Atlanta United’s Brad Guzan found the fountain of youth: “I don’t feel 40”

Brad Guzan He was a very busy man at Chase Stadium InterMiami And Atlanta United He kicked off Round One of the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs last Friday, making eight saves as the Herons’ star-studded attack poured great chances into his goal.

His man-of-the-match performance kept the Five Stripes in close contention until the end for a shocking upset. Leo Messi He himself expressed that he was amazed at some of the reflexes displayed.

as Justin Honeker Noted on the Talking Football SubstackGuzan posted an Expected Goals on Target (xGoT) of 3.07, a metric that rates shots on target based on a combination of underlying chance quality and execution quality; In very simplified terms this means that what should have been a 5-1 defeat turned into a tense nail biter that eventually ended. 2-1 in favor of Miami.

Those eight stops took him to a total of 22 saves in ATL’s three high-stakes games in six days, extending a run of form dating back to 2010. Leagues Cup This break he has become one of the best goalkeepers in MLS, both in terms of statistics and eye test.

“Just one of the guys”

The oldest player on the field is pretty good for a man who turned 40 last month; It’s not something he really considers.

“Listen,” Guzan said with a wry smile in a one-on-one interview with MLSsoccer.com on Wednesday, “you don’t look at yourself in terms of numbers, you don’t look at yourself in terms of age. It’s more like, do you have that desire? Do you have the ability to keep going? And when you have that, you’re just one of the guys, and you’re just one of the guys with a lot of experience.

“I don’t feel like I’m 40. I feel like I’m 25 and I’m one of those guys and I feel like I can go on and keep competing.”

For much the same reasons, he is less than thrilled by the widespread admiration his exploits inspire; The simple fact is that this could not have prevented Atlanta’s defeat; Atlanta had to beat IMCF in Game 2 of the series to at least extend their season. Another game is expected with a crowd of 70,000 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday night (7 p.m. ET | MLS Season Ticket).

“I was able to make a few saves. But that’s not all the life of a goalkeeper is. The important thing is to get results, to help the players in front of you to get results; that’s the side that really matters and the only side that really matters,” he said. “I don’t pay much attention to these things. You just move on to the next.

“I don’t think there are too many people giving us a play-off chance. So should we then find ourselves where we are now? For us, this is not an advantage because when we started the season we probably expected to be here under different conditions. But needless to say, we’re here and in this together now.”

Goalkeeper competition

However understandable this point of view may be from his perspective, Guzan’s agelessness deserves every scrutiny and admiration from the wider public. Keeping himself in good physical shape and studying the game at an advanced level for two decades between assignments powered a striking renaissance late in his career that, frankly, even his employers probably didn’t see coming.

Atlanta signed last winter Josh CohenA younger American with UEFA Champions League experience and three Israeli league titles at Maccabi Haifa has made it clear on his CV that the two will compete on equal terms for the starting job.

“As I was sitting at the beginning of the season, it was explained to me that the No. 1 is not yours, it’s not his, and it’s going to be a contest,” Guzan recalled. “But I’ve always welcomed these kinds of situations, these kinds of scenarios, because ultimately they make the team better. And it’s the team that will benefit from this rivalry, not just one person. “You just want to have a seat at the table to have the opportunity to fight.

“I think this is good, healthy. That’s what you need in successful teams.”

Guzan argues that he neither needed nor gained the motivation for this struggle; “This is not coming from external sources,” he said. But it further highlights the scope of what he accomplished even in a Five Stripes season that fell well short of expectations and led to the dismissal of head coach Gonzalo Pineda in June.

Injury returns

What’s even more remarkable is that this came on the heels of the two most serious injuries of his career: a ruptured Achilles tendon in April 2022 and a torn MCL in his left knee a year later. In both cases, he violently attacked the recovery process in an attempt to prevent both failures from writing the conclusion of his story.

“Achilles, when it happened I remember thinking, ‘I can’t let this be the thing that determines the end of my career,'” he explained. “I was determined to come back from this situation and knew I wanted to be able to regain control of my body. And if you ask our medical staff, I wasn’t the best patient, I wasn’t the best in the following ways; I was basically going a million miles an hour. “I wanted to get back there and thankfully I did.”

He took action weeks in advance after his knee problem and said it was the ATL staff, not his 40-year-old body, that put restrictions on his daily workload.

“If you talk to our goalkeeping coach, Liam (Curran), he’ll probably be the one who has to rein me in, because I always want to do more, go after things and push,” Guzan said. “We have a great relationship in terms of understanding what I need, when I need it, pushing me, understanding which days are going to be more offload days. With the combination of working with Liam and our sports science group, what is the data, what do my numbers say in terms of physical output etc. “They do a good job of managing me.”

We compete with the best in the league

A grizzled veteran who defied Father Time to strengthen the resistance of a proud club is now powerless against the immensely talented tropical Goliath spearheaded by the game’s greatest living player? This is a pretty overwhelming narrative for the rest of us to ponder.

Even more happened when Gerardo “Tata” Martino, the chief architect of the MLS Cup-winning ATLUTD team, was the one to change the MLS paradigm in 2017-18, with Guzan leading Rosanegra at the net.

“The names and personnel stand out immediately, don’t they?” said Guzan from Miami. “From a naming perspective, yes, it definitely has a Premier League-like feel to it in terms of the nature of the names. However, that’s all well and good and these guys have to fit into a system and having worked under Tata and with Tata before, I think he’s got to work and I know how much you love the business and that’s why we set them up for success with these guys.

“Then this adds a whole other element; it is no longer just a group of individuals, or three individuals, so to speak. Now you have a team and a unit that can hurt you in many different ways. “For us, that means not just trying to stop one or two guys, but trying to stop Inter Miami as a whole.”

This is the Chicagoland native’s 20th year as a pro. Chivas USA, the club where he made his professional debut, scored his last goal ten years ago. His first game — and yes, he had a full head of hair at the time — was also the Goats’ opener; They lost their season opener 2-0 on April 2, 2005. D.C. United Side featuring Freddy Adu, Jaime Moreno and Ben Olsen.

For more context: 50 Cent, Greenday, and Kelly Clarkson topped the pop music charts that week. A few weeks ago, LeBron James played in the first of 20 (and counting) NBA All-Star Games. Messi had made his first team debut but had yet to score a goal for FC Barcelona; A month later, he would become Barça’s youngest goalscorer (at the age of 17) with a goal against Albacete, assisted by Ronaldinho.

No matter how many shots Inter Miami rained down on him this series, it probably doesn’t compare to the weekly barrage the young Guzan was subjected to as a 20-year-old rookie goalkeeper.

journey to the top

SuperDraft’s #1 pick; He is one of only two goalkeepers in MLS history to be first selected in the Draft. André Blake – was included in the squad ahead of schedule due to an injury to presumed starter Martín Zuñíga (who now works as a Spanish analyst for the MLS Season Pass). Guzan eventually played 24 games, making over 100 saves in the process.

“Those were definitely challenging moments,” Guzan recalled. “Especially my freshman year, I wasn’t scheduled to play; An injury pushed me back to the starting point and I started doubting myself, right? So I thought, what have I gotten myself into? But when I look back, it’s those moments where I say “yes, they created me.” They helped me to be resilient. They helped me become stronger and better.

“It’s crazy to think back to when I was drafted to Chivas USA in 2005 and see how far the league has come; it’s really crazy to think how far we’ve come.”

His baptism by fire with a bad team (the Goats finished last in the then-12-team league) set Guzan on a remarkable climb.

He would win the 2007 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year award as Chivas USA topped the Western Conference standings with the league’s toughest defense and was transferred to Aston Villa the following summer. He spent the next eight years in England; He spent much of that time competing ruthlessly in the rarefied air of the Premier League, where he struggled to prevent the frequently struggling Villains from being relegated.

Along the way he became one USA men’s national team He made 64 appearances as a regular, won three Gold Cup titles and had two FIFA World Cup appearances. When Atlanta arrived during the 2017 MLS debut season, it turned out to be a return to the US for both him and his family; He and his wife Breanne have four children, keeping fatherhood duties as central to their daily routine as United’s training schedule. — and rocket ride through the most dazzling expansion story the league has ever seen.

Playoff meetings

Only Tata and Julian Gressel on this tour but also former teammate Josef Martínez with victory in a tense Wild Card shootout. CF MontrealThis gave the play-offs a ‘this is your life’ vibe for Guzan.

“That moment that Josef and I had after the game, talking and hugging, when you share those kinds of moments about winning a cup and winning an MLS Cup, whether it’s Josef, his other teammates, or Tata and his team, you carry those moments with you forever,” he said.

“We will be tied to Atlanta United forever because of this trophy, or vice versa… when you meet these guys, those are the bonds and relationships we will have forever because of the understanding of the business and what happened in the championship.” season.”

club legend

Guzan is the only remaining player from the glory days of the Five Stripes, the last vestige of an iconic roster and in many ways the institutional memory of the locker room. He is currently in the final weeks of the guaranteed part of his contract with a club option for 2025. A new coach is expected to arrive this winter and there will likely be radical changes. Will he return next season?

He certainly seems to have deserved this chance. But don’t ask him; claims he was unaware of his contractual status; He is focused on the here and now of ATL’s play-off hopes.

“Honestly, thank you for letting me know about this option,” he replied. “This shows you how far down the road I’m not looking, I’m not looking into the future.

“We’ll discuss my situation at the end of the season and see where it goes. But physically I feel good. And more importantly physically, I think mentally, I’m really feeling myself as someone who’s seen the highs and probably the lows at this club over the years we’ve been and up to now.” I feel fit and hungry for success, start stepping out of that a little bit… I want to be part of the top flight again with Atlanta United and see what that is like going forward.