During the 2018 season Matt Turner surprised many New England Revolution fans in the fact that he earned the starting job out of training camp.
Turner beat out MLS veterans Cody Cropper and Brad Knighton for the job and ended up starting 27 matches with an 8-10-9 record that season. 2019 was a different story with Turner starting the year out as the third goalkeeper on the depth chart. After a dreadful start to the season the Revs finally turned the job back over to Turner who didn’t look back.
Turner started 20 matches in 2019 making a career-high 87 saves and posted five shutouts. With Turner at the helm the Revolution climbed the standings and rose in the MLS Cup Playoffs.
The former undrafted free agent has now made two consecutive USMNT call-ups and is getting recognition from many around the league. On Tuesday MLS Soccer Dot Com writer Greg Seltzer wrote a piece on the best American players in MLS. On the list at No.10 was Matt Turner. Ahead of Turner was Walker Zimmerman, Stefan Frei, Alejandro Bedoya, Miles Robinson, Darlington Nagbe, Ike Opara, Aaron Long, Jordan Morris, and Jozy Altidore.
Turner was the only goalkeeper that made the list beating out D.C. United’s Bill Hamid and LAFC’s Tyler Miller.
It’s not really a shock that Turner is turning heads. After all he finished fifth in the 2019 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year voting. In fact, Turner should have likely finished higher than that having finished 3rd in save percentage, fifth in winning percentage, and second in saves per 90 minutes.
The 25-year-old’s story is quite remarkable. He played four-years at Fairfield and only earned the starting job in his junior season and went undrafted. Turner signed with the Revs in March of 2016 and didn’t appear in an MLS match for his first two years in the league. Much of his early pro action came with the Richmond Kickers where he spent several loan stints in 2016 and 2017. Turner in the 2018 preseason was able to impress one of the greatest American goalkeepers ever in Brad Friedel to give him the starting job. Now ahead of the 2020 season Turner is in camp with USMNT.
“As long as he stays grounded, humble, and focused, his potential is really high,” said Friedel in May of 2018. “There’s not too many American goalkeepers that are better than him, anywhere in the world.”
Without Turner in 2019 the New England Revolution miss the playoffs. Truly is that simple. As for the American Soccer Analysis Study that Seltzer referenced. It truly paints the picture on just how good he was at taking away goals. An expected goals against of 28.29 versus 20 actually allowed was first in MLS ahead of Steve Clark’s 23.90 versus 16 actual.
