I would say that Zach Thorton must be number one. I've never seemed so well positioned or skillfull like Zach. Thorton was more dominating than Tim Howard or Brad Friedel when he was in Columbus. Zach is underrated, but he was great in MLS. It seems that the whole Chicago Fire team depended on him. He was hard to beat behind the nest. What do you think?
Are you saying that Jorge Campos was more dominating than him while he was in LA?. You must be crazy. Campos lost his job to Zach Thorton while both where playing for Chicago Fire. There goes your theory.
Walter Zenga, the old spiderman. But the hardest to beat of all is Jeff Causey!!! The guy is a superman.
Thorton was a good keeper in MLS, but he was never the best. And neither was Campos, or Zenga or even Friedal. IMO, Adin Brown is amazing, as was Joe Cannon with the Quakes. Meola until around 2001 was also very, very good. I also like Johnnie Walker, but we need more time to evaluate. There's also that Howard kid. Hartman is quite good, but I would put him in Thornton's category - a notch below the very best. Same for Onstead. I've also thought that Garlick has been underrated over the years, but he's a small notch below Thornton. For all-time best, I'd go w/ this ranking: Howard, Brown, Cannon (through 2002), Meola (also through 2002), Walker, Zenga, Thornton, Onstead, Friedal, Garlick, Campos. I've probably forgot a couple, so piece 'em in. MLS has been blessed with goalkeepers. Every single person mentioned he could be playing regularly in Europe - given the right situation.
i think meola is getting better with age. anyway....i know campos lost his job to Big Zach, but i think that jorge is still better. he did not deserve to lose his job, but zach deserved to start. sort of like in colorado last year with cannon/garlick.
For my money - on pure shot stopping ability over an MLS career - Scott Garlick comes immediately to mind. Brad Friedel was pretty imposing during his time in the league.
1996-2003 GK Minutes Played Meola 17,517 Thornton 15,156 Garlick 14,901 Hartman 13,769 Ammann 11,155 Saves/Games Meola 886/194 Garlick 763/166 Thornton 647/169 Hartman 604/154 Dougherty 505/122 Shutouts/Games Meola 48/194 Thornton 44/169 Hartman 40/154 Garlick 34/166 Jordan 30/114
"Zach is underrated, but he was great in MLS." , Agree ,but I always thought Tony Meola was a degree better than Zach. What about Mark Dodds, he's no Tony Meola but was a great keeper.
I didn't follow MLS as closely back then, but I remember this Swedish goalie or something Thomas Ravelli or was it Ravanelli?
FWIW, a while back I did a statistical ranking of MLS goalkeepers based on All-Time stats (min 3000 minutes). The top 12 were: 1 Friedel 2 Cannon 3 Busch 4 Hartman 5 Hahnemann 6 Thornton 7 Howard 8 Dodd 9 Rimando 10 Campos 11 Meola 12 Garlick Causey was 22nd (out of 28).
To take the question in a different direction - how about the GK's who played in the past few weeks? Onstad played great against the Burn last weekend. Without his efforts I doubt the Quakes could have won that game. He did a good job this weekend too, but he wasn't really tested as much. On the other hand, despite the fact that he gave up 5 goals, Hartman deserves some credit. A lesser keeper would have given the Quakes a league scoring record in that game. Matt Reis was surprisingly good too. He deserved his MOTM. Henry Ring has been impressive this year as well. Thornton's shoes (or at least his jersey) would be hard to fill, but he's doing a good job. Cannon has been disapointing. After his performance when he was a Quake I thought he would really impress in Colorado, but I haven't seen it. When the MetroStars lost Tim Howard I was sure they would start to suck. But Walker really filled in well last year. This year though he hasn't impressed me nearly as much.
It's amazing how little respect Jon Busch gets. I guess he makes all of those saves with magic pixie dust.
Anybody who doesn't think Friedel was the best keeper in MLS ever apparently doesn't remember how abysmal the Crew's defense was back then. Before Dooley and Lapper showed up, I mean. While I still think Maisonneuve had more to do with the amazing year one turnaround the Crew had, Friedel was the most amazing keeper I've seen in MLS. Had he been here longer than a season and a half there would be no debate. As for Jon Busch, while I'm still not a fan of his distribution, and general ability with his feet, I'd certainly take him over, say, Rimando.
It's still early in the season, but for the heck of it I calculated ratings for this season through this weekend's games, and the rankings come out as follows: 1 Tony Meola 2 Joe Cannon 3 Henry Ring 4 Jon Busch 5 Scott Garlick 6 Adin Brown 7 Pat Onstad 8 Kevin Hartman 9 Jonny Walker 10 Nick Rimando Meola had a bad year last year, but he's been amazing so far this year. No surprise that Rimando got benched, and Walker just had his best game of the season thus far on Saturday.
TROY PERKINS!!! the only way you can beat him is if david stokes is standing at the corner flag so u can be onsides no matter where you go.