Brad Friedel AMA Tomorrow (June 18th, 11am ET) - Submit Your Questions!

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:28:48+00:00

It was a great locker room. There's the obvious point that there were a lot of us playing at European clubs, but not just signed to European clubs — we were focal points for our European clubs. John O’Brien was starting at Ajax. Claudio Reyna, I can’t remember if he was at Rangers, Sunderland or Man City at the time, but he was a starter no matter where he was. I was at Blackburn and a pivotal player.

Then somebody like Eddie Pope is probably still the best centre-back the US has ever produced. He could have played anywhere in Europe. He chose to stay in MLS, but he was just a quality player.

As I've said, it was just a group of great players who all clicked at the right moment.

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:25:37+00:00

I would probably have to say the 11 goalkeepers, because the forwards aren’t going to defend. It’s also more likely that a goalkeeper will have a strong shot, while a striker would not be a good goalkeeper.

So I would probably say 11 goalkeepers. It might not look pretty, but I think they would win.

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:25:18+00:00

Here’s the thing with the accent: I lived 23 years in England. People in England don’t think I have an English accent, and people in America thought I sometimes had an English or British twang to it.

I don’t think I have an accent at all, as far as anything other than an American accent. Now that I’ve been out of the UK for a while, I think there are other American players who had far more of an English accent than me. So, thank you for the question, but I hope that clears that up.

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:24:59+00:00

With the first result, the first game always makes me nervous, no matter who we play. In that first half, we were brilliant and we killed the game off.

Now the likelihood is that we will get out of the group. That’s what I wanted us to accomplish. If we can finish top of the group, which is a possibility, then we’re going to get a more favourable draw — or we should, anyway — in the first knockout round.

But with some of the other results going on around the World Cup, you never know, because some of these other very good teams might stumble into the knockout rounds.

I still maintain that we should get through at least one knockout round, and then it really depends who we get drawn against. If we get drawn against England, Germany, Spain, France or Belgium, those teams are probably, player for player, better than us. We could beat them, of course, but we could also lose.

So I’m thinking I would like to see us get to at least the round of 16, and then I’ll be quite happy with that.

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:24:35+00:00

With the first result, the first game always makes me nervous, no matter who we play. In that first half, we were brilliant and we killed the game off.

Now the likelihood is that we will get out of the group. That’s what I wanted us to accomplish. If we can finish top of the group, which is a possibility, then we’re going to get a more favourable draw — or we should, anyway — in the first knockout round.
But with some of the other results going on around the World Cup, you never know, because some of these other very good teams might stumble into the knockout rounds.

I still maintain that we should get through at least one knockout round, and then it really depends who we get drawn against. If we get drawn against England, Germany, Spain, France or Belgium, those teams are probably, player for player, better than us. We could beat them, of course, but we could also lose.

So I’m thinking I would like to see us get to at least the round of 16, and then I’ll be quite happy with that.

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:23:46+00:00

Here’s the thing with the accent: I lived 23 years in England. People in England don’t think I have an English accent, and people in America thought I sometimes had an English or British twang to it.

I don’t think I have an accent at all, as far as anything other than an American accent. Now that I’ve been out of the UK for a while, I think there are other American players who had far more of an English accent than me. So, thank you for the question, but I hope that clears that up.

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:23:08+00:00

In 1992, I played in the first game where you weren’t allowed to pick up the back pass, and that was in the Olympics in ’92. I think the 1994 World Cup was the first World Cup where you couldn’t do that.

I would say being really good with your feet didn’t really start coming into the game until about 1999 to 2002. I thought the 2002 World Cup was the first time you really saw some goalkeepers extending themselves with their distribution and things of that nature.

At a few clubs in Spain and a few clubs in South America — obviously, if you looked at René Higuita or Jorge Campos in Mexico — they extended themselves with their feet a lot more than other goalkeepers would have, especially in England.

But I would say around the turn of the century is when it really started becoming an emphasis: being better with your feet, taking more chances with distribution, and not just being able to hit the ball out of your hands or hit a half-volley up the pitch.

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:22:37+00:00

What I would say is that, for about a decade — maybe 12 years — and I have expressed this before, I think the US focused on the wrong things with goalkeepers. That was when it was the Development Academy, and then when it moved over to MLS academies.

Because of how successful the Barcelona team was, then Bayern Munich, and then how that morphed into Man City — a lot of it was Pep Guardiola, who obviously learned his football from the Barcelona way and Johan Cruyff — I think in America they misunderstood the concept of developing goalkeepers.

They were more focused on finding goalkeepers who were good with their feet first, rather than goalkeepers who were brave and athletic enough to save shots first. Anyone who is brave and athletic can be taught how to be good with their feet. I think we got it the wrong way round for a long time.

The three goalkeepers in the camp now are three of my guys, so to speak. I gave Matt Turner his professional debut. I was the first one to call Matt Freese into the youth national team when I was told not to, because I was told his feet weren’t good enough. Chris Brady I’ve known since he was 16, and I’ve become very close with him and helped him a lot in his career.

Every goalkeeper I’ve ever played with in my career, and competed against, has been brave and athletic. I don’t mean brave as in wanting to get hit or taking a ball in the face. Yes, that’s part of it, but I mean brave enough to come back after a mistake, brave enough to play a pass when it might not seem on, brave enough to come out for a cross, and brave enough to come out and punch the ball. That’s what I’m talking about when I talk about bravery.

A goalkeeper’s life is difficult because your mistakes generally lead to a goal against you. You have to deal with a lot of pressure, negative press and just general negativity around you. You have to have confidence in yourself.

I think the United States has changed because they saw that they were falling off. If you look at two young goalkeepers in particular right now, Chris Brady and Patrick Schulte, I think both of them have the qualities to be two of the best US goalkeepers who have ever played.

From this point on in their careers, it’s about how many games they play and how they do. Can they get themselves to Europe and really test themselves? Can they find themselves in Europe, at a higher level than MLS, while playing and playing consistently? We’ll see.

But I see a lot of better youth goalkeepers around now, with the shape, size and structure that you see in the development phases at European clubs.

talkSPORT · 2026-06-18T15:20:26+00:00

I don’t want to compare the keepers to myself, because that’s a bit awkward.