've not seen enough of Horvath to have an opinion and I've never made a point of watching Hamid.
I watched some of those CL final matches and thought that the Toronto keeper was pretty good. He commanded his defense pretty well and was a physical presence. I didn't know who he was, but he seemed in his element. About 10 to 15 years ago we had 3 starting keepers in the Premier League. Now, we're hopeful for a domestic league keeper who actual plays in Canada. (Times have changed.)
Thanks for the heads up. Glad he finished strong. Hope he gets a run out again with the US and finishes both fronts strong going into next year where he will have a chance to take the lead role and champions league games.
We play France on June 9th... I think that they may have qualified. (Their 3rd "XI" would have crushed our best XI by a large margin. Perhaps the young kids will give us more hope than the viejos who lost to T&T.)
You assume the USA will even qualify for Qatar or any future World Cups, which is looking more and more remote with the current USSF leadership.
The plan for Qatar is to expand the field from ~32 teams to as many as 48. With no Bruce Arena, no Michael Bradley, no Omar Gonzalez, no Matt Besler, no Darlington Nagbe, no Jozy Altidore, and no Chris Wondolowski, I could navigate the USMNT to Qatar.
Rumor has it there will be no more Confederations Cup. It will probably be replaced by a World Cup of Clubs that will be held every 4 years.
I knew that the Confederations Cup probably wasn't going to be held in Qatar in 2021, but I didn't know that they were going to do away with it completely. I just thought that it would be held somewhere else this time around while Qatar continues to kill workers in their race to build stadiums that will immediately be abandoned after the Cup.
USSF will find a way to keep calling them up. Our leadership is so useless I wouldn't put anything past them. They'll even re-hire Arena just to rub it in some more.
It's pretty interesting that both Hamid and Horvath won league titles with their club. They're guaranteed some European matches this Fall. Hopefully they can sustain the no.1 spot for their clubs.
I'd actually kind of forgotten that Hamid had made the jump to Europe. In my head, he was still in DC. Good for him!
It probably doesn't help that he played only 3 games since he joined the club. Not much to help your memory
Barring injury, Hamid. He has been the best shot stopper in the pool for about 5 years or so now. Injuries really hindered his chances.
Impossible not to jump on the Steffen bandwagon today. He reminded me of Howard in his better days. Fast reactions, decent positioning, and he may have better delivery.