In 2026, the USA have the chance to make history on home soil. Mauricio Pochettino took charge of the team in 2024 and has built a modern side that excels at high-pressing football. With many players from Europe’s top leagues, the squad is stronger than ever before. The opening match on 12 June at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles against Paraguay will be a national event.

Manager Mauricio Pochettino has named three goalkeepers for the USMNT: Matt Turner, Matt Freese and Chris Brady. As co-hosts, the USA will face Paraguay, Australia and Turkey in Group B – all home matches in front of their own fans in Los Angeles and Seattle. The trio of goalkeepers epitomises the evolution of the American goalkeeping position over the past few years: from the 2022 World Cup starter to the Gold Cup hero to the 22-year-old debutant without a single senior international cap.

Freese, aged 27, wears the number 49 for NYCFC – in memory of his grandfather Jack Geary, an AFL quarterback and Air Force pilot – and has enjoyed one of the most unlikely rises to prominence of any MLS goalkeeper over the past twelve months. For six years, he was a backup at Philadelphia Union, where he made just 16 starts across six seasons. It was only after his move to New York City FC in 2023 that his breakthrough began: in 2024, he was named the club’s MVP, made 135 saves with a save percentage of 73.4 per cent and led NYCFC into the play-offs. In June 2025, he made his USMNT debut against Turkey – and immediately became the first-choice goalkeeper. His defining moment came in the Gold Cup semi-final against Costa Rica, when he made two consecutive saves in the penalty shoot-out during extra time, sending the USA through to the final. Since then, he has started 12 consecutive matches for the national team, extended his contract with NYCFC until 2030 in September 2025, and is Pochettino’s clear first choice. His father, an MIT neuroscientist and pioneer in gene therapy research, died of cancer in 2021. Freese carries on his legacy.

Turner is 31 years old and the only goalkeeper in the trio with World Cup experience: in 2022 in Qatar, he started all four of the US’s matches as first-choice goalkeeper. He then moved to Arsenal and Nottingham Forest – before returning to the New England Revolution, his original club, in the summer of 2025, where he had been voted MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in 2021. The return was a strategic move: Turner needed playing time to convince Pochettino. With 53 international caps, he is by far the most experienced goalkeeper in the squad, and with his Premier League experience and calm demeanour, he is the ideal backup option behind Freese. Whether he finishes the tournament as second or first choice remains to be seen, according to USMNT goalkeeping coach Brad Friedel.

Brady is 22 years old, from Naperville, Illinois, and is the first Chicago Fire Homegrown player and Academy graduate ever to be named in a World Cup squad. His entire career has been marked by the red star: he joined the Chicago Fire Academy in 2017, signed a homegrown contract at the age of 16 in March 2020, made his MLS debut at 18, and became first-choice goalkeeper at 19 – the youngest opening-day goalkeeper in the club’s history. In four full MLS seasons, he has made over 106 starts. On the international stage, he won the Golden Glove as the tournament’s best goalkeeper at the 2022 CONCACAF U-20 Championship, having kept four consecutive clean sheets and helped the USA qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games. He has yet to make a single senior international appearance. The fact that Pochettino has nominated him nonetheless is not an act of favouritism, but a signal: Brady has impressed in training. For the 22-year-old from the suburbs of Chicago, the World Cup on home soil is more than just a career milestone. It marks the beginning of something.