Matt Turner ahead of Zack Steffen as US national team goalkeeper?

I don't disagree, but you were quoting my post initially that was clearly aimed at the idea that Turner is ahead of Steffan, a completely preposterous idea. In the grand scheme of things I am sure we both agree that Turner looks great and should be called in and might very well be our #2 and if he is better than Stefan he can go ahead and win the job by being in camp and competing with him.

Good stuff here, thanks for the discussion again. I don't disagree at all on the potential risk and there are a lot of hurdles getting a player out of MLS and over to Europe even when there is a lot of love and a willingness to spend a transfer fee, so that's was why I was genuinely asking for the type of information a couple others provided like he did not start playing until 16, etc. That is illuminating.

In general I think you are correct and again the market is one data point, but I also think you are underselling it's veracity to a large extent. The player and his agent and his family and significant other all want a move to somewhere he can make real money, Turner is being paid like shit if he is a good keeper, period. Everything in the quote above is based on the foreign markets, which even setting aside for a moment does not in any way, shape or form explain again why the 31 other MLS teams that having scouting departments, an inverse pressure to sign domestic talent to what you described with foreign clubs and who have all seen Turner up close and personal many, many times, would not move for him and double his shitty salary to get him. Market forces are real and something there does not add up at all.

Now if you are telling me the rules are such that only New England can negotiate with him that is the info I am looking for by way of explanation.

As for the foreign markets you are downplaying the globalization of the game and the role that technology has played in transforming scouting and acquisition. Dusseldorf and the like are not going to be throwing around gobs of money and of course they will turn to their academy and domestic options first, but just like over hundreds of other clubs in Europe, not 40, they have a robust scouting department full of highly paid people like you and me willing to spend every available moment looking at players from all over the world, only they are qualified and they have amazing tools at their disposal with massive databases of players that track and compare performances, log and segment video and compare every player within the same league, guaranteed any club that looked at Steffan also compared him with Turner and every other MLS keeper, you or I can do it that today with just a $200 subscription to public tools. I mean Dusseldorf was ran by Lutz Pfannenstiel and his staff that are now taking over St. Louis, this massive divide between countries and leagues is much smaller than you painted it and covering the top 50 leagues of which MLS is one is not at all difficult today, even compared to 10 years ago.

I am still not seeing this binary argument at all that paints it as a difference between shot stopping and distribution. I am still a bit lost with evaluating keepers and their statistical data, but Steffan does not actually compare favorably at all on a global standard in terms of his distribution stats, He is ok to pretty good and Turner is meh to bad. So on the premises that we are using, Steffan looks terrible, clearly we are missing something here. So someone with some real GK and player evaluation knowledge would be welcome, because I 100% admit my ignorance here.

I don't see how any of this disagrees with me at all, I see this as a major cornerstone of my pro Steffan argument. In order for a player like Steffan to move, they need to be seen as a massive improvement over the cheaper domestic talent, not a marginal gain, for all of the reasons you laid out. Steffan moved and makes 14X as much as Turner doing the exact same job, that is not a fact that can be negated by pointing out how difficult it is for someone like Steffan to move to Europe in the first place.

Again I am not basing everything off of the market evaluation, just weighting it higher than you seem to be. In context the other data points I elucidated answer most of your contentions; the domestic market does not rate Turner either and most important to my argument, Steffan has played great for our senior men's national team, which is the real objective standard by which any of this is to be evaluated and the staff of our senior men's national team, whose entire expertise is weighted towards our domestic league and are 100% aware of Turner, don't seem to rate him anywhere near Steffan either, having called him up twice and not even given him a cap yet.

So I remain completely unconvinced that Turner is even a legitimate challenger for Steffan's job and I think market forces are an unreliable but extremely useful factor in evaluating player quality.

 

I'll just address a couple of points, because I think we're mostly in agreement:

• I do think we disagree on the level of efficiency and veracity of club level/league level. I don't think we're conceptually different, but we are in a level of degree. We could go back and forth, but let's just say I think a lot of players could play at a much larger range of league/club than most people profess on here to, and that the liquid market is only at the very high end. It's used as an incredibly definitive tool by most US fans, including on here; people say they don't, but it shows in evaluations that it's weighted more than they say (not necessarily you).
  
• I will always be baffled as to why people would reduce the data points of evaluation from many down to one, as well. Club and League are context more than anything.
  
• But still, yes, it's a useful data point, and, as in any enterprise, you should question your opinion if real experts disagree with you.
• There's no doubt that goalkeeping stats and perhaps even evaluations that are public are missing something. These things should never be seen as the end all, be all. Shotstopping and distribution are key, but so is commanding the box, and organizing the defense. They are just harder to measure. And probably other things I don't know.
  
• If there's a fundamental inefficiency or market error, it's on Turner, IMO. But I'd also point out that the higher levels of the world -- the few teams that could afford Turner (30-40 teams in the World), distribution is MUCH more important and he's weak there.
• But let's not pretend that say, Werder Bremen, is even looking at him. It would never cross their mind, even if he was better than their GK, to spend money at a GK upgrade like Turner.

 

The first part of this is infuriating and second is critical to this topic. MLS continues to value their players way higher than they pay them. Based on his salary, his transfer fee should be less than a million. Most clubs in the world could afford him and it would come down to who is willing to pay the most and convince Turner to sign. It sucks they underpay their players so much... wait, I meant American players. There is no way Turner should start if his distribution is weak. We are clearly playing a way that requires all players to be comfortable on the ball. You should know that better than anyone given how much time you have spent defending Berhalter. This fact is probably at least part of the reasons he was called into camp and didn't play.

 

I genuinely don't understand why the top goalkeeper, or one of them, or top 5 or what have you, in the league is only making $75K AFTER signing an extension just a year ago. Can someone explain this to me? I am not being rhetorical, I don't understand what is going on here because wouldn't it have been really easy for any of the other 31 MLS clubs to improve significantly by just offering double his paltry salary?

 

I have no idea why Turner is getting paid that either. But I'm curious to see what his 2020 salary is -- which hasn't been released.

 

This is a 2020 article with the 2020 salaries, no?
https://www.sportekz.com/football/new-england-revolution-players-salaries/

I also started looking at goalkeeper stats and again, I am an idiot about keepers, but by every metric I could find outside of distribution, Turner looks great, this one has a breakdown of XG for keepers and an explanation of the formula: https://fbref.com/en/comps/22/keepersadv/Major-League-Soccer-Stats

Apropos of something, Brad Guzan is horrible by every metric.

 

I would guess he isnt a free agent, so the club would have to compensate the Revs. Mobility in MLS is extremely poor. I think is at least somewhat intentional to keep salaries down.

 

Am I the only one that finds it amusing that Turner is the lowest paid of the 3 Revs GKs?

 

Oh, I thought from what I read that he ran his contract down and then resigned last year, maybe I misunderstood. It will still seem to me that if he is as good as he looks, someone would send over some GAM/TAM whatever and some cash to bring him over, no?

 

As I said earlier, after Turner's contract expired it meant that he could leave for free to any club outside MLS. However, he hadn't met the requirements to be a free agent within MLS, so was stuck negotiating with New England again. Of course, another club could come in any time and negotiate a trade for him. But in that case Turner has no power to say yes or no to that as it's between clubs only as he's not a free agent.

 

I'm not sure where that list came from. The official salaries list comes from the MLSPU, but for some reason they haven't released one yet this year (they usually release one early in the season and then again later, presumably after the transfer windows close). Given that the MLSPU hasn't released the list this year, I would doubt the accuracy of the list on whatever weird website that is.

 

You're right that someone could send GAM/TAM for him. We have no idea if anyone has tried. Perhaps New England just want more than anyone is willing to give, or perhaps they are very happy having a top GK in the league for a very low salary or a combination of both. There never seem to be rumors of inter-league trades before they happen. It's just, all of a sudden, bam! player X to club Y for Z amount of Garber bucks and no one has seen it coming. This happened with Mason Toye from Minnesota to Montreal a week ago. I can't recall a single rumor ever about an upcoming trade in MLS.

 

Kraft: NOBODY expects Don Garber's intervention! His chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... His two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... His *three* weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Owners .... (Exit and exeunt)

 

As far as I've seen the MLSPA has not released 2020 contracts. They make a big deal of it every year and have a website.

But those could be right.

 

Yeah, I am using him choosing to be a goalkeeper at 16. People can improve after that but very unlikely to get to a high level. Can you name a professional field player who picked up the game at 16?

 

What you are saying is logical, but much of the way MLS operates doesn't unless you focus on their motivations. They have clearly been trying to control salaries since the beginning. I wouldnt be surprised if there was some unwritten rule to not do what you suggest. Otherwise, we would see these types of deals more often. To think of it differently, if a team did buy Turner then the Revs could turn around and do the same thing for that teams under payed player. The teams would pretty much be in the same place but with a higher payroll.

 

Your points are well-taken, and I agree with them. But @bsky22 was referring to foot skills only, and saying that Turner will never be great because he didn't grow up with a ball at his feet.

It seems that bsky22 is of the belief that if a keeper doesn't have top quality foot skills then he'll never be a great keeper (or, at least, better than Steffen). I am of the belief that Matt Turner might not ever be coveted by, say, Pep Guardiola but someone with his skillset might be coveted by a whole slew of other coaches/clubs.

I don't, however, harbor any unrealistic ideas about where he should or could be playing next. I just want to have more very solid options beyond Steffen, and Turner is looking more and more like he's one, even if he's no Higuita or Jorge Campos with his feet.

 

As I have said before but this thread keeps going full circle.

Foot skills are a good thing for a keeper. But here is how I rate a keepers skills in order of importance.
1. Ability to read the opponents attack. Everything and I mean everything comes from this. Positioning and managing your defense can't be effective if you can't read the attack.
2. Shot stopping. A lot of guys put this first on the list. Sorry that's wrong. If you can't do #1 above you have dug a big hole. Tough to stop shots you don't understand are coming and from where.
3. Mental calmness. If you get rattled easily you aren't going to cut it.
4. Foot skills.

Clearly to be a top flight keeper you have to have all of these things. BUT you can be a fantastic keeper and not be very good at #4. If you are world class at the first 3 then you can structure your tactics around a keeper who lacks foot skills.

If you missed it go back and look at my post 1244 in the Goalkeeper Part 3 thread. I went into some expected outcomes and why this whole playing with your feet is getting overblown. Again it IS important but it is also overblown.

 

Woah! I didn't know it was that easy. I am too old to make it as professional soccer player, but maybe I could the Senior PGA tour in a year if I just put in the work.

There are many skills that are significantly easier to pick up at younger age. Technical soccer ability is one of them. Golf and skiing happen to be a couple of other examples. Why do you think it is so hard for Gyasi Zardes? He has been trying hard for a long time and his technical ability is still not up to MLS level.

 

No, I am saying our current coach is trying play a system that requires the GK to have top quality foot skills. Steffen is way ahead in this area and just joined a club that requires it as well so will only be increasing the gap.

 

Except the usmnt tactics have been set and #4 is required.

 

Well that is an entirely different discussion! LOL

 

I'm not sure this fully accounts for the monumental shift the goalkeeping position has undergone in recent times.

Just to give an example, here are some goalkeeping numbers from Whoscored, in the 2009-10 season: the highest pass completion rate in the Premier League was 60% (Edwin van der Sar), the median pass completion rate was about 40%, and only 4 starting goalkeepers* were above 50% (Edwin van der Sar, Pepe Reina, Petr Cech, and Heurelho Gomes). No starting goalkeeper had more than around 16 or 17 completed passes per game in the entire league.

Now compare that to this past season. The highest pass completion rate was around 86% (Ederson), the median pass completion rate was around 60%, and 18 starting goalkeepers were above 50%. Nine starting goalkeepers had more successful passes than any keeper had in the 2009-10 season.

*I'm defining starting goalkeepers as anyone who started at least 10 or more Premier League games.

If you want to look at it from a USMNT perspective, USMNT Premier League goalkeepers had a pass completion rate of 49% (Howard), 46.6% (Friedel), and 35.5% (Hahnemann) in 2009-10. Howard and Friedel attempted about 24 passes a game each -- with around 20-21 of them longer balls, and only 2-3 of them shorter passes. Hahnemann's numbers were much more skewed toward long balls. This past season, Steffen had a pass completion rate of about 65%. He attempted a little over 30 passes a game, over a third of them short passes.

I respect the opinion of anyone who has played the position at even a moderately high level. But the position has changed so much in just the past decade, I do wonder if anyone who hasn't been a part of that fully realizes the extent of the transformation. Because I certainly didn't until I started digging into the numbers.