IRVINE, Calif. — The U.S. men’s national team’s goalkeeping was one of its bigger question marks headed into the World Cup.
Two games in, it’s hard to say there’s much of an answer.
Of course, that’s largely a product of how well the team in front of Matt Freese has played in a pair of wins. Paraguay had just one shot on goal, Australia had two. So of all the potential rotations Mauricio Pochettino could make in Thursday’s dead rubber against Turkey, Freese is unlikely to be one of them given it may not be the worst thing in the world for him to see more action.
“Part of being a goalkeeper is recognizing it’s not always about you. I’m comfortable with that,” Freese said before Tuesday’s training session. “The less action I have means we’re more comfortable in a game, we’re more likely gonna win. So I’m typically more focused on that and preventing any shots rather than just being only ready to save them.”
The NYCFC keeper rose from relative obscurity over the past year to win the job, earning his first caps in the friendlies leading into last summer’s Gold Cup and quickly supplanting Matt Turner as Pochettino’s preferred option.
Despite some questions about the depth chart after Turner started against Belgium in March, and when he started a friendly against Senegal at the end of May, it has indeed been Freese’s net at the World Cup.
“He’s a calm goalkeeper by nature,” former USMNT keeper Tim Howard told The Post last week. “I think that’s one thing that stood out. Particularly if you go back to last summer, he gets his shot at the Gold Cup — coming-out party, all right, this is sort of your tournament — and for a guy who didn’t have any games at all, he sort of was this really calming presence. Didn’t really do too many crazy things back there, and it speaks to his nature.
“As you get to know Matt, he’s a thinker. He’s someone who doesn’t really get rattled by the moment, and if he does, he doesn’t show it, which is a huge trait of goalkeepers.”
Howard — who spoke with The Post on behalf of Govee, a smart lighting brand he’s partnered with for the World Cup — is part of a decorated history of U.S. keepers. With all three goalkeepers on this year’s roster playing in MLS, there’s less pedigree at the position than in the past, when names like Howard, Brad Friedel and Kasey Keller were playing overseas.
“I wouldn’t say it’s intimidating,” Freese, a Harvard alum who wears Howard’s No. 24, said. “I would say inspiring. It’s a long line of goalkeepers that I looked up to for my whole life, some before my life as well. But to have my name next to theirs is an incredible honor.”
Every match of the FIFA World Cup will air on either FOX or FOX Sports 1. If you don’t have cable, you can take advantage of a DIRECTV free trial to stream it all.
Prefer to check out the action live and in person? Shop World Cup 2026 tickets on SeatGeek and make sure to use promo code NYPOST10 for $10 off purchases over $250 at checkout if you’re a first-time SeatGeek user.
Though it’s unclear how the game flow will be affected by neither team playing for anything — the U.S. has clinched the top spot in the group and Turkey has been eliminated — at least in theory, Freese should see more shots in Thursday’s game than the first two.
Turkey had 62 shots across its first two matches, the most by a team without scoring at a World Cup since 1966, when such records were first kept, forcing eight saves from Australia’s keeper Patrick Beach and five from Paraguay’s Orlando Gill.
While the USMNT is not going to sit back and absorb pressure the way those teams did, Turkey’s attacking talent, including the likes of Arda Güler and Hakan Çalhanoglu make it more likely to threaten on goal.
Getting that under his belt before the do-or-die knockout stage begins could serve Freese well.
“Now the time for him is coming where he needs to show he can do the incredible, he can do the spectacular, he can make the saves to keep his team in a World Cup game,” Howard said. “Not easy to do, but I’ve seen glimpses of it, and it’s not his fault. He has only 15, 16, 17 caps, and when you do that, you just don’t have a lot of opportunity against top quality opponents.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
