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Former national team star Herculez Gomez has questioned USMNT coach Mauricio's Pochettino's selection process at goalkeeper. Matt Freese started all three matches for the U.S. in is this Gold Cup, getting clean sheets in the first two but then making a critical error in an eventual 2-1 victory over Haiti Sunday night.
Pochettino has said that incumbent Matt Turner is a known commodity, and that he's using the Gold Cup to evaluate Freese, a star goalkeeper for NYCFC in MLS. Gomez, however, said he thinks Turner - who lacked minutes this season at the club level - should start and work on his sharpness.
“I don’t understand why Matt Freese is playing,” Gomez said on Futbol Americas. “If Matt Turner is the goalkeeper with the most international experience and the one thing that he has lacking right now is games, sharpness, then why not give him these games, these minutes? Freese is fourth, fifth-best option you have right now realistically - because Patrick Schulte is not here, Zack Steffen is not here, because insert goalkeeper who was there at the last camp isn’t here.
“And you go to Matt Freese? I do not, for the life of me, know why he is starting in these games. If I’m Matt Turner, I’m thinking to myself ‘What the hell am I doing here? Why am I not with Lyon right now? I could be helping my situation, helping myself win a starting position in case the starting goalkeeper they have right now (Lucas Perri) doesn’t get sold to Roma. I’ve gotta battle it out with him, get myself an edge. What am I doing at the Gold Cup backing this guy up?’
WHAT HERCULEZ GOMEZ SAID
Freese had a weak clearance that led directly to a Haiti goal that tied the match 1-1 in the first half Sunday night. Gomez said the mistake was indicative of his quality of play.
“This isn’t club soccer, you should be expecting to deal with that, clear it out, put your foot through it or let it come across your body, play it the other way," he said. "But you cannot make that mistake. If you’re a goalkeeper, those mistakes are going to be goal. And if I’m Matt Turner, I’m just besides myself that I’m not the starting goalkeeper in this competition, that Mauricio Pochettino is robbing me. As bad you as think he’s been, he’s still the best option you have - and you’re not giving him the minutes he desperately needs.”
WHAT MAURICE EDU SAID
Not everyone agrees with Gomez, however. Speaking on Alexi Lalas’ State of the Union podcast, former USMNT star Maurice Edu made the case for Freese to continue to start in the quarterfinal match next Sunday vs. Costa Rica.
“If it was already predetermined that Matt Freese is going to play the group stage and Matt Turner is going to play the knockout stage, that's a different conversation,” Edu said. "But if you say to me that I want to learn about a different goalkeeper beyond Matt Turner, because I know what he's capable of and I know what he can do - then the first moment that your keeper is actually tested and he's put into a moment of adversity and he comes up a little bit short - I'm not on the side of like, let's just throw this kid out.
“I would say, OK, you had that moment.. But now there's a real test of adversity, for 90-plus minutes in a knockout game, where you're a mistake like that has even larger consequences. I want to see how he performs there.”
Edu added that he believes Pochettino will learn how Freese responds.
“I'm going to learn more in that moment about this kid because he's had this mistake," he said. "So I'm going to learn how he's able to shoulder that, how he's able to respond. I'm going to learn more in that game there than I'll learn in the previous three games he played in this Gold Cup. So that's why in my mind, I would keep him in the in the lineup for the quarterfinal... I don't think that in doing that, it's jeopardizing the U.S. having a chance to win the game."
WHAT’S NEXT?
Following their win over Haiti, the USMNT finished at the top of Group D and will face Costa Rica in the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup on June 29.