Nick Rimando now stands alone.
Nick Rimando is now the all-time shutout leader in MLS history. He reached his 113th shutout last week against DC United on August the 9th. Huge congratulations to him. He received a lot of kind words but his present from Brad Guzan and Tim Howard was equally appropriate as it was awesome.
Olympic hopeful Jon Kempin had a great MLS debut after Andy Gruenebaum injured his shoulder last weekend. Kempin made a penalty save against Vancouver. No word yet on if Gruenebaum will be good to go on Saturday versus Toronto but if he isn't able to, I wonder who SKC will get to sit the bench as their backup goalkeeper. Seventeen year old, Ryan Krutz or a quick free agent signing?
Ethan Horvath has had two recent starts with Molde's cleverly named reserve team, "Molde 2". The first game he was scored on three times against Levanger. Not his best outting but some tough shots. Then yesterday, Roseborg's reserve team notched four goals on Molde 2, with Horvath in goal for the first three. The entire game is online but here are the things I noticed from Horvath's outing:
- 0:05 - First goal, unable to see
- 8:40 - Second goal, a big ol' LOL on the defender there
- 12:20 - Not the best camera angle but Horvath stays big and makes a skate save, I think
- 18:45 - Horvath explores outside his box and makes a quick trap with his chest then clears it when danger approaches
- 25:25 - Third goal, not a whole lot for Horvath to do
- 28:45 - Solid save
- 33:00, 34:30, 36:40, 43:05 - All very quick distributions from Horvath. Some are in the middle of the field, which is typically advised against. The last one is pretty comical where Horvath passes right outside his box and his defender thinks it's going to someone else. The turnover doesn't result anything but Horvath throwing his hands up in a "come on!" expression was pretty great.
Conclusion: Shot stopping seems to come easily for Horvath but he may be a little to optimistic about his teammates' ability to trap and quickly play a ball in traffic. Also I'm concerned about lateral movement. He seems a little slow getting from post to post and quick shuffles. He's still young so I hope it is one of those growing things.
The U17s had a great tournament showing in Mexico. They ended up getting fourth but the team as a whole is very talented and fun to watch. The highlight on the goalkeeper end was William Pulisic subbing in for penalties against Colombia and making a big stop. Kevin Silva had some big saves in the tournament too and both had a good showing, all-in-all.
New York FC has already signed Josh Saunders and are apparently also looking at Michael Gspurning, a Seattle Sounders alum. Expect Gspurning to be the starter in the fall if this goes through. I don't think he'd come back to MLS to sit the bench.
John McCarthy is killing it in the GAA stat in the USL Pro. This is the same guy I was screaming MLS teams to draft last January but nooooo.
The U23s bested the Bahamas 5-1 earlier this month. Cody Cropper was in goal. Unfortuanately we don't have any video of Cropper outside of the goal so that said, his body movement is very odd on the goal. His hands are all over the place, which I think contributes to not being able to hold a shot relatively close to him. His jumpset is a bit extreme too. Still, just one clip so nothing to sink him on.
Columbus Crew loaned Brad Stuver to the Wilmington Hammerheads. He was with the Dayton Dutch Lions but no more. Not real exciting stuff, but there ya go.
Oh, forgot to mention this, but Justin Luthy had an excellent game in the Home Grown game in Portland. Jon Kempin won the MVP award but Luthy should have had it. Tested more often and with harder shots. Luthy, like McCarthy, went unsigned out of the draft but played his way on to the U23s. I could see him moving to the number two position next year.
I'm not a real big post-a-tweet-sort of guy but for Landon I'll make an exception.
Congrats and thank you to @landondonovan for all you did. Glad I could help push you into the record books. pic.twitter.com/Sm6UVK4oQl
— Zac MacMath (@ZacMacMath) August 7, 2014Lastly, not really related to goalkeepers, I wrote about the struggles of soccer in Arkansas last week. After some really good response from Sam and Alan, I need to add that Arkansas' population is one of the major problems, something I forgot to mention. Arkansas is sitting around three million residents. Little Rock holds three-quarters of a million and Fayetteville only has a hundred grand, including the school's students. To put that in comparison, Dallas-Fort Worth has around seven million in the metroplex and even FC Dallas struggles to sellout regularly. Another point is the "sport shelf space", which I'm forgetting who originally had that idea but it wasn't me. But basically it's the idea that each area only has so many resources to give to sports and if another sport tries to enter the scene, there might not be enough space on the "shelf". So the Razorbacks own a lot of the shelf space with football, basketball, and baseball. But I've talked around and apparently the soccer bug has hit after the World Cup so we may have some news on the horizon for Arkansas.
Last minute additions:
- I guess I missed this earlier in the summer but Keith Cardona and Santiago Castano were trailing with FC Liefering, a second tier team in Austria. Both keepers have NYRB connections. Cardona, who was the backup at the University of Maryland, ended up leaving Maryland and signing with FC Liefering while Castano is still in New York, I believe, as no new news has come out since June. You can see a picture of them jogging here. Woo.
- David Bingham is getting un-loaned then re-loaned out to Norway. I imagine he wasn't thrilled to sit the bench in San Antonio. Might want to check to see who agreed with this comment...
Cover photo from Copa Mexico Naciones.
