If this was the season where Ethan Horvath saw himself supplanting Matt Turner as the USMNT’s starting goalkeeper, his form in its early weeks has not done him any favours.
After they lost their opening game of the campaign 2-0 at home against Sunderland last weekend, Horvath had the chance to help Cardiff City claim a first league win of 2024-25 on Saturday away to Burnley.
However, the 29-year-old American made a disastrous error in the ninth minute of the game at Turf Moor, allowing a backpass to slip under his foot and into the Cardiff goal. That opened the scoring, setting Burnley on their way to a thumping 5-0 win.
Here, The Athletic breaks down Horvath’s own goal, his position on the USMNT depth chart and the goalkeeping situation incoming head coach Mauricio Pochettino is set to inherit.
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The error
Away at Turf Moor, which looks like being one of the most difficult grounds to visit in the Championship this season, the Cardiff City players will have been under strict instructions from head coach Erol Bulut to keep their concentration, particularly in the opening 20 minutes.
Burnley, part-owned by NFL legend JJ Watt, are among the favourites to be promoted back to England’s top flight this year (they won the title the last time they were in this division in 2022-23) — and they started their quest to return to the Premier League with a 4-1 away win against fellow relegated side Luton Town on Monday.
The home side were expected to put pressure on Cardiff’s goal from the start. Still, they would not have believed their luck when Horvath gifted them the game’s opening goal.
With striker Jay Rodriguez pressuring him on the edge of the visitors’ penalty area, centre-back Dimitrios Goutas played a pass back towards Horvath, who was positioned around six yards out from his goal.
Goutas did have the option of a forward pass available, but the decision to play it ‘safe’ to Horvath would, in theory, allow the Cardiff outfield players to reset, with their goalkeeper having to decide between kicking the ball long to push his team-mates closer to Burnley’s half or begin building up from defence to break through the opposition press.
If Horvath wanted to play a pass towards the right, he might have angled his body towards Calum Chambers, who was positioned near the 18-yard box to the right of his goalkeeper, but he approached the pass with a forward-facing body, suggesting he had not quite made up his mind what to do. Perhaps that slight indecision caused him to take his eye off the ball, allowing Goutas’ pass to slip under his foot and roll towards the goal.
Horvath’s attempts to scamper back were in vain as the ball had already crossed the line before he could make further contact with it.
For Cardiff, it was a disastrous start to a match against one of the league’s best teams. For Horvath, it was a massive blow after also conceding twice against Sunderland last Saturday.
The rest of Horvath’s performance
Horvath, who has won 10 caps since making his debut in 2016, conceded five goals at Turf Moor from an expected goals (xG) tally of 0.81. In other words, Burnley scored five times despite failing to create the quality of chances to, according to the xG model, do so even once. The xG metric does not account for the quality of shots a goalkeeper faces but an overperformance of this degree is uncommon, and Horvath looked shaky all afternoon following that disastrous start.
In the 31st minute, Luca Koleosho, a player also eligible to play for both the United States and Canada but an Italy Under-21s international, put Burnley two ahead with a left-footed volley around eight yards from goal. Horvath got a strong hand to the shot, which was not hit particularly hard, but again could not keep the ball out of the net.
The Colorado-born goalkeeper then found himself out of position for Burnley’s third, but that was primarily down to the home team breaking down Cardiff’s defensive shape with a swift counter-attack, allowing Josh Brownhill to run beyond the Welsh side’s back line into a one-on-one situation with the goalkeeper.
There was little Horvath could do about Zeki Amdouni’s long-distance thunderbolt in the 88th minute and the finish from Johan Berg Gudmundsson in stoppage time to make it 5-0 was excellent. Still, he should assume a significant portion of the blame for at least two of Burnley’s five goals.
Over the summer, Horvath was named in the USMNT squad for Copa America and played 45 minutes in the second group game against Panama as an injury replacement for Matt Turner, conceding the winner in the 83rd minute of a 2-1 defeat.
Horvath playing for USMNT at Copa America (John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
As Turner, who has worn the No 1 shirt consistently in recent years, has fallen out of favour at the Premier League’s Nottingham Forest, this season was Horvath’s chance to overtake his New Jersey-born rival under Pochettino, who has agreed a deal to succeed Gregg Berhalter as head coach, and establish himself as the starter.
However, his performances in 2024-25 so far suggest Pochettino might be better served looking deeper in the player pool for his goalkeeper.
The USMNT goalkeeper situation
As mentioned, Horvath is not the only USMNT goalkeeper currently struggling.
Turner, who was first choice at both Copa America this summer and the 2022 World Cup finals under previous head coach Berhalter, lost his place in the Forest team midway through last season and there is no indication he is set to win it back.
After struggling in the first half of 2023-24 with Turner, a summer signing from Arsenal, in goal, Forest recruited Belgium international Matz Sels from French side Strasbourg in January, and he became the undisputed starter under Nuno Espirito Santo, who had taken over as head coach in December following the sacking of Steve Cooper.
Turner, 30, was left out of Espirito Santo’s squad entirely for the 1-1 draw with Bournemouth on Saturday in both clubs’ Premier League season opener, with Carlos Miguel, signed from Brazil’s Corinthians in July, named on the bench as Sels’ backup.
A move away from the City Ground before the Premier League’s summer transfer window shuts on August 30 appears the only way Turner will find consistent minutes at club level this season.
Turner at Copa America (Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Lower down England’s football pyramid, Gabriel Slonina has made an impression at Barnsley in League One (the third tier) since signing on a season’s loan from Chelsea of the Premier League. Slonina, 20, made his USMNT debut in 2023 while on loan at Eupen in Belgium’s top division and has started first-team life in England well.
Slonina made his Barnsley debut in the Carabao Cup last Wednesday and saved two spot kicks as they progressed past Wigan Athletic, another League One side, into the tournament’s second round on penalties. He then made his first league start on Saturday, impressing in a 2-1 away win against Lincoln City. Slonina faced 15 shots in that match and made seven saves, allowing only the one goal from a Lincoln xG figure of 1.52.
Despite Slonina’s talent, it would not be a good look if the United States, a nation which has consistently developed Premier League-quality goalkeepers over more than two decades, had to venture as English football’s third division for their starting goalkeeper.
As well as the three British-based goalkeepers at Pochettino’s disposal, Sean Johnson (Toronto), Drake Callender (Inter Miami) and Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew), among others, are plying their trade in MLS. Schulte started for the U.S. at this summer’s Olympic football tournament in France.
Could Pochettino be tempted to move a U.S.-based goalkeeper up the depth chart to compete with Turner for the starting spot?
At this stage, it’s a solution that appears in play.
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