Brilliant... not sure how the entire state of Minnesota ever recovers from this 1388698017700646915 is not a valid tweet id
It seems like, at least for the moment, dual nat William Popp has won the starting job with Oita Trinita in the J-League. Trinita are banging against the top of the relegation zone. He's 26. Japanese-American. Had a good year in J2 on loan from J-league power Kawasaki and earned a transfer. If we had a long line of awesome at the position, then this might be a curiosity. I'm definitely not of the mindset that any foreign league is better than MLS. But right now we're calling up a keeper with a 6.29 WS in MLS this year.
Huh? Ochoa is a young, promising keeper who is coming to the Switzerland camp to get integrated into the program and because Steffen and most MLS keepers will have games. In a real depth chart, he's fifth at best. Also, using WS is sketch enough, but for a keeper?
Tell us how you really feel. He may be right around 5th lets see how this would look. 1. Steffen 2. Horvath or Turner 3. Turner or Horvath 4. Guzan 5. Ochoa Ok lets say that's close. Do you really rate, at this point any of those guys besides Steffen much ahead of Ochoa? I sure don't. Come next summer we may easily see Ochoa as the #3.
I’d expect Steffen, Turner, Horvath and Johnson to be ahead of Ochoa now and for a bit. He’s a great prospect, but its a position that punishes youthful mistakes. It’s not really a criticism of Ochoa. It’s just that it is disingenuous to act like the US keeper depth chart is the roster for the Switzerland game, which is what I was responding to.
I'm actually a little confused why we're calling Ochoa at all. I realize we probably don't have anyone else in Europe to call in, but we're not required to have 3 GKs for a friendly, right? And is RSL really okay with letting their starting GK miss a match to travel to Europe and sit on a bench for 90 minutes just so that he can get integrated with the national team?
You have a better U23 keeper in mind? Hate to tell you this but we are pretty weak and thin and goalkeeper. Shoot our #1 hardly plays!
I’m more disappointed that we seem to not be considering keepers over 30. There’s a few late bloomers emerging that have established themselves quite well. I’ve been firmly in the Frei Camp for awhile and I’m absolutely certain he could start for. us. A band-aid this cycle might be in order to get us to next cycle and hope some youngsters establish themselves
Indeed, if we had an important game and an injury crisis, I'd probably feel safer with Frei than I would with Guzan or Horvath...
Or Ochoa or marcinkowski that’s why I preach the importance of Frei. He is safe. His bonehead decision quotient is much lower than many others In our pool. He’s in the old Reis/Hartman/Cannon/Busch range, which frankly isn’t too bad. I value safety
Yes. Besides Frei there is also Melia, who made SKC a different team as soon as he came back from the injury. Marcinkovski is the weakest starter in the league, and Horvath has more camps than club starts for a reason.
Ochoa had an elite performance against FC Dallas over the weekend. If he’s doing that kind of thing on game day, the staff is seeing some of that stuff on the training field. Now is the time to start working with him at the national team level to put some concrete goals on the board for his national team development and his club performance. Along with that, you want to put the bug in his ear about the Gold Cup, which I think he makes the roster for.
melia is basically the equivalent of Jon Busch, and that’s a high compliment. Melia is the best pk stopper in our pool , I think that is beyond discourse now and is established fact at this point. Buschy was such an underrated keeper. My opinion melia and frei are top 5 easily
Based on the Nations League roster the current goalkeeper depth chart probably looks something like this: 1. Steffen - Nations League starter 2. Turner - Gold Cup starter 3. Johnson - Gold Cup bench 4. Horvath - Nations League bench 5. Ochoa - Nations League roster filler 6. Odunze - European friendly rosters Freese, Marcinkowski, dos Santos
Probably in that last group, but given Hamid is in his age 31 year and has played 0 games so far this MLS season due to injury (and his save % over the three previous years has gone 81 -> 77 -> 63), he's probably even a rung below that: Not really in the picture but at least young: Freese, Marcinkowski, dos Santos Not really in the picture and old: Hamid, Frei, Melia, Guzan
Worth noting that Mexico and Tata Martino were reportedly recruiting Ochoa hard. [This was before the US U23 team's squad announcement.] This is one that we want to keep in the fold. Will he develop into a USMNT-caliber starter? To be determined. I have no issue bringing a couple of young keepers to a friendly camp. The likelihood of a third keeper playing is fairly slim. If we had a hypothetical WCQer tomorrow, I think we know Ochoa would likely not be on the roster. If all healthy.............I'd guess the top three right now are Steffen, Turner, Horvath.
In my mind, I think Berhalter likes a certain fearlessness and confidence in his goalies. I saw that in Steffen. He can make a bonehead play and that wouldn't shake him one bit in the rest of the game. He also seems to care little of the quality of opposition. I'm seeing some of that in Ochoa.
It's certainly plausible Steffen isn't actually one of our top couple keepers, and a guy like Horvath could be our realistic chance at being one of our classic keepers, but has been partially a victim of circumstance at Brugge. Steffen in MLS (21-23 yrs) - 69% save, 1.33 GA/90 Horvath in Belgium (22-23 yrs) - 79% save, .1.02 GA/90 Turner in MLS (23-26, went to college) - 73% save, 1.32 GA/90 Howard in MLS (20-23) - 78% save, 1.46 GA/90 Friedel in MLS (24-25) - 82% save, 1.11 GA/90 Worth noting Turner's improved his GA/90 every year & his rookie season is really weighing down those #'s. Though he's never reached Horvath's, Howard's, or Friedel's level; even at older ages than 2. Still exceeded Steffen's #'s in MLS, whose save % dropped to 63 even at Dusseldorf. His passing has improved in Europe, but if anything the shot-stopping has gotten worse w/ injuries. Ochoa's trajectory is very impressive for a goalkeeper, and he's putting up #'s commensurate to, or even exceeding his predecessors, in addition to looking like a better distributor than most, but it's a small sample at this point.