USA goalkeeper discussion thread - Episode IV: A New Hope

I'm not sure he's ready. He .maybe could have done better on the first goal (but maybe not) and he nearly got caught leaning before recovering on one of his big saves. But it's been more positive than negative this year for him this year, and yesterday was no exception, and we're not looking at perfect options.

 

He's younger & better than Turner when he had his breakout seasons. Turner even lost the job early his 2nd season, when he was 24-25. Schulte's 23. Turner was a good keeper for us the 1st 2 years. And Schulte's the polar opposite as a ball-player, so unfair to even just evaluate them as shot-stoppers.

You can only compare academy players and collegiates so much. Naturally collegiates are breaking out as pros later, cuz they're starting as pros later as a choice. Experience is a factor too. Schulte's inexperienced relative to Slonina even. Slonina's played more pro matches to gain experience. And this is his 4th season playing, as opposed to Schulte's 2nd. Schulte has a chance to learn and improve from these experiences. This is not staking out a position as to who has a better future, btw.

Friedel & Keller broke out around Schulte's age, and nobody would say they didn't have high ceilings, just cuz they went to college. Give me Friedel, Keller, even 1st couple yr Turner even, who Schulte has a far better skill foundation than in the modern game.

 

All I said was that the next best four chances were Canadian with Schulte saving three of them, obviously not all of those would have resulted in goals, plenty of other goalkeepers would also have made those saves... even the good to great saves were hardly "impossible" saves.

 

I'm confused, what makes Matt Turner, who is currently with Nottingham Forest and was at Arsenal before that, "MLS Matt" and Patrick Schulte who plays for the Columbus Crew (actual MLS team) not "MLS Pat"?
Do you just decide that whoever you don't like is the more "MLS" player?

 

They're both MLS quality.

 

But you JUST said the guy actually in MLS conceded fewer goals than the guy in the Premier League would have?

 

I'm happy for Schulte to get a run in the team.

........................but I suspect another guy gets the New Zealand game, and then it's back to being wide open when Poch comes in.

 

Give Turner 80 minutes and Kochen 10

 

That's indefensible. A player staked his claim. You keep rewarding that, until he doesn't deserve it. And create that environment across the board. Otherwise you'll have a losing team, like now.

The video is available to Pochettino. If he didn't watch it (like we do for free) & then use that info gained, he shouldn't be manager. It's the least we can ask. (I assume he at least watched it).

 

Even when it made total sense lately whoever started in goal finished in goal no matter how needful it was to get multiple goalkeepers time. I cannot, off the top of my head, remember even once after we clearly needed a new keeper where we played one for part of a match and the other for the remainder. When the 'keeper position is not set it makes sense to give everyone reasonable time but we have too few international matches to give all 'keepers full matches so it make sense to play one for one half and another for the second.
However it does NOT make sense to treat 'keepers like field players. 'Keepers should get full halves baring injury. It just makes no sense to intentionally sub 'keepers late in matches.

BTW: I think Turner has already proved exactly how good or not good he is so giving him time is a mistake until he proves he has improved, He should not even be called to camp. There are a lot of "nearly there" 'keepers that need evaluation so Turner should not be rostered for the foreseeable future.

 

Sure but right now we don’t have any goalies who are a quality higher than MLS.

 

Im not giving anyone any job on 1 game. That's ridiculous.

 

Who's giving them the job? They earned another start. Then we take it a game at a time. I'm not the one giving it based on club association & then not relinquishing it from bad NT play.

 

We have ten windows left, we should be giving the windows to all the prospective keepers until someone locks it up. I got through propping him on the previous page, I'm not against him, but ideally, for me, I would have given the next game to Kochen, Gaga, Celentano, Brady or Callender, since only Turner, Kochen, and Horvath are there, and I already know what 2 of the 3 are, I'd give the next one to Kochen. I will cosign on the idea that w/o Kochen getting it (and he won't), I'd rather Schulte get it than Turner. But I'd also rather any of the other potential guys get it than Turner too.

 

Giving singular starts to a myriad of players so you're subject to the small sample & debut effects, including allocating a cap to a youth player who just graduated to reservist is actually ridiculous.

Flesh out a significant sample of starts 3-5, depending on how much the performances are swinging in success or failure, then move to the next.

1 start at a time is stretching yourself thin to the point you're learning practically nothing. And the lone viable experiment in this camp is Schulte. So play him both of the whopping 2 caps.

You could give Schulte a half & Turner 1 to have made the incumbent's trip worth the while. But he hasn't blown the doors off for club or country lately, so I'm not averse to playing the hard man.

 

Sure. Lots of video is available to Pochettino.

But the point of a new coach is every single player has a clean slate; every single position is open to competition. Let's not predetermine anything.

It should be mentioned that we have a brand new goalkeeping coach. Jack Robinson, formerly the Liverpool keeping coach. This is his first camp with the USMNT. From what they said on the broadcast, Patrick Schulte got the start against Canada because he won the opportunity in training. So, we presume, the new goalkeeping coach had a big hand in that selection.

The post-Berhalter competition started, and Schulte was the first to stake his claim.

We'll see what the staff does with the New Zealand game. My guess is another guy is going to get his chance.

 

Off topic but this made me curious how many GK's we've had over the years who have started 3 games in a row at any point in time. I actually went back 50 years because I assumed there probably weren't that many even over that long of a time period, and it looks like that's correct.

Here's every goalkeeper in the past 50 years who has started 3 consecutive official USMNT games. I've noted roughly what years those starting runs occurred. (See italics/asterisks for keepers whose runs included B/C team games.)

Arnie Mausser: 1976-1985
Winston Dubose: 1984-1985
David Vanole: 1986-1989
Tony Meola: 1989-1994, 2000-01
Brad Friedel: 1993-2002
Marcus Hahnemann: 1994*
Kasey Keller: 1996-2006
Tim Howard: 2002-2003, 2007-2014, 2017
Troy Perkins: 2009**
Nick Rimando: 2013, 2015***
Brad Guzan: 2015-2017
Zack Steffen: 2018-2022
Matt Turner: 2021-2024

*Hahnemann's 3 game run came in B-team friendlies in '94 right after Meola began an extended hiatus from the national team.
**Perkins' 3 game run came during the 2009 C-Team Gold Cup.
**Rimando's 3+ game runs came during the 2013 B-Team Gold Cup and in 2015, during Howard's extended hiatus from the national team. The 2015 run included only 2 games with our European-based starters.

So only 13 goalkeepers over a 50 year period. And only 10 goalkeepers over a 50 year period with at least 3 consecutive starts in A team games.

That's not intended as an argument against giving multiple keepers a run like that at this point. We didn't need to cycle through many options in the past because we were generally satisfied with the 2 or so options we had over any particular extended period of time. Though I will say, I think we want to give as many reps as possible to whoever ends up starting in 2026, and we don't have that many opportunities left to do that at this point in the cycle. So I think there's a case for identifying a top choice early and then sticking with that person unless their performances make that infeasible.

But that's beside the point. I really just wanted to post that list to show how much stability we've had in that position over the years.

 

For me: I'm focused on the guys I think have the best chance of being really good in '26:

So that's Schulte, Freese, Gaga, Kochen and Turner for me. Id want all of them to at least get 3 games over the next 20 months.

It's helpful that we have cupcake because that will give us hopefully 2 auto matches for some combo of Schulte, Freese, even Beavers, or the C's.

Kochen probably won't get a game until '25 or '26 if then. But I really, really hope we give windows to these guys to get good looks. Schulte earned the right to start another game or 2 in '24. Hopefully we can get Freese or Beavers in there in Jan '25 too. I fear we just go back to Turner, I hope we really just start rotating guys until we find the right option. I want our crap defense and our CM's to get comfortable w/those options, familiar with all those guys, and not just be played with Turner 80% of the time over the next 18 months.

 

That might be one of the poorest sub suggestions for a keeper I have ever seen.

 

I'm of a similar mindset that we need to start getting serious about figuring out '26 already, since we don't really have that many games left between now and then. I'm just not sure Kochen or Slonina fit that timeline. The likely best case for those two is that they're playing in La Liga 2 and the Championship next year, respectively. I guess if they're absolutely lights out in those leagues, and the older guys continue to flounder, they could be in the mix for the #1 or #2 spot in the WC, but that seems dicey to me to be counting on a young GK with that level of experience at the WC.

I'm thinking that it's already narrowing down to Turner, Schulte, and then either Freese or one of the kids, if they're really excelling for #3.

 

In that argument, I was the 1 asserting we should put down some roots. Though being rooted to 1 guy is a mistake too cuz he can get hurt, or fall out of form, like Turner, & then what.

What your list shows is we've almost always had multiple viable established options, up until now. And now that needs to be cultivated through sensible experimentation, because we don't have a couple guys legitimately starting in the EPL already. We have zero.

The 3 straight start irregularity is going to be a technicality in a lot of case because many options will fail or the stints will be broken up by circumstance. We have back-to-back friendly windows, & we're off to a good start w/ the experimentation for the 1st. But I'd be fine w/ Turner getting a ceremonial start, only to make way for Schulte in the 2nd half to continue the experiment. Then you could say technically he's not going to hit the 3 straight start threshold. However we may still get a look in 4 straight games for a clearer picture.

We need an unestablished keeper to get the Gold Cup like Turner did in '21, not like in '23 when he returned. Maybe this is still Schulte, or it could be Freese/Celentano if we've seen enough in either direction from Patrick by then. Slonina put us in a bad spot for his inclusion by struggling in Belgium and then joining a competition clearly worse than our domestic one. Same thing for Kochen not taking a loan already of just starting playing for reserves.

I don't think pre-determining our guy for '26 is player X - Schulte or Kochen - and playing them independent of club & country performance for reps is going to benefit us. Nor would it if we settle on Turner after others struggle for a few games. Turner's gotten enough reps with these players. We can always circle back to him. But I'm never going to be OK w/ that until he sorts out his issues/club situations and we have another viable alternative handy.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if Kochen was promoted to the first team at some point in '25-'25, maybe even spring '25. Gaga's playing w/a solid to good League One team, and so far has been either great, meh, or a howler w/a defensive collision this past weekend. 2 MOM performances so momentum is happening. I think Gaga might be ready, I actually like Kochen right now probably better than any of them and would flat out give him a game this week, and certainly by '25, but I am skeptical the brass ends up even considering giving him a start for a year, but I would.

But yeah, I'd want Schulte, Gaga, Kochen and Freese to get the bulk of the starts before next May/June so long as Turner is stuck in his crap situation because not playing well+ being a backup is not the recipe to me for him being a locked in starter for any window, plus like you I want to get the players familiar with each of these keepers tendencies. Yes Id prefer not to juggle starts across four or five different guys, but these games mean nothing, so I'd rather figure out which goalies should be 1-2-3 by next summer/fall by using the windows in that fashion. Im starting to wonder if they ever will give Freese caps though, so I may need to just stop mentioning him.

 

Yeah, Freese might have been left off this roster due to injury, or he might fall into that same vortex as a guy like Tim Melia, who put up very good numbers in MLS but never got a shot with the USMNT for some reason. But he really needs to make the roster and play in one of the next few windows if he's actually going to be in the mix.

 

The thing that probably puts Schulte in the sweet spot right now for USMNT opportunities is that he has the type of experience and stats that guys like Slonina and Kochen just don't have yet, but he's at least 2 or 3 youngers than the guys with similarly impressive stats at that level (like Freese, or less impressive, Callender), so there's more of a chance that he takes his game to yet another level in the next 2 years.

I don't think Gaga's ready. He had below average numbers in the Belgium league season that just finished a few months ago and below average numbers in MLS the season before that. The few people who watched him in Belgium also seem to think he struggled. And he's already had multiple errors leading to goals in the very early days of this season. For Kochen, who knows. I've only seen highlights, but he's never played at a level yet that would allow you to evaluate his performances and make comparisons with other options.

I think if Slonina puts in a league best XI type performance in League One this year, or Kochen does so well at Barca B that he's clearly set for a bigger role somewhere else the following season, maybe you give one of them a shot in the Gold Cup next year and hope you can continue to give them starts while they impress at whatever higher level league they hopefully end up at in the year leading up to the World Cup. But I just don't think either one is the guy right now.

 

People also gave me s*** for suggesting Kochen be called up for these friendlies... and then Kochen was called up for these friendlies. So as long as I continue to annoy the geniuses on this board I'm going to assume I'm doing something right.