For the first time in the 30-year-history of Major League Soccer, the starting World Cup goalkeeper for the U.S. men’s national team is expected to come from the domestic league, which kicks off its 2026 season on Saturday.
Think about it. The top American keeper at each World Cup since MLS was founded in 1996 — whether it was Kasey Keller (1998), Brad Friedel (2002), Keller again (2006), Tim Howard (2010 and 2014), or Matt Turner (2022) — always played his club ball overseas, usually in the Premier League.
That’s where Turner was employed four years ago, having moved to mighty Arsenal from the New England Revolution a few months before he backstopped the USA to a round-of-16 appearance, which included posting group stage clean sheets against England and Iran.
Matt Turner started at the World Cup in 2022 but may be a backup this summer. (Photo by Daniel Jefferson/USSF/Getty Images)
But he then lost the main job to New York City FC’s Matt Freese midway through 2025. Turner – who made just 31 appearances for Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace over his three seasons in England – returned to the Revs last summer in an effort to boost his chances of manning the USA net in a second consecutive World Cup.
That means MLS will be the stage that Turner and Eastern Conference rival Freese use to prove their case to USA coach Mauricio Pochettino, who will be watching closely. Pochettino will also be getting regular feedback from Toni Jiménez, his longtime goalkeeping coach.
“Last season, we began a system of watching live MLS games of the goalkeepers on our shortlist, visiting their training facilities to observe practices, and exchanging ideas with their coaching staffs, including the head coach and goalkeeping coach,” Jiménez told me earlier this week. “We’re going to use a similar process for this upcoming season.”
Matt Turner and Matt Freese are teammates on the USA squad but Eastern Conference rivals in MLS. (Photo by Mark Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images)
In Monaco’s biggest game of 2025-26 so far, Balogun scored twice against PSG in the Ligue 1 rivals’ UEFA Champions League knockout round playoff first leg. Although Monaco went on to lose 3-2, it was a big-time performance from the 24-year-old, who now has 10 goals in 30 games across all competitions this season.
Luciano Spalletti wasn’t kidding when he said that the outrageously versatile McKennie is good enough to play as a striker — Juventus’ manager backed up those words by deploying the Texan up top in Juve’s Champions League playoff opener against Turkish behemoth Galatasaray in Istanbul. McKennie responded by setting up Teun Koopmeiners with a perfectly weighted assist. The best spell in McKennie’s already-career season continues; the 27-year-old has two goals and three assists in his last four Champions League and Serie A games this month.
Lyon keeps winning and the Alabama-born Tessmann keeps starting. Last weekend, the former Clemson University football recruit logged 90 minutes for the fourth consecutive Ligue 1 contest, all of them wins.
(Photo by Broer van den Boom/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
