Steffen is not sharp, and it shows. He’s going to need to get regular playing time to be in shape for the World Cup. Turner is not a complete player. He’s fools gold at this point. He’s what you’d want as a reserve, but nothing more.
You don't, you throw brickbats from a safe distance. Again, that's okay, but you're clearly missing something. Yes, but how best to accomplish that objective? But let's change the flow of conversation a bit. Berhalter started Steffen v Costa Rica. Why did he do that, knowing that Steffen would be rusty and knowing that Turner had been playing well for club and country over the summer (MLS|Gold Cup|WCQs)? Is Berhalter just a Steffen fanboy - a fanboy who contrarily started Turner for the first 5 WCQs - or could there be more to it?
Indeed. And its worth noting that Steffen was awesome in MLS. He also won Goalkeeper of the Year. [I say also, but of course Matt Turner never has. Not that it means anything. Jamaicans have won GOTY 4 of the past 11 years.] We don't have an established #1 right now. The guy who plays should be the one who's simply in the better form. That appears to be Turner at the moment.
That is the thing. The only people claiming there is a clear number one are MLS fans who don't seem to understand the position. I think a very sound argument could be made for Steffen to be the #1 and don't think there is a decent argument for Turner without just ignoring his weaknesses (feel free to do so, but it needs to be more than shot stopping is the most important thing). I prefer Steffen but have clearly stated that he hasn't played well enough this year for others to not have a chance to compete with him. It shouldn't be and doesn't need to be, but the MLS folks continue to bash Euro players and demand unproven MLS players should start. The only thing I have against Turner are the huge holes I his game. They aren't small issues he is going to fix in short period. I think he needs a move abroad desperately as he isn't improving his weaknesses in MLS and doesn't seem to have any pressure to do so. He is a guy who would benefit greatly from being a back up at a much higher level for a bit.
Just look at all the people pimping Turner in this thread. MLS fans do this all the time. It rare the player performs anywhere close to warrant the hype. The good thing is Turner does have some really good qualities. The bad thing is he still lacks quite a bit of what is required of the job.
I guess I think that’s a false premise that the only people who want Turner to start are “MLS fans” or that the “MLS folks continue to bash Euro players and demand unproven MLS players should start.” Independent of any Turner vs. Steffen debate I just don’t see this happening. There’s a group of MLS players who people dislike in Arriola, Zardes, Roldan, and Lletget but I don’t see anyone advocating that they start over Pulisic, Reyna, Adams, McKennie, Musah, Weah, Aaronson, etc. I don’t think those four fall under the category of unproven MLS players. Indeed the debate mostly focuses on the veteran MLS players. Most of the debates are more about players on the margins of the roster. More broadly I don’t see much in terms of bashing any Euro players other than Tim Ream, who a lot of people don’t like.
Now that's a theory I didn't expect to come across in the year 2021. Can't say that Turner strikes me as any kind of hipster. However, I could see Steffen watching a game in a bar with MLS fans given how he's still continued to rep the Crew and Crew fans in the years since he's left the club.
As a former GK, I agree that these (for me at least) are probably the most difficult situations to deal with. You have the ball rather innocuously (in this case) come through the box with an in coming player with a 50/50 chance of redirecting it the other direction, hence you get frozen so to speak. It sucks, especially since to the untrained eye, it makes the keeper appear completely inept..... HOWEVER, Steffen still (for a decent professional keeper) should have had enough of a window to adjust for a save. It wasn't a driven shot. The only other option is to come barreling through said player, and there you risk a penalty if you don't reach the ball. Here you are banking on the tendency for refs to grant leniency on collisions with GK's. Note, I am not writing off Steffen for this. For me the jury is out.
What is false about it? The whole Turner thing came out of MLS. The ones arguing it here are MLS fans. You don't see these folks bashing Euro based players? You think the level of criticism Steffen is in line with his play? I don't think I have seen anyone who has gone after Steffen even acknowledge how bad Turner's mistakes were the other night. People have poor MLS GKs over Horvath after he played exceptionally for us this summer.. You haven't seen people claim Brooks shouldn't be in the team or Pulisic should be on the bench? There is the guy who is claiming the lineup (with 8 MLS players) wasn't the problem because an 18 yo and winger who rarely starts didn't do anything against Panama when it was clear there were other much bigger issues.. Sargent sucks. Pefok sucks. They didn't suggest Turner should be in the mix, but claimed he was the best before being capped. Before that, Dike was going to be the starter until it was clear he couldn't doing anything but over power people (of course all of that is attributed to his injury even though it was clear before that). Who was before that? Aaronson? There is no "let's see how they do". They just claim their guy is the best. It has happened over and over and they end up wrong everytime.
So you take that man into account and we are about the same place. He could have done better. That is a long way from it being disastrous the way these no-nothings have done. I will add that it easier to face a shot from the the attacker. This is why dummies often work. The player is focused on. reading what the opponent looks to be doing and then is surprised. There is no way he is coming out as the ball was hit with more pace than there was time. The only thing he could do is try to make a reaction save. I dont recall a GK ever getting attacked for not making a reaction save from three yards away. I havent written off Turner for actually costing us the game the other night and looking suspect the whole game. I dont know how anybody would write off Steffen for last night.
I don’t let him off the hook because he wasn’t on his toes and ready to make that play, but at the same time….what on earth was going on with the defenders over there? This guy was set up unmarked in the box and another dude was shielding the keeper. The defense was also mentally asleep.
Turner’s performance vs. Panama was amateurish. There is no other way to describe it. He collapsed the game plan. Panama’s coach forced him to distribute and he failed every time for 90 minutes…especially after Panama scored. Then we just got beat on 50/50 and second balls when he chucked the ball upfield. It completely negated our skill advantage and allowed Panama to beat us with scrappy, physical athleticism. It reduced the US advantage so drastically that its hard to see a situation where you put Turner back in. It brings the elegant chant “Burro!” To front of mind.
indeed, but that’s an entirely different topic I mean the same could be said for Zardes. But I digress..
I don't know what you mean by the "Turner thing came out of MLS." The reason he is in consideration is because of how good he was in the Gold Cup, which was his first real opportunity with the national team. I don't know how you define whose an MLS fan or who isn't but that's not how support for Turner breaks down. I don't think Steffen gets to play much so whatever happens when he does gets magnified to a larger extent than anyone else. Horvath gets lots of support despite not having started for years with his club. Almost no one has claimed that Brooks shouldn't be on the team. There is some question about whether he should be a locked in starter which I think is fair given that he didn't look great the last round of qualifiers and hasn't played as well with his club lately. But that's more of question of whether he deserves to start every game versus whether he should be in the team or not. I would guess that almost no one here thinks Pulisic should be benched. I'm sure 99.99 percent of people on here wouldn't support that. Sargent doesn't suck but hasn't been great for the national team and has not had an ideal club situation. I see almost no one trashing Pefok and if you go to the Mexico thread he's on pretty much every projected roster. I mean I think there was warranted interest in Turner because of how good at shot stopping he's been in MLS (which was better than Steffen had been while in MLS). My recollection is most people were interested to see if it translated internationally. The support for Dike was very much driven but how he did playing in England more than it was driven by his play in MLS. And I think it's perfectly fair to want to see him get another shot when he's not injured. And I don't understand how anyone advocating for Aaronson while he was in MLS would have been wrong about anything. He's been excellent for the national team.
So you listed four things a good keeper should do and I TOTALLY agree. 1. Shot stopper is clearly the most important. Turner is very good. 2. Leader - Turner is marginal in this regards but this is pretty subjective. 3. Communication - Turner is again marginal here. Much of that is caused by his staying on his line. This makes organizing the defense weaker than it should be 4. Controlling the box - Turner is flat awful in this regard. Look no further than who Panama tried to play all their corners. Now I apologize for my snarky post. My passion for this sport and especially keeping can get the best of me. However, I will say that watching soccer and playing keeper would give you a lot different perspective on that position. I dont think anybody is underrating how important shot blocking is but I do think that people are way underrating how important other factors are in the game today.
Ok, it is clear you aren't going to change your view on any of this. Doyle started the xG nonsense and sheep on here followed. There are handful of the louder folks in this thread who are clearly MLS fans. People claimed he should start before the GC, the clear #1 after it even though a small sample size and many areas of his game weren't tested. Turner makes mistakes regularly and nobody will say a thing. I highlighted his club mistakes and gk no response or was told they weren't bad (even though most are much worse than the goal last night). People were claiming all those guys should start before they had played with the team. None of them were ready when first introduced. Dike shouldn't get another shot until January, he as been poor against all but weak opponents. It wasn't his injury, but his limited game.
I have to point out that Number 1 can be observed easily. Numbers 2-4 would require more close observation than we get on TV, right? I dont see how you can judge these from afar, especially with young defenders in the line-up.
Panama’s scouting report: A - Turner is tacked to his line and has no feel between the posts or in the box B - Zardes can be used as an object to bounce the ball off of into the goal A + B = just hit the corners near post and try to deflect them off of Zardes into his own goal.
I do not need to watch our keeper not play a third grade kickball equivalent of "slow baby bouncies" and casually watch it bounce into the net at a top speed of 8 miles an hour, then have someone insanely try to claim "it was harder than it looked". It was on display for the world to see, everyone saw it. You could not point at one MLS starting keeper who would not be able to casually scoop up that attempt up that even a gifted three toed sloth could have reacted to. It was a valuable, valuable lesson, and it presented a solution to a question. We were fortunate to walk away with 3 after that JV crap. It was a gamble, and a very bad one. Lesson learned. Turner is going to be between the pipes against Mexico and Canada, count on it. And we will be in much......much better hands for it. And no, nowhere in your useless incoherent attempt at trying to show Turner's errors did you come close to showing an error that is even in the same stratosphere as the disasterpiece that Steffen put down yesterday. And the possession, ohhh the possession. Steffen not once, but twice hoofed two balls over Dest and Jedi's heads respectively, under no pressure, and completely unmarked. Turner can do that just fine. Are we just gonna kinda gloss over that series of unfortunate events too? He's getting dragged on twitter, and rightfully so.
I do agree that Turner was a bigger part of our failure in Panama than a lot of people seem to be mentioning (in fact, a lot of people not just here but elsewhere COUGHMLSWEBSITECOUGH aren't mentioning it at all). I also think that every other coach in the Octo watched that game and is now salivating at the thought of playing against him. I also find it curious that Turner in Panama gets overlooked yet the goal by CR which was a broken, messy play from the beginning - that yes, Steffen contributed to and shares a handful but not all of the blame for - is so gleefully painted as some sort of 100% Steffen howler.
I would agree a bit on 2 and 3. Absolutely not on 4. You can see it plain as day on tv. Turner prefers to stay on his line. He does not command the 6 yard box very well. Why do you think Panama tried to hit all their corners into the 6? They saw film and knew this was an area of weakness. This was not just something that all of a sudden cropped up in the Panama match. If you have been reading this thread for the last two months you'd see that several of us have raised this as an ongoing concern. Every keeper has their weaknesses. This is one of his two IMO.
The other thing about Turner in Panama is that he seemed to be a bit slow reading the English on the ball, which is a problem past MLS keepers (and non-MLS keepers, tbf) have had. But that's better than letting in soft dribblers. My feeling about Steffen is that he covers more ground, better commands his box, better distributes the ball, and lets soft ones in. Our Calamity James. I don't have a lot of confidence in either keeper.