The Goalkeeper Gap
In 1993, when most players in the U.S. men's national team pool were college kids excited for free adidas merch, Kasey Keller was starting for Millwall in England. In 1998, when the Yanks were getting embarrassed out of the World Cup by Iran, Brad Friedel was on the books at Liverpool. When Major League Soccer was in danger of folding and its exports were largely failing in Europe, Tim Howard lifted an FA Cup with Manchester United.
Goalkeeper has always been the one position where the United States produced standout male players. NASL's Shep Messing was the prototype, but Tony Meola, Keller, Friedel, and Howard have ensured a long, proud history of Yankee goalkeeping. "Hope the goalkeeper has a good day" has been the standard operating procedure for decades now.
But as good as current stalwart Howard has been, he'll be 39 by the start of next year's World Cup, certain to be his final tournament. Longtime backup Nick Rimando is just three months younger. The only goalkeeper in the squad who has any significant national team experience and could plausibly take part beyond next summer is Brad Guzan, who has regressed in recent seasons and currently finds himself as a backup with relegation fodder Middlesbrough.
Beyond Guzan, there's a deep gulf in experience, with a smattering of national team neophytes from MLS and younger players who have yet to prove themselves. I've plotted the age and national team caps of goalkeepers from the last five world cup squads along with current national team players and recent or likely call-ups to visualize the experience gap.
This trendline is actually skewed a bit, since we care about potential and this plot includes current marginal players and experienced 'keepers who went to the World Cup as the never-used third goalkeeper. If we just look at the top two goalkeepers from each of the last five World Cup squads, we get this:
Goalkeeper has always been the one position where the United States produced standout male players. NASL's Shep Messing was the prototype, but Tony Meola, Keller, Friedel, and Howard have ensured a long, proud history of Yankee goalkeeping. "Hope the goalkeeper has a good day" has been the standard operating procedure for decades now.
But as good as current stalwart Howard has been, he'll be 39 by the start of next year's World Cup, certain to be his final tournament. Longtime backup Nick Rimando is just three months younger. The only goalkeeper in the squad who has any significant national team experience and could plausibly take part beyond next summer is Brad Guzan, who has regressed in recent seasons and currently finds himself as a backup with relegation fodder Middlesbrough.
Beyond Guzan, there's a deep gulf in experience, with a smattering of national team neophytes from MLS and younger players who have yet to prove themselves. I've plotted the age and national team caps of goalkeepers from the last five world cup squads along with current national team players and recent or likely call-ups to visualize the experience gap.
This trendline is actually skewed a bit, since we care about potential and this plot includes current marginal players and experienced 'keepers who went to the World Cup as the never-used third goalkeeper. If we just look at the top two goalkeepers from each of the last five World Cup squads, we get this:
This trend tells us a few things: an American goalkeeper pushing for the first or second spot on a World Cup roster will historically have earned his first cap before his 23rd birthday, and have racked up at least 20 national team appearances before he turns 26. The half-century mark will come around the time he turns 30.
While we can certainly allow for some deviation (I'm certainly not going to argue that Howard wasn't up to the task in 2010), there's nobody apart from Guzan who is even close to following the trend. Sean Johnson is the closest, and he has just seven national team appearances at 27 years old.
Part of the problem is the dominance of Howard and Guzan. While previous keepers have had competition and fallen in and out of favor, Howard was the undisputed first choice for most of the last decade and Guzan an almost automatic number two.
Tim Howard is an undoubtedly excellent keeper and one of the best we've ever produced, but there was an assumption for several years that Guzan would be the heir to Howard's role and that one of the younger goalkeepers in the pool - namely Sean Johnson or Bill Hamid - would stand out from the pack and place himself in line behind Guzan. For whatever reason, that hasn't happened, and we haven't had another obvious Hahnemann-style player emerge in Europe, despite the best efforts of Quentin Westberg, David Yelldell, and Steve Clark.
Another aspect of this issue is the continued use of Nick Rimando. While Rimando is certainly capable, and one of the best in MLS history, he was the third-best keeper in the pool and on the wrong side of his career slope, regularly taking up space and playing minutes that could have gone to developing younger options.
Thanks to the USMNT's poor start to Hex qualifying, coach Bruce Arena has less breathing room than normal in which to test out his options. With his back against the wall and a World Cup berth far from certain, Arena will probably be stuck using at least two of the Howard-Guzan-Rimando trio in meaningful squads.
So if the U.S. starts qualification for 2022 with an out-of-favor Brad Guzan as its default starter and a bunch of barely-capped fringe players as the alternatives, we can blame the coach who failed to cultivate a stronger depth chart and oversaw abysmal losses to Mexico and Costa Rica: the gift that keeps on giving, Jurgen Klinsmann.
Part of the problem is the dominance of Howard and Guzan. While previous keepers have had competition and fallen in and out of favor, Howard was the undisputed first choice for most of the last decade and Guzan an almost automatic number two.
Tim Howard is an undoubtedly excellent keeper and one of the best we've ever produced, but there was an assumption for several years that Guzan would be the heir to Howard's role and that one of the younger goalkeepers in the pool - namely Sean Johnson or Bill Hamid - would stand out from the pack and place himself in line behind Guzan. For whatever reason, that hasn't happened, and we haven't had another obvious Hahnemann-style player emerge in Europe, despite the best efforts of Quentin Westberg, David Yelldell, and Steve Clark.
Another aspect of this issue is the continued use of Nick Rimando. While Rimando is certainly capable, and one of the best in MLS history, he was the third-best keeper in the pool and on the wrong side of his career slope, regularly taking up space and playing minutes that could have gone to developing younger options.
Thanks to the USMNT's poor start to Hex qualifying, coach Bruce Arena has less breathing room than normal in which to test out his options. With his back against the wall and a World Cup berth far from certain, Arena will probably be stuck using at least two of the Howard-Guzan-Rimando trio in meaningful squads.
So if the U.S. starts qualification for 2022 with an out-of-favor Brad Guzan as its default starter and a bunch of barely-capped fringe players as the alternatives, we can blame the coach who failed to cultivate a stronger depth chart and oversaw abysmal losses to Mexico and Costa Rica: the gift that keeps on giving, Jurgen Klinsmann.
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