USA goalkeeper discussion thread - Episode IV: No Hope

Schwake is getting paid $167k for the season.

Starting on the "best value" team at least.

 

I'm just gonna say it again since his name is here: I think Schwake is going to become our USMNT keeper next cycle.

 

Before a Schwake call up we’ll need a Schwake up call.

 

Good one, Tim. Though I'm not sure "he's at the top of his dad joke game" will be the tie-breaker for the 26th roster spot. I've got my fingers crossed that Poch shares your sense of humor and feels like having that in the locker room will be valuable.

 

Also on the All-Name Team.

Heeeeeeeeeee. . .Schwaked that away!

 

I think Schwake is fine.

I don't see differentiation from about 15 other keepers.
We just have this big group of guys that are all about the same.

Its just up to the next USMNT coach to call them up and pick one. Do I see somebody about to break into the elite echelon of keepers? No. Not amongst the guys I watch. I don't watch Diego Kochen. We always put our faith in the guy we don't actually see. So maybe Kochen......................

If you ask anybody to rank their top 10 goalkeepers in the US pool right now, you'd get answers all over the damn place.

I google searched that, and here's an example from March:
Top 100 American Goalkeepers (USMNT Depth Chart) — Everybody Soccer

That person has this ranking:

1) Chris Brady
2) Ethan Horvath
3) Gabriel Slonina
4) Roman Celentano
5) Zack Steffen
6) Matt Turner
7) Matt Freese
8) Jonathan Klinsmann
9) CJ Dos Santos
10) Drake Callender

That person has Patrick Schulte, who might make our World Cup squad, at #20!!!!

[CJ Dos Santos broke his cheekbone in the fall, lost his starting job to Duran Ferree, and has submitted his one-time switch to Cape Verde since that column. So, he's out of the pool now..]

 

Slonina at #3, lol

Not saying his career is done by any stretch of the imagination, he's still young for a GK and has plenty of time to turn things around, but he doesn't belong anywhere near our top 15 keepers right now let alone top 3

 

Hard to believe he's still only 22.

He's YOUNGER than Chris Brady.

That guy could move to another club, regain momentum and absolutely take off.

...............or he could vanish forever.

[Totally agree with you. Having him at #3 on the depth chart RIGHT NOW is nuts.]

The nuttiness and parity of our GK pool is best explained by this..........................

Michael Collodi, FC Dallas' starter is#60!!!!
Andrew Rick of Philadelphia, is #61. Adam Beadry of Colorado is #63. Duran Ferree of San Diego is #69.

Yes, that depth chart is from March. Things change in two months. There's just like this humungous batch of guys that are all about the same level. Its volatile.

 

At this time with no Americans playing at big clubs in Europe there really is a small gap between most of the top guys. There have been times in the past none of these guys would have made the WC behind three from that cycle although those guys weren't any better with their feet so I may be over rating them too.

 

Yeah it really is just a letdown having our top keepers in MLS. Maybe Freese will ball out and get him a move to a top 5 league while maybe Turner will return after his loan at the Revs end but that seems unlikely. We're at a point where a career like Guzan's is something neither of our current guys could even dare to emulate.

 

The Goals Prevented stat should be very effective. Yet it seems pretty volatile and other more normal stats line up with the eye test.

 

Its just that there are only about 120 starting keeper jobs in Europe that are clearly better than MLS. [Every year that goes by, that number decreases.] And you're competing with the world for them. And of course some of those leagues are easier to go to than others for guys without Euro passports.

Beavers, Eyestone, Kochen, Slonina, etc. have all gone over and aren't playing first team games.
I think further young/youngish keepers are taking note. Its can be a poisoned chalice. I'm sure Slonina's financial advisor has been thrilled with his move. But from a soccer standpoint?

And guys like Freese, Schulte, Celentano or Brady are taking note of what happened to guys like Turner, Steffen, and Horvath over there. I think all of these guys could be on squads in Europe. All of them. But it depends on what we mean by "in Europe," whether its actually a better level than MLS, and whether its going to pay more than MLS. And whether they'd be going to actually play or sit as a backup somewhere.

2026 MLS goalkeeper salaries of interest.

Matt Turner: 1.9 million
Zack Steffen: 1.1 million
Patrick Schulte: 1.0 million
Seah Johnson: 883k
Matt Freese: 795k
Brad Stuver: 631k
Roman Celentano: 574k
Ethan Horvath: 525k
Drake Callender: 506k
John Pulskamp: 425k
Chris Brady: 384k
JT Marcinkowski: 302k
Andrew Thomas: 252k
Brian Schwake: 167k
Michael Collodi: 125k
Duran Ferree: 113k

We now have three keepers making more than a million a year. Some of these salaries depend on when guys signed their most recent contract extensions. Celentano is the next one. His contract expires after 2027.

I put some of the emerging guys there at the bottom who are on their initial homegrown or free agent contracts. They'll all jump up with new extensions soon.

The top half of that list is getting paid WELL. We can go to a league like Belgium and see what a keeper is getting paid. Are they getting paid what Matt Freese is getting paid???? Pick a team. What is Standard Liege's goalkeeper getting paid?

 

No one currently at Standard is on a million dollars.
Unofficially their highest current salary is 840K. They would not pay that to their goalkeeper.

In any case, I don't think any Belgian club is going to play north of one million a year to a MLS goalkeeper. The one exception was Simon Mignolet, who got a 4.2 million euro salary (gross) when he moved from LFC to Club Brugge, but that was an exception.

 

The positive spin on that is that we have an expanding pool of "upper middle class" goalkeepers.
After all, Matt Turner was fine at WC22. All the rest probably would be too. When we get eliminated from WC26, it probably won't be Matt Freese that we target as the problem.

We just need one or two to take another step up and develop into something more. Who will that be? You guess is as good as mine.

One piece of bad news this week to keep an eye on. Collodi in Dallas had a supbar game midweek and was replaced for yesterday's game against SJ. We'll see there..........................

 

Not exactly.
1. Nick Rimando 2000–2019
2. Kevin Hartman1997–2012
3. Joe Cannon1999–2013
4. Stefan Frei 2009–Present
5. Jon Busch 2002–2015
6. Matt Reis 1998–2013
7. Zach Thornton 1996–2011
And also Hamid and Johnson all were in MLS in 2010
and didn't make WC team as the spots were occupied by

• Tim Howard (#1) - Starting Goalkeeper (Everton)

• Brad Guzan (#18) - Backup Goalkeeper (Aston Villa)

• Marcus Hahnemann (#23) - Backup Goalkeeper (Wolverhampton)

 

The difference between this generation and that generation is one person. Tim Howard.

We're building and building and building and building our pool of keepers.

We need one or two to "hit."

And yes, I think the current generation is at the level of Guzan and Hahnemann.

Ethan Horvath comes back to MLS after being in Europe for 13 years, including years thru Champions League campaigns. And what people quickly learn is that he's not actually better than the MLS guys. All of these guys, and we have a whole host of them in MLS, could go to Europe. Ethan Horvath is 30 years old. He's in his prime as a keeper............NOW. And is he better than Freese, Celentano, Schulte, and company? Meh.

I worry about Eyestone, Kochen, Beavers, and Slonina.

Duran Ferree is playing. Julian Eyestone is not.

We have to stop with this inferiority complex when it comes to our MLS-based keepers.

 

Odds Chris Brady starts game 1?

 

Zero. Until we see what happens in the two friendlies.

 

Another in a long list of guys in the pool for who the World Cup is just a bit too soon for. Better question is if we’re in the Copa America in two years what are the chances he’s starting there.

 

Had JK not been injured, could he have found himself in the pool for the World Cup? He was called up a few times last year and was among the best goalkeepers in Serie B.

Also a part of me would have found it interesting to have 2 sons of former NT managers on the squad.

 

The last I saw is that he was actually one of the worst goalkeepers in Serie B this last year.

I think the year prior, where his numbers were good, was more of a hot streak. Which is not shocking because he was awful in MLS.

 

Our goalkeeper issues may be over. In 25 years.

https://tvpworld.com/93428008/poland-willing-to-build-permanent-us-bases-for-deployment-clarity

 

Not true. May be average, maybe not.

 

With Chris Brady on the roster the irony is if Slonina doesn’t go to Chelsea he maybe ends up in that spot.