What about Nick Rimando? He might be the worst starting keeper in MLS right now. His decline has been dramatic. Why should we ignore his terrible play? Have you seen Guzan's errors the last few years? Atlanta fans are actually debating whether Alec freaking Kann should start over him when he comes to MLS. This is what Boro fans think of him. Howard is the only keeper of the regular NT crew who's doing even remotely okay of late, but we gotta fill 3 spots per roster. #Boro fans chan "off, off, off" urging referee Anthony Taylor to send off Brad Guzan... their own goalkeeper— Simon Peach (@SimonPeach) May 13, 2017 Hamid yet again ranks near the top of all of these rating services. #2 among MLS keepers on WhoScored (behind Jesse Gonzalez who just recently took a starting spot), #1 keeper on the Audi MLS Player Index, and 8th most valuable in defensive points, yet as you said, he let in four goals, including that bad goal. DC United has the 3rd worst GD in MLS. What does that say about his teammates? Hamid ranked #1 in shots faced two weeks ago (before missing a match), now he ranks #2. He's under siege every game. So if he lets in a bad goal facing that many shots and good chances, lets consider the whole situation. He didn't even play poorly in this game you mentioned, he made a number of really good saves, yet you focused on the negative when there were certainly just as many positives, and the positives have always outweighed the negatives with Hamid. History shows us that. I think you are being unfair to him taking that one isolated example to prove what you tried to prove. If you can prove it happens more than others, sure, but what evidence is there of that?
Your first post on this was pretty clear. Not surprised at the response. For those interested in reality, here are Hamids 17 goals conceded so far this year. 5 of them have been directly from mistakes and were savable (denoted with "*"). 6 of them he might have been able to do better... questionable positioning, decision making, technique, etc (denoted with "?"). The 6 remaining he was just beaten. All that in 9 games. All the great saves in the world doesn't make up for soft goals. I'd easily take Steffen over Hamid at this point. ?0:40 - saved by cross bar, scrambles back for second shot which goes off him into the goal 1:05 - tough header to top corner from 6 yds out ?1:45 - fooled by first time ball well placed in corner (looks like he may be too far toward near post but no good angle to tell). *3:20 - gives villa near post high from horrible angle ?2 PK goals. He was upset on first and I think second was savable as it wasn't well taken and he got a hand to it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=onebox&v=FeGbObkJurI *2:30 - bad save with bad rebound leads to a goal ?3:10 - gets hand to ball and almost makes big save on Villa from 12 yds (note footwork and last angle from behind goal... pushes off right foot diving to left???) [2:45 - save with rebound right to attacker and makes second save with butt] *Yikes! 5 hole! 853412576759361536 is not a valid tweet id *Yikes! Bad positioning and ball gets under his hands. 853408807589994496 is not a valid tweet id
Continued from previous post... 0:15 - Beaten on header from 6 yds out. ?2:25 - long corner played back across goal. Don't know if he could have gotten to 2nd ball, but think he should have moved his feet instead of turning his head and watching. ?1:05 - beaten on header from 4 yds out. Tough one to deal with but possibly could have challenged Jones for ball. Probably Hamids best game of season. *1:00 - fails to deal with shot from distance. Ball looks to dip a bit but easily dealt with if uses two hands 2:50 - strong header off corner 3:15 - great shot from 18 yds out 3:30 - " "
I was just about to say there is an encyclopedia britannica of hamid errors, but that pretty much sums it up lol. Players dont get their reputations for no reason. yeah, the only young keeper im willing to take a punt on right now is Steffen.
I think it is pretty clear to all in your campaigning for Hamid over the years that you don't understand goalkeeping. He's got significant fundamental problems with his game. Saves don't make up for soft goals... it just doesn't work that way. Soft goals cost you points which mean you don't get out of the group or even qualify. If Hamid was in England, the fans wouldn't be claiming he's off to a good start or look at his Audi index ratings. They be calling him rubbish. They might have called it poor form a couple years ago, but after repeating the same mistakes year after year, they'd give up or more likely turn on him. Funny how you think Hamids situation should be taken into account but never considered it for Guzan where it was much, much worse when you consider the environment he is in. I'm not high on Guzan right now, but also realize he's gone through a really tough spell and his confidence appears to be shot. Who knows how he will respond, but wouldn't be surprised that with less pressure and much slower game that he turns it around and ends up being one of the best GKs in MLS. Maybe Guzan can't turn it around and rimando is done. If that's the case there are quite a few guys I'd give a shot to before I gave Hamid a shot. Even if he proved me wrong, he'd probably have to scratch at the last minute do to knee, back, hand, shoulder, groin, etc injury.
We are in quite the precarious situation if Hamid is really as terrible as some are saying now. I don't think Steffen is immediately prepared for the NT, but if his competition are complete crap, then maybe he'll be forced into it. The way we're seeing Guzan is quite scary. Then again it's in the PL. Maybe he will somehow be able to hide some defiencies once he's back in MLS.
gotta see how Guzan does at Atlanta, if he stinks up the joint oh man, yeah we got a discussion here again. If he reverts back to Polar Bear status, then we are sitting pretty. I got the feeling hes gonna be one of the top guys in the league on returning. Also pertinent, playing my cards close on this one because i really shouldnt say anything, but I dont expect Bingham with the quakes past this summer. A few teams in europe interested. He needs that, thatll be a game changer if he jumps the pond and is starting.
What is "that"? You've yet to prove his errors compared to other NT keepers. If you are going to claim it, back it up. I think its a reputation born out of a desire by some to claim every player from that generation (specifically the qualifying team) who failed to qualify for the 2012 Olympics is a failure. Klinsmann was repeating that for his whole time as US coach, so it seeped into fan thought. That generation had an unusual amount of failures for a number of reasons (Adu, Gyau, Boyd, Bunbury, Corona, Shea), but there are a number of decent players from that team and generation who our coach told us for years were part of a failed generation that the coach wouldn't give a chance (Hamid, Lletget, Agudelo, Opara), so fans started trying to look for every excuse they can for why they didn't deserve a NT chance. The NT coach had a real motive for why he did it. If he didn't destroy that generation to the media, he could be blamed for the failure to not qualify. I really don't know why fans have this sentiment. They don't need to be Jurgen Klinsmann spinning everything right and left. I think we can all agree that an American (regardless of age, but let alone one who's very young for a position) who has proven to be the best keeper in MLS or certainly one of them for many years at a big position of need would be a player fans think deserves a chance. Dax McCarty is all of a sudden good enough at 30 after a few good years, yet a 25 year old keeper isn't? I think anyone who peddles this false narrative about Hamid has no right to complain about our GK position. They want a quality keeper? Good, stop dismissing all the evidence pointing to a good young keeper who deserves a chance.
dude......"that" is bsky22 just posted a dozen videos for our viewing pleasure. The tape dont lie man. Numbers cant hide the poor visuals and poor tape. You are choosing to be willfully ignorant of evidence, thats your choice.
Okay, well I guess that explains it. I have that poster on ignore for good reasons. I have no interest in reading what that person has to say. If you don't want to try to prove an opinion you put forward, thats your choice, but I think thats only enhancing my argument that people are looking for a reason to discount Hamid (and numerous others) who came up as young professionals during that era that Klinsmann deemed a failed generation. There is literally years of evidence to prove that Hamid is one of MLS's best keepers. The goalposts have officially been moved if thats not a standard for deserving a NT chance.
the third party individual put forth visuals.......visuals of poor fundamentals. Visuals of poor positioning. visuals of poor decision making. visuals of letting in softies. No numbers or statistics in the world can hide that. Why would i need to replicate the work of someone else??? Theres only one person not interested in the evidence, or "ignoring" it, and thats you.
I dont want Guzan starting. I think he's regressed, plus factor in confidence being low. He needs to regain form with Atlanta and get confidence back. Howard still our no.1, the rest is uncertain IMO. Not a great situation. Howard at his age will NOT be able to pull off the saves he did in 2014. If Horvath becomes a starter in Belgium I can see him making the 2018 WC squad.
Hopefully Arena would give Horvath the chance. Arena's clearly dependent on Howard to keep his job, regardless if he has the form or not. I just hope he puts more emphasis on guys like Hamid or Bingham rather than trotting out Rimando again and again which would be a waste of inclusion (IMO). Have we ever had such a shock event before? If say Horvath was able to outperform Howard over the next year to be no1 in Russia? This I def want to see.
Also I like Steffen a lot, but probably too early. I doubt he makes it even as the 3rd. For those upset he came to MLS... that was a good decision. He's playing games and doing well. Very possible that he heads back to Europe at some point in his career. Post WC I can see Horvath and Steffen as the #1 and #2.
Your absurd claims that Hamid wasn't given a fair chance is what caused me to do research into all his injuries. Your claims that he should have been given the starting job for a run of games because Howard and Guzan were in poor form is what caused me to explain the very obvious flaws (with video examples) in his game that anyone who understands anything about goalkeeping would see... you on the other hand ignored them, like you are doing now. They are really just the same mistakes in a different year. I've hoped Hamid fix these issues and have advocated for him to go overseas where the mistakes would be punished even more and he'd have more incentive to address them. That is very subjective. He's was voted top goalkeeper in 2014, 3rd in 2015, and 4th last year. I think last year's ranking was very generous. He only played 20 games and many of the same types of mistakes. In 2017, I'd take Melia, Frei, Steffen, Blake, Howard, Robles, and Ousted over him without even thinking about it. That still leaves quite a few like Bingham, Johnson, etc that are tough to call. It's hard to make that claim when there has only been 3 MLS GKs make it to World Cup for USMNT. Sommer in 98, Meola in 02 and Rimando in 14... all as 3rd goalkeepers. I'm sure I've posted them earlier in this thread, but if you want to see more mistakes of Hamid's in 15 or 16, I'd start with games against NYRB or NYC. He usaually gives up 2 to 4 goals against these two teams and some disturbing ones. Here he is in the playoffs last year. 0:23 - freeze it as Montreal attacker strikes the ball and see what you think about Hamids positioning. 1:00 - defender loses runner and Hamid left all by himself. 1:15 - beaten near post on header from 10 yards out. 2:00 - chaos all around. makes me wonder if any of the sloppy defending has to do with Hamids not organizing well. 2 v 1 with two additional defenders following play. Hamid is too far off line with the potential square ball that gets played. Instead of just needing to take a step or two to the right and proving instruction to the three backs, he is scrambling back due to getting pulled so far away from the goal. Ball looks to go right through him.
I'm not impressed with Hamid, tbh - makes some good reaction saves, but has serious lapses in fundamentals. Bad positioning, inconsistent footwork, using one hand when he needs two, going to ground when he should stay on his feet, and often a failure to anticipate what will happen next - on the cross, on the shot, on the rebound. I don't know if that's due to a lack of concentration or just lack of technique. He just feels like a keeper who's gotten by on his instincts and his reactions, and never quite been drilled in all the mechanics and technical stuff that needs to be second nature for any international-level keeper. Unfortunately, I think that's something we could say for a lot of our young keeper pool at this point. And to be frank, both Guzan and Rimando have dropped off their peaks considerably. Beyond Howard - we might be in a lot of trouble. Hopefully, someone comes into their own. Or, we secretly replace Howard with a cyborg with the same appearance. It's sure to work.
Btw with my earlier posts about US keepers in England. So for sure there are Friedel, Howard, Keller, Guzan and Hahnemann. Also there was also Ian Feuer who got to play in the PL for West Ham and Derby. Although only for a brief period. Also there was Espen Baardsen who played for Spurs and Everton. And of course Juergen Sommer at QPR for a season in the PL. 8 in 25 years ain't bad considering Friedel and Howard are ranked top 20 keepers to have played in the league. Heck, for some Friedel might be on their top 10 listing.
I think Guzan will regain his confidence when he comes back to MLS. At least I hope so. I'd love to see him take that spot for this cycle. Steffen is showing well and better than Hamid this year. Hamid's issue has always been his consistency. He will make a great save and let in a goal that a U-17 keeper has no business letting in. Steffen's shot stopping is excellent and he has the fundamentals of the position down. He just needs more game time. Melia is having an excellent year.
I feel that newly regained confidence will simply be due to playing in a lesser league. Though if it helps him for the NT, that's all that matters. I don't follow MLS so I can't say the quality between Steffen/Hamid/Bingham. I can just trust what you guys bring up.
Hopefully Horvath will be ready in 3-4 years for a move to a top 5 league. Preferably the PL, but I don't think the PL regularly scouts foreign based keepers.
It is interesting that a few years after MLS started quite a few keepers got some decent moves to Europe. Not too shabby for a newly started league. why haven't MLS been able to move any keepers to a top league in the past decade> I mean it must have been a huge shock for a club liked United to have came in for Howard when they did.