Editorial – Former U.S. National Team goalkeeper Tim Howard announced recently that he is hoping to return to the USMNT after taking a year long sabbatical following the 2014 World Cup. My colleague Laura McFayden wrote earlier why Tim Howard should be the number one goalkeeper for the USMNT.
I like Laura, she’s generally smart, but on this she’s wrong. Brad Guzan has earned the USMNT goalkeeper job and unless he gets hurt or has a major collapse in form, he should keep it. If Tim Howard wants to come back to the USMNT, he should do so as a backup, there to push Guzan and help the young guys like Bill Hamid and William Yarbrough develop.
For many fans of the USMNT, the assumption is that Howard should get his job back. However, that starts from a false assumption. That assumes that the job is Howards, and it simply is not the case. Howard stepped away from the national team for a year, and in that year, Guzan made a strong case for keeping the number one job. Playing behind an inconsistent, often inexperienced, and ever changing back line for the national team, and one of the Premier League’s worst defenses for Aston Villa, Guzan repeatedly stepped up and made saves to keep his teams in the game and opposing teams off the scoreboard.
Despite the disappointing result for the national team in the Gold Cup, Guzan was the standout performer, winning the golden glove as the tournament’s best goalkeeper. Yes, there was that mistake in the Jamaica game which led to a free kick which Giles Barnes scored, but that anomaly aside, Guzan was fantastic. His performance in the third place game loss to Panama was comparable to that of Howard against Belgium, and with the defense in shambles throughout the Gold Cup, Guzan bailed his team out time and time again.
While an argument can be made for Howard’s experience with the national team, the fact is that this experience is rapidly becoming “old age.” After a fantastic World Cup, Howard had a very down season at Everton, missing time with injury and leading some to say he should have been benched for backup goalkeeper Joel Robles. At 36 years old, Howard will be 39 by the time the Russia 2018 World Cup comes around, and if he’s beginning to slip already, will he really be at the top of his game in three years? Jurgen Klinsmann speaks regularly of both winning now and preparing for the future. Howard can help with one, but not so much the other.
Guzan, meanwhile, is just 30 years old and in the prime years for a goalkeeper. While he had a rough patch for Aston Villa, his benching had more to do with Tim Sherwood coming in and wanting to make changes for the sake of change than his overall performance. Guzan has already been named Villa’s number one goalkeeper for the upcoming season, and with a significant amount of player turnover, he’ll likely be called upon to help settle a new back line, something he’s had great practice with in recent USMNT play.
Over the last two seasons, Guzan has played a significant part in keeping Aston Villa in the Premier League, and his experience with a lower table club has prepared him well for the role of USMNT goalkeeper against the top countries in the world.
Brad Guzan is the answer at goalkeeper for the USMNT. He is the balance between winning now and preparing for the future. Guzan has proven in the last year that he’s Howard’s equal in goal and maybe even better. He was stellar in crucial qualifiers leading up to the 2014 World Cup, in the snow against Costa Rica, and keeping a clean sheet at the Estadio Azteca in a historic result. At 30, he’ll be younger at the 2018 World Cup than Howard was in Brazil. Guzan has proven his quality, and should carry the USMNT through this World Cup cycle. Then, following 2018, he can turn the job over to the next class of goalkeepers, players like Bill Hamid and William Yarbrough who are massive talents but not quite ready for the number one job.
