USA goalkeeper discussion thread - Episode IV: No Hope

Yup. I’d be fine if the fall camp is Brady, Thomas, and Schwake. Turner and Freese can still be part of the picture going forward but given there’s no clear cut guy fine with rotating out and see other faces.

 

I think with four years out the camps need to be a combination of seeing new faces, potential, and especially in keeping, who is playing well right now.

Turner I would be okay with calling; his goalkeeping stats in MLS are great. The mistake here is that Freese has not been good this year but we locked in because of concerns about playing guys who hadn't played with the team before.

Which is valid, but we don't care right now. Freese is not near the best MLS goalkeeper right now, and I think we need to be a bit more ruthless in this.

I'd like to see Kochen as well, if he's playing.

 

I’m ok with Kochen too. It’s more of a question of whether early in the season you want to leave him there and let him really lock down the starting spot. Sort of just depends on his standing at the club. But I do think Denmark is a good enough league that if he plays well he can absolutely be considered for the starting role for the USMNT.

Similarly if Slonina ends up starting for Strausburg and looks ok that’s at automatic call up basically.

 

It'll depend on whether we have a new USMNT coach or not.
A new coach will mean a clean slate for everyone.

The challenge for any coach is that there really isn't much differentiation between the band of goalkeepers we have.
Freese could be the best keeper in MLS for the 2nd half of the season. Who knows? Or it could be any number of guys. The stats fluctuate. Any ranking will fluctuate. We all have hopes for the young keepers, but they have to go out and do the work first.

Freese was the highest finishing US-eligible keeper in the 2025 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year voting.

What's interesting about that was he actually finished 1st in the voting amongst the players and clubs. It was the media voters that pushed the keeper of the year voting to Dayne St. Clair. The media overwhelmingly voted for St. Clair.

The state of American goalkeeping can be exemplified by the fact that we've only won goalkeeper of the year ONCE since Steffen did it in 2018.

Freese was top 3 in 2025. Schulte was top 3 in 2024. Celentano was top 3 in 2023.
6 of one; half dozen of the others.

 

Hope they’re ruthless and bring in fresh faces outside of Brady. Turner would already be out of the cycle at his age and Freese needs to be weeded out.

 

Except that one can argue that Turner was the best American keeper in MLS for the first half of the 2026 season. He's in the conversation at least.
Turner isn't 39 years old. He just turned 32 in June.

For a keeper, he's in his prime NOW. He can easily make it to WC30.

Should we all make a list of the goalkeepers that started games at World Cup 2026 significantly older than 36? I'll start. Memo Ochoa, Manuel Neuer, and Vozinha.

Goalkeeping is one of those positions in which its almost imposible to predict the future. Unless you have Donnarumma or somebody.

A year ago this board hadn't heard of Brian Schwake. He was playing in the Scottish 2nd tier in 2022/2023. He was a bench player for Castellon in La Liga 2 in 2023/2024. Was a backup for Nashville in 2025 and didn't get into a single MLS game. Then he gets a chance to start in 2026 and now he's on our USMNT radar.

So who the hell knows what this pool will look like in 4 years? I'm not willing to eliminate almost anybody from contention, and that includes Turner. Turner may have issues with the ball at his feet and such, but he's an elite shot-stopper in the USMNT pool.

Zack Steffen, by the way, is younger than Matt Turner. Somehow. I'm not even willing to eliminate Zack Steffen from contention. [I'm close, but not yet.]

 

I think with Turner as long as he’s playing at a high level in MLS no reason to phase him out just for the sake of it. And he could be valuable as the third keeper on a World Cup roster in four years. But the hope is one of the younger guys will final emerge and decisively establish themselves as the clear cut guy.

 

Just to be a stickler, Memo Ochoa did not start a match at this World Cup. Only got subbed in for 13 minutes in their last group stage match. But yes, it's a position you can be older and still succeed at.

 

What's weird is that none of the young USYNTers that we endlessly talk about end up being the guys at the top of the pool.

Our top two keepers at the World Cup were NCAA players at Harvard and Fairfield with limited USYNT camps between them. Freese ended up getting some U23 caps around 2019. [Before that Olympic qualifying was delayed. When it actually happened, David Ochoa started ahead of him. David Ochoa!!!]

Keeper is one position in which the turnover in the pool from the time they're 18 to 25 seems extreme.

Roman Celentano, Patrick Schulte, etc. etc. were not USYNT keepers. Chris Brady was.

More often than not, some Brian Schwake shows up out of nowhere to outperform the former USYNTers.
He went to DePaul and as far as I can tell, barely played there. It appears he was a backup, got hurt, and then decided to move to Europe.
He was playing for Linlithgow Rose FC, who are now in the Scottish 5th tier.

He has a passport from Luxembourg. #Dualnationalpanic

I know people are out here talking about their hopes for Kochen, Beavers, Eyestone, Ferree, and the young crew.

History says it's just as likely that a Michael Collodi (who went to Colombia) or a player of that ilk makes a surge to WC30. Or a player currently in the NCAAs that we've never heard of yet.

Predict goalkeeping success at your own peril. Let's hope the young crew advances. But Kochen has never played above the Spanish 3rd tier. Eyestone barely played this year, even more Brentford reserves. Beavers barely played in Scandinavia. Ferree is doing alright for San Diego for his age. But is he actually one of the best MLS keepers? Not yet.

 

I said on here months ago that Brian Schwake will be the starting USMNT #1 in the near future. The dude is really good.

 

Quite possible that our best keeper in 2030 will be some unknown college dropout, who never played on youth teams. But that's not a good news. That would be some decent, but not great keeper. Turner level if we are lucky, Freeze or Schulte if we aren't.

 

Gaga Slonina playing the second half and conceding 5 goals vs Sporting CP... will the title for the next GK thread be even more negative than this one

 

From no hope to less hope?

 

Ep 5 :Lol nothing matters

 

Only watched the first four he gave up.Does his defense just refuse to play for him?Cause that's what it looked like.

 

Don't watch the exhibition highlights against Sporting. He's not that terrible, but giving up 5 goals in 45 minutes is ... something.

 

Maybe off topic but how are the likes of Canada/Mexico faring with their current keepers and young prospects?

 

Meh. Strasbourg obviously had defensive problems there bigger than Slonina. Its why you play preseason games.

It just sucks that he was trying to make an impression and that happened...................................

 

I thought they were trying to rattle him into giving the Crew a goal. It is a sign we are growing up as a soccer country.

 

R

Read from Crew fans that they boo every goal keeper online. Thats what they said.

 

I remember when Jorge Campos was in MLS and we tried crap like this and he turned around and clapped. Respect.

 

Long off-topic reply:

I can’t speak for Mexico, but in Canada goalkeeping pipeline is probably not as dire as it sounds like it is in the U.S., but we’re really pinning our long-term hopes on a trio of young keepers and not all of our top keeping prospects were home-developed either. There are some promising dual-nats we won’t get, some young-ish pros who don’t seem to have a terribly high ceiling and a lot of current/recent youth keepers who seem unlikely to be the answer as a future No. 1. There’s not a lot of depth in the pipeline, but it would be nice for someone to come out of left field as well. And I think Crépeau and St. Clair – while far from elite – are both pretty solid and should remain so for the next four years.

Owen Goodman (03) was No. 3 at the World Cup. He’s with Crystal Palace and is going on loan to Dundee FC in the SPL this season. He’s big, athletic and a very good shot-stopper. He had a tough go last season, but was keeper of the year in League 2, two seasons ago and a had huge hand in Wimbledon’s promotion. He checks a lot of boxes. I don’t think moving up a division made a big impact, I think he just fell out of form. Goodman was born in England but lived in Canada from 5-13 before returning.

Grégoire Swiderski (05) is No. 3 at Alaves in La Liga and the starter for their reserves. I’ve only seen him with the U20s, but he’s been our best U20 keeper in decades maybe. Swiderski was developed in France.

May be too soon for this cycle, but there’s a lot of hype around Samsy Keita. He’s an 09 and might be one of our top prospects, full stop. He’s big, great shot-stopper, supposed to be great with his feet. He’s backing up with Montreal right now with their No. 1 injured. I’d love to see him get a match, he hasn’t even had a U17 cycle yet, but the thought is he has a very high ceiling and may not be with Montreal for long once he turns 18 next summer.

The unlikely other young option is Alex Pisano (06) who is a Japanese-born keeper who was thrown into being a starter in the J League for a spell after Nagoya Grampus had some injuries and he played well. That got him into the Japanese U17 World Cup squad and a start with the senior team (albeit in a Camp Cupcake kind of situation). I think Japanese dual-nats are pretty tricky to secure even if they’re interested, but he’s 6’6” and pretty good, though at times a little too confident with the ball at his feet.

There are other foreign-developed dual-nats I don’t expect Canada to get. Kortkamp is eligible for Canada. Abraham Madriz (04) has won the No. 1 job at Saprissa and I think he’s going to be a Costa Rica regular pretty soon. I don’t see any scenario where he switches – nor should he.

After that it’s pretty uninspiring. Luka Gavran is growing into his role as Toronto’s No. 1. He’s 6’5” and size is something a lot of our young keepers don’t have. He could get some caps this cycle. James Pantemis is having a good season in Portland, but I’ve never been convinced by him, but maybe he’s found a new level. He’ll be in the mix for the No. 1 job this cycle if his form holds. Pantemis is also not very big. I bring up size, not because I think it’s a big deal on the pitch, but I do think it’s limiting in career potential in terms of moving abroad. I don’t see Crépeau or Pantemis ever leaving MLS. Which is fine, but if we’re looking for an upgrade between the sticks, I think we need someone playing at a higher level.

There are a few big keepers in the pool, Nikola Curcija (01) is 6’6” and got some starts in Croatia last season. Rayane Yesli is 6’7” but moved to Algeria and seems likely he would play for them if he got to that level. I’m not sure I rate either too much from what I’ve seen.

There’s a few No. 2 keepers in MLS: Hasal (LAFC), Sirois (Dallas), Hibbert (Atlanta), De Rosario (Toronto), Boehmer (Vancouver), and Breza (Montreal) who are all fairly solid but will need to improve and have a breakthrough to really get into contention for senior caps. Not sure I would bet on that happening for any of them, though Hibbert probably has the highest ceiling. There’s some former youth international keepers in the NCAA, most of them aren’t very big either. Current U20 starter Abraham is at Louisville, Milosevic has a lot of MLS NextPro experience and is transferring to Old Dominion, Goldson at Michigan is a three-year starter, but we’ll see if any of them become pros. Last U17 starter Jonathan Ransom (08) is American-born and starting for Atlanta in MLS NextPro. There’s a couple more keepers of a similar age in La Liga academies but we’ll see how they develop.

The US pool is a lot larger and I think its far more likely that a Freese or a Schwake will come out of nowhere this cycle, but I think Canada is banking on just needing one of those three guys to reach their potential and then we're in pretty good shape for another decade. But as it stands with Slonina and Kochen, that's easier said than done.