USA vs. Italy, 2018 friendly: Community Man of the Match

In their final match of what has been a wasted year the United States suffered a 1-0 loss to Italy that if we’re being honest could have been much worse. The team was dominated in possession, passing and chances created.

The final score wasn’t any worse thanks in large part to the Community Man of the Match, Ethan Horvath, who made a number of saves.

The USMNT has had a long run of excellent keepers, but with Tim Howard aging out and Brad Guzan taking a step in the wrong direction, there’s been a very unfamiliar feeling of uncertainty surrounding the position. Zack Steffen has made some fine saves in the USMNT shirt and is the presumed front runner by many, but it looks like Horvath might have something to say about that.

Horvath recently retook the number one position at Club Brugge, became just the second American keeper to start a Champions League game and now, for the USMNT, has put in a performance that was head and shoulders above his teammates. His Community rating of 8.28 was nearly 2.5 points above any of his teammates and one of the highest Community rankings of the year. In some ways Horvath really deserved the shutout, though the result was certainly a fair one given the performance of the team as a whole.

The rest of the team scores, which run from poor to just average are here:

Ethan Horvath - 8.28

Reggie Cannon - 4.52

Cameron Carter-Vickers - 4.49

Walker Zimmerman - 4.82

Aaron Long - 4.80

Shaq Moore - 4.85

Tyler Adams - 5.77

Kellyn Acosta - 4.56

Marky Delgado - 3.55

Christian Pulisic - 5.80

Josh Sargent - 5.50

Wil Trapp - 4.20

Bobby Wood - 4.18

Jorge Villafaña - 4.53

Romain Gall - 4.88

Sebastian Lletget - 4.12

What do you think, are the scores fair? Do we have a legitimate goalkeeper competition on our hands? Let us know in the comments below.