I generally agree. There are 5 CONCACAF tournaments + the Copa America from 2023 to 2025. There is value for the US in letting another goalkeeper start in at least one of them.
I think there is a pretty decent gap between Turner and the MLS options. We know this because we have Turner’s MLS play to go off and none of the MLS guys have approached that. The only MLS goalie who has approached his level of shot stopping is Petrovic (and I believe Petrovic was even better). We’ll know some of the MLS guys deserve a look when they reach the level of Turner or Petrovic in MLS. Chris Brady seems to me the MLS option with the most potential to do so.
I think we are all for that. I said as much. .................but we're not sacrificing Copa America, etc. just to give a newbie a shot. Copa America on home soil is bigger than any Gold Cup or Nations League. I'm sure we'll give some other guys a shot in those events. There's no actual evidence at the moment that any of the options are better than Turner. As sad as that is. When this board makes the decision to switch keepers, we immediately over-exaggerate the mistakes of the incumbent and treat the other options like they never make any. Turner has, in general, been quite good for the USMNT. That includes WC2022. So he has some rope that the other options don't have. People remember when Steffen was getting crushed on this board on a daily basis and Turner was being hailed as the great alternative. Well, now its Turner's.............turn. He's now a disaster and people think Gabriel Slonina is a saint. Do people actually watch Gabriel Slonina for Eupen? I don't watch him on a weekly basis. I have no idea how he's doing. I assume he's not Iker Casillas. There's a reason Slonina plays for a small Belgian team. I called for others to get into the rotation. But for the moment Turner is the #1 when the games matter until one of those guys wrestles the job from him. I don't predetermine that one of them will be able to do it.
Agree with all that. The problem is we had a perfect opportunity down in T&T to get someone else a match. Instead we went with Turner who frankly stunk. But that's hindsight. It was a perfect setup to give someone else some minutes.
To sit on the bench as 3rd string. The Sean Johnson role. Its hard to know which keeper would have entered the game if Turner wasn't available after the fist leg. I honestly do not know what our keeper pecking order is. Horvath saved our bacon in the 2021 Nations League. It seems like that event was 25 years ago, but it wasn't. So he has some credit in the bank. It was actually the 2023 Gold Cup that was the perfect time to get Slonina some caps. To me, it seemed like Berhalter didn't want to take any chances with a road game in CONCACAF with Copa America on the line. CONCACAFery can happen. I don't think that was a totally unreasonable proposition. If we were up 6-0 after the first leg, maybe he'd have done it. I wonder if the board has gone a little overboard on Slonina. The USMNT staff sure isn't behaving like they think he's ready. At the 2023 Gold Cup, when we had a throwaway game in the group phase against Caribbean minnows St. Kitts & Nevis.....................we didn't even use Slonina. We used Sean Johnson. Then when we had advancement assured, and had a dead game against T&T, we went back to Turner. Why? I dunno. That wasn't Berhalter, though. Am I wrong in saying that Slonina still hasn't played an "A" game with the USMNT, and thus still is only provisionally cap-tied to us?
The keeper situation seems to be opening up for others, with Turner suddenly looking shakier for club and country. But is suspect that between Horvath and the youngsters, and the possibility of a Turner return to form, we will be ok come the Copa.
We should be. I do think we've gone a bit overboard on Slonina. There are those on the youth boards that think both U23 keepers might be better than Slonina: Brady and Schulte. We know why Slonina is at the forefront of people's minds. The dual-national fight with Poland and then sale to Chelsea. But then Chelsea shipped him to a small Belgian team. He's playing fine there, but why should that put him higher on the depth chart than anybody? I don't know. Its kinda like name recognition leads to people demanding that he receive USMNT starts. That's it. Name recognition. Why do people think he's better than a guy like Celentano or Callendar or blah, blah, blah? I don't know. I really don't.
People were already high on Slonina before all of the dual nat issues started and singing with Chelsea.
They were. But its kinda like Cade Cowell, who had 5 goals and 5 assists in MLS as a 17 year old. Got him into the USMNT setup. But what since? Gabe Slonina was really good as a starter in MLS for his age. But he was never one of the best keepers in MLS. He finished behind all of Callendar, Celentano, and Stuver in MLS Goalkeeper of the Year voting in 2022. He wasn't in the top 5 in voting. But he was young and deemed to have a lot of potential. Plus the dual-national threat from Poland. All of that got him into the USMNT. But why do we think he's better than any number of domestic keepers? I don't know. I really don't.
Slonina is not cap tied to us yet. And it’s unclear to me as how Copa America counts since it’s not our continental competition but any appearance in a Gold Cup or World Cup cap ties him but since he is under 21 he would need 4 matches in either Nations League or World Cup qualifiers (which is obviously don’t exist this cycle) to be cap tied.
Comparing Goalkeeper to any other position should not be used outside of Center Back. Players usually peak around 27 but Gk and CB peak around 30. Slonina made his debut at the age of 17 and was starting at the age of 18. That's like any player making his debut at the age of 14 and starting at the age of 15. Slonnina might not be one of the best goalkeepers in MLS but he's one of the best goalkeepers for his age around the world. Hot take. I could see Turner not starting in the 2026 WC if he doesn't find a club that he could start.
True. Also............being one of the best goalkeepers in the world at 17 means literally nothing. It's how good you are as an adult professional. Sometimes players develop and sometimes they don't. Right now Slonina is 19 playing for a small Belgian team. Iker Casillas he is not. The question for this thread is..............should he be getting starts for the USMNT as some people demand. Based on his CURRENT talent level, that's not a definitive YES. Cuz his current level may not warrant that. In 2022 he wasn't better than Callendar, Celentano, Stuver or other domestic GKs. And there are those in the youth forum who think he might not be as good as either Brady or Schulte at the U23 level. Heck, there were people here demanding that FC Dallas sell their starter and install Carrera. He's probably 4th on that chart, depending on how one feels about Pulskamp of SKC. I'll grant you that if you go to some site like transfermarkt, they'll have Slonina as the top. But transfermarkt isn't the real world.
None of our keepers are currently playing at a high level. None No idea why people think Gaga might be better than Turner. You do a "F, it, let's try him" with a forward who can't really hurt the team if he messes up. You don't do a "why not" with a goalie. I'm not thrilled with Turner's play but I'm not convinced a dude playing in Belgium would be better and with goalie I lean more risk averse. We have no great options right now.
Turner could bounce back. The T&T game was indeed a shocker but his good for the NT outweighs the bad. I think his World Cup was a bit underrated if anything.
Turner is clearly better than Slonina at current but Slonina has a higher long term ceiling. Just remains to be seen if he reaches that ceiling and how long it’d take to get there. Turner is the guy for the time being however and almost certainly for the Copa America next year. Slonina does seem to have shown an uptick in his pay in Belgium as of late however. And he’ll probably be the starter for Chelsea’s team in France next year if it continues. But he’s not ahead of Turner right now and it’s pretty clear cut.
Slonina is more for 2030 WC. Just like Diego Kochen, Brady, and many more that will come up. Tuner has to start playing before someone else does.
I think none of the more veteran options have much of a chance of supplanting Turner before 2026. If someone does it’s going to be a Slonina, Brady, Kochen type who really made a leap. Which is also not likely before 2026. The best case scenario for us is Turner regains the starting spot and holds it.
Shrug. Pools can move fast. At the start of the 2022 cycle, Steffen was virtually unchallenged as the USMNT starter. Turner didn't even get his first cap until midway thru the cycle (January camp 2021) [Heck, Zack Steffen started nearly half of our WCQers and then didn't even make the WC roster.] So it looks like Matt Turner is far out in the lead right now in 2023, but who the hell knows what our pool might look like in 2025. But I think we can all agree that while Turner might be the fairly unchallenged #1; we need to evaluate other guys. Perfect opportunity at January camp to ramp up the competition amongst the domestic guys.
The good news about Turner is that he had a poor game against TnT. If he had been his normal self against TnT but was on the bench and making bad mistakes at Forest, in a way that would actually be worse.
I'm not sure about this. These last 4 months or so have been a waste for both Steffen and Horvath, in one case due to injury and in the other due to a bit of misfortune in how Forest dealt with his transfer situation. But I think that obscures the fact that they were both starting regularly for top Championship sides last season (including one that was promoted). Given that, it seems probable to me that at least one if not both of them earn a move to a good Championship side again within the next month or two, or failing that, this summer. If they pick up where they left off at that level and Turner fails to regain his starting spot, neither of which would be a huge surprise, then I wouldn't bet against one of the veterans regaining their spot with the national team.
I just don’t think either of Steffen or Horvath are better than Turner even if they end up starting the Championship in January (where both were fairly average goalies last year). Even last year when Turner was the backup at Arsenal and they were starting he was still ahead of them on the depth chart. Horvath should at least get a move in January though. I have no idea what’s going on with Steffen though as we haven’t gotten any updates on that front in awhile.
There was an update on Steffen recently. https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/m...ssion-over-possible-riverside-stadium-return/ Essentially, it says that he underwent knee surgery over the summer that ruled him out for 4 months. If Middlesbrough had been promoted he would have pushed to join them over the summer transfer window and put off the procedure for another year. But since they weren't, he decided to have the procedure this summer and use the following four months to recover. Presumably that means he will be healthy enough to play in the second half of the season and might push for a transfer soon. (He also reiterates in the interview in there his understanding that he was left off the World Cup roster because he missed too many camps, especially the one right before the tournament.)