Chris Brady Named to USMNT Gold Cup Roster
Chris Brady will be a part of the U.S. Men's National Team this summer.
The homegrown Chicago Fire goalkeeper, who has burst into the spotlight with his performances over the last 18 months, has been named to Mauricio Pochettino's roster for the upcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup, which will kick off in mid-June. The USMNT will also play a pair of friendlies against Türkiye and Switzerland this week after training this week at the Fire's training center in downtown Chicago.
It's a first-ever call-up for Brady, who had not ever been in a full senior men's national team camp prior to this week. He was not on the original June training camp roster, either, but an injury to Patrick Schulte gave him an opportunity to step into the fold. Colorado's Zack Steffen had also been in Chicago this week for training camp but withdrew with an injury of his own.
“When you have aspirations to be playing for the national team, you have to perform at a high level week and and week out,” Chicago Fire Head Coach and former USMNT boss Gregg Berhalter said last month. “I know from experience that it’s difficult picking rosters, and you leave some great players out at times.
That’s just part of it. But all you can do is let your play speak for itself.”Brady's play this year has certainly spoken for itself, as he's been one of the top goalkeepers in MLS. His 4-save outing in Orlando last weekend was just the latest in a series of strong performances throughout the month of May.
Shoes to Fill
Brady's call-up means he'll miss a month of action with the Fire and up to five MLS matches if the USMNT reaches the final on July 6th. Backup keeper Jeff Gal will be between the sticks for that time and is set to build on his one career MLS start, which came in the 2-1 win against Atlanta in mid-May when Brady was serving a one-game suspension.
“I think if Jeff gets an opportunity to play, he’ll be ready,” Berhalter said last week. “I think he's proven he can perform well when he gets called upon. The plan is for Bryan (Dowd) and Jeff to be available. And if Chris gets called in, it obviously won't be the most ideal situation for the club but it's something we'll deal with.”
Dowd can only be called up four times this season because of the nature of his roster status. If the USMNT makes the final, he would be recalled from his loan to the second team and would return to the first team's supplemental MLS roster. To make room, David Poreba, who's recovering from a torn ACL injury, would move to the Season-Ending Injury list and would be ineligible for the remainder of the MLS season.
Opportunity at the Position
For a young player hoping to make next year's World Cup roster, history is certainly in Brady's favor. He's one of 13 players on the USMNT's Gold Cup roster who arrived in camp with five or fewer caps; in all previous Gold Cups held immediately prior to a World Cup, at least one player who started the tournament with five or fewer caps has then gone on to make the World Cup roster. Players who have historically contributed to that stat include Cle Kooiman (U.S.A. 1994), Frankie Hejduk (France 1998), DaMarcus Beasley and Pablo Mastroeni (Korea 2002), Jimmy Conrad, Marcus Hahnemann, and Oguchi Onyewu (Germany 2006), Clarence Goodson and Stu Holden (South Africa 2010), Mix Diskerud (Brasil 2014), and Shaq Moore and Matt Turner (Qatar 2022).
For today's USMNT, goalkeeper is one of the most wide-open positional races. Matt Turner has been the incumbent #1 since mid-2022, but there are a number of others looking to challenge him and Brady is one of them. He'll also be joined in camp by NYCFC's Matt Freese, who is enjoying an excellent season of his own.
“This will be his first opportunity and it's a great moment for him,” Berhalter said of Brady. “He's a great young goalkeeper. I think there's opportunity in that position in the player pool. And hopefully he'll make his mark on the team.”
It's also the second successive Gold Cup in which the third goalkeeper is a Chicago Fire Academy product turned homegrown player. Gaga Slonina was the tertiary keeper in the 2023 edition, though he didn't see any action. Brady will be hoping to break out of that third keeper role this month and make his international debut before the summer is out.
Read more:
https://meninred97.com/brady-gutierrez-included-in-gold-cup-provisional-roster/
